THE Royal Australian Navy’s biggest ever warship - 27,000-tonne, 230-metre-long - the Helicopter Landing Dock (amphibious assault ships) known as ‘Nuship Canberra’,  has arrived in Sydney.

The ship, built by Spanish yard Navantia and BAE Systems in Melbourne, and her 360-strong crew will provide the Australian Government with previously unimaginable power projection capability when matched with three new state-of-the-art Air Warfare Destroyers being built in Adelaide.

The amphibious assault ship, and her sister vessel Adelaide, is bigger than the navy’s last aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and she will carry up to 1600 fully-equipped combat troops (1000 comfortably), 110 trucks and vehicles, and up to a dozen Abrams main battle tanks, as well as 16 helicopters including Chinook heavy lift machines and Tiger attack helicopters and thousands of tonnes of humanitarian aid.