On 7 July 2026 the British government presented a £2.4 billion agreement with the Netherlands for a new generation of amphibious ships, four for each navy; two months later the Ministry of Defence still described the joint programme as potential and subject to its business case. The distance between those two statements is a useful entry point into a wider European problem. Amphibious forces are usually described through their principal ships, yet the strategically relevant unit is not a hull. It is a force package that can place a ship, a landing force, aviation, connectors, command, medical and logistic support, trained personnel and serviceable equipment under a usable command arrangement at the same time, and then sustain that combination through preparation, deployment, maintenance and recovery. As European governments move from legacy amphibious fleets towards new ships, vehicles and craft, a fleet-renewal programme can preserve industrial activity without immediately increasing military output, a ship can enter service while its aviation or landing interfaces are still being qualified, and assets assigned to a multinational formation remain nationally owned systems whose availability depends on national maintenance, training and release decisions. The question is therefore less whether European states possess amphibious equipment than whether they can repeatedly convert nationally funded assets into integrated forces, and whether the industrial system beneath them can sustain that conversion over time.