Lockheed Martin recently highlighted the successful collaboration among American, British, and Australian F-35 squadrons during the premier U.S. Air Force training exercise, Red Flag 24-1, held at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
The exercise centres on enhancing interoperability within the allied forces, with a particular focus on addressing strategic challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.
Maj. Bryan Butler, commander of the 421st Fighter Generation Squadron, commended the performance of the F-35s throughout the exercise. “The [F-35s] have been performing extremely well. We haven’t lost a single sortie due to a maintenance issue,” he noted. Maj. Butler underscored the exercise’s objective to test the squadrons’ ability to “prepare and execute rapid disaggregation operations with the F-35A, without a pause or stop to mission sustainment.”
The involvement of the Royal Australian Air Force’s F-35As in Red Flag marked a notable first. Wing Commander Adrian Kiely, the Commanding Officer of the Royal Australian Air Forceās No. 3 Squadron, highlighted the exercise’s comprehensive nature.
“Exercise Red Flag Nellis will test every facet of our F-35A capability, allow us to integrate with our American and British allies, and practice how we project force on combat operations,” he said.
While the training primarily focused on dispersed operations, integration and interoperability remained paramount. The large-scale exercise offers realistic training within a simulated contested threat environment, encouraging the free exchange of insights and lessons learned among the allied forces, further solidifying the collective capabilities and readiness of the participating nations.
Slightly off topic-In an emergency such as that looming in the Red sea at present, how many F35’s could we put on board the QE? Would 15 be possible out of a theoretical pool of 30 plus available. According to some of the comments on Mail online we have no planes for the carrier, it leaks, it will break down before it gets there, it will be destroyed by a single missile….
ps but seriously-might it not be more cost effective and still pack a punch to continue from Cyprus with the Typhoons?
Hi geoff.
Could persist with the Akrotori DET but with the distance to be covered and the need for 2 Voyager it is limited to 4 aircraft.
QEC was built to project power, I hope they use it. Even “just 15” F35 sitting off shore is a powerful message.
Morning Daniele. ” Just 15″ would indeed deliver a powerful message! I should stop reading the Mail!ļ»æšļ»æ Hope your weather improving-hot and humid here in Durban!
Most of the comments on the Mail on line are now ancient history….. we can now actually put a few F35’s on a carrier….. 8 so far (plus US) but probably 16 at a push although there is talk of 24 for CSG25 to Japan…… I guess that we could probably have @16 on a Red Sea deployment (plus US Aircraft) there is talk of one carrier replacing the American one…. I’ll bet it would have at least 12 US F35’s as well though….. At some point this capability must be tested otherwise we might as well have just built another 3 Invincible’s …… It all depends on Escorts though…..
If I was to take a flying guess it will be 12 UK + 12 USMC.
Unless of course both carriers are used simultaneously – which is possible as they are both crewed.
Then I would guess 8 UK and 12-16 USMC.
I wonder what would be put on whichever one is sent to the exercise?
A token 4 UK [which might not fly much] and a decent number of USMC. Or would it be the worlds largest helicopter carrier?
I think the issue is can enough F35B maintainers and spares be generated for two UK deployments?
If I was to take a rough guess as to the conversations in the Pentagon ATM it will be along the lines of help us to do this with your frames and BTW bump us up the Mk41 VLS pipeline so we can help out on that too.
As Daniel has commented earlier, Eisenhower isn’t dew to rotate until April and could stay until possible July? QE is meant to be deploying on Exercise Steadfast Defender 24 very soon for NATO which concludes on the 31st of May so her F35’s will be in need of maintenance and pilots will want a rest. With only 31 jets available and QE’s needing maintenance plus trying to train new pilots and routine maintenance, I can only see a very small hand full of UK F35’s being available for deployment in the Red sea on most likely Prince of Wales?
āOnly 31 Jetsā you realize that is plenty. 16 would be ample enough.
How many jets would we need, realistically? Do the Americans maintain a CAP over the fleet, or just bomb as necessary?
Would, for arguments sake, 12 or even 8 be enough to get the job done? It’s not a full blown war against a peer enemy.
AA
The USN doesn’t fly constantly on a carrier deployment the same way the RAF/USAF doesn’t fly constantly. You’ll have an alert fighter (Ready 5) fueled and loaded hot with a light A2A load out and usually 2 on alert 15.
The airplane count is fine, a bigger issue seems to be an overall lack of trained pilots by the RAF/RN. The training pipeline is weak and inconsistent.
20% are in routine maintenance = 6 + 12 I would guess on operations with QE that will need a period of maintenance when they get back at the end of May + at least 10 with 207 for pilot training that leaves only three? Maybe a few could be rushed through maintenance but not a very satisfactory situation.
Bang on, Frank – what about the escorts? QE will clearly be a primary target for attack. Houties won’t succeed,of course, provided QE has a proper escort group. What will relieve HMS Diamond? Will one escort destroyer be enough? Oiler and stores ships?
I think It’s more along the lines of a carrier, replacing another carrier, so probably not much change to the set up that’s already there…. don’t forget that there are other Countries providing ships as well, including France, Germany, Holland, India and a few others.
Interestingly, there is much activity on one of the QE’s in Portsmouth, especially in the Landing zone where there has been a large Tent for quite a while…. HMS Warrior Live Cam gives a good view ( wait until Sunrise though as the Camera doesn’t move at night).
The Eisenhower isn’t due to be rotated until April. It can be extended, if necessary, just like the Ford. The US has the Vinson and Roosevelt Carrier Task Groups currently deployed for exercises in the Philippine Sea which can be deployed to the Middle East, if necessary. The America ARG is currently in Okinawa. Why would the US need to deploy any F-35s to a British carrier?
Why ? because that’s co-operation and the wise thing to do if a QEC were to be sent to the Red Sea to replace the Eisenhower which is what I read earlier.
The Eisenhower was meant to be taking over from the Ford in the eastern med due to the fact there are two hot wars going on in the eastern med at present..so having the Eisenhower pondering around the gulf of Aden and Red Sea is not idea and was not where it was meant to be from a U.S. geostrategic point of viewā¦moving carriers from the pacific across the India ocean is a particularly bad idea that the USN would not do unless it had to do soā¦itās primary goal at present is to make sure it can maintain a significant carrier presence in the pacific as a deterrence to chinaā¦thatās not for fun..china is eyeing up the USN and the USN knows it.
Im sure the US government and U.S. would love to put Eisenhower where they actually wanted her to be which is parked off the Levant, just incase someone decided to try and remove Israel from the mapā¦
and as for why the US would want to put USM f35s onto an Elizabethās, it would be because for an Elizabeth to be in the gulf of Aden the US would have had to have asked the UK very nicely to do so ( our carriers have packed even Calendarā¦the main one of which is spending a huge amount of time effort and money sending a carrier to the pacific to show china that we have our allies backsā¦even if in reality we could just leave a pacific war well alone..but we will not becauseā¦we are you know alliesā¦that thing where you have each others backs.
And so just when will you Brits be able to get one of your carriers out of port and into the Middle East? The US knows that it can’t depend on the Royal Navy and that’s why it has the ability to provide its own resources. The US Navy will deploy carrier task forces from the Pacific to the Middle East if required. The US Navy doesn’t listen to you. Start living in the real world. The US Navy is.
We shall see but I would put good money on the US not pulling a carrier from the pacific unless it has no choiceā¦.in the same way as the UK does not want to pull a carrier from steadfast defenderā¦but unless the U.S. leaves the crew of Eisenhower hanging around the Red Sea way over time to go home one of those priorities needs to shiftā¦..But whateverā¦..Iām sure in your view the US can manage doing everything yourselves and if need be take on Russia, China and Iran all by yourselves without any help from allies you clearly donāt need or in your case wantā¦after all we are supporting air strikes against the Houthi and Isis for our own pleasureā¦supported the invasion of Iraq, stayed in Afghanistan for a decadeā¦all because we had nothing better to doā¦and were..not even wantedā¦.infact we forced ourselves uninvited into the USās war on terrorā¦have fun with your myopic view of geopoliticsā¦and just hope that when the US really needs allies the EU responds because the UK is just to pathetic clearly.
Cheers Frank
Ive become that cynical, But i feel that the only way the Uk will wake up to the need to increase defence spending is for a RN ship to be hit an sunk by a Houthi missile resulting in this and past PMs, (looks at Cameron) arrested , charged and jailed for crimes against the Uk regards defence cuts.
Farouk, you say what many of us only think!
Hear hear!
I agree, it would be better to deploy two type 45s and continue the strikes with the Typhoons from Cyprus. The carriers should be kept in reserve for a more serious threat from Russia. If we fly planes from the carrier in the red sea she will be made a target, I know the type 45s can protect her but even those have limited missiles. The US have the quantity that they could risk having one badly damaged, we can’t.
My understanding is that they really want both f35 squadrons ready for CSG2025 so the RN/RAF can work up 2 squadronās on the deployment ( the new 809 squadron which will be spending 2024 becoming operational and 617 squadron) . If they deployed 617 squardon to the Red Sea now, there is no way that squadron would be able to regenerate for deployment on CSG2025ā¦..so I suspect they will not deploy a carrier to the Red Sea in 2024 unless they really have toā¦and they may need to as the US carrier pottering around the gulf of Aden, Red Sea etc was meant to be parked in the eastern med keeping its eye on Russia and the levantā¦..
The A330/F-35A should be a very useful addition should things take a turn for the worse.
Distance from RAAF Amberley Base to the Philippines
5,600 km as a guage to the SCS.
“The aircraft is based on a heavily modified Airbus A330 airliner and undertakes air-to-air refuelling and strategic airlift duties. Australia has seven, which are operated by No. 33 Squadron and based at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland.
The KC-30A MRTT is fitted with two forms of air-to-air refuelling systems: an Advanced Refuelling Boom System mounted on the tail of the aircraft and a pair of all-electric refuelling pods under each wing.
These systems are controlled by an Air Refuelling Operator in the cockpit, who can view refuelling on 2D and 3D screens.
The KC-30A can carry a fuel load of more than 100 tonnes, and transfer part of that load to compatible aircraft, including:
F-35A Lightning II
F/A-18F Super Hornets
E/A-18G Growlers
E-7A Wedgetails
C-17A Globemaster III
P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft
Other KC-30As
foreign aircraft such as the F-16C Fighting Falcon and B-1B Lancer.
The KC-30A MRTT can remain 1800 km from its home base, with 50 tonnes of fuel available to offload for up to four hours.”
Most intrigued regards the news from Washington that the US has agreed to carry out strikes on Iranian targets inside Syria and Iraq. All I see here is the Biden administration warning the Iranians (who have carried out over 150 attacks on the US these past few months) to leave the area so none of their terrorists get a splinter in their little finger when the US strikes abck. Hello, who the f warns their enemy, that we are going to strike you on certain days , so ensure you are having a sick day . No wonder Countries feel empowered when it comes to the US, I mean did anybody see the video of Karine Jean-Pierre (Whitehouse press secretary) when she reported the deaths of 3 US servicemen and women the other day. (What a cluster) All I see here is Joe Biden appeasing Iran by ensuring they hit nothing of importance. But hey what am I saying, the Uk would hand over Billions in jizya.
They just don’t want a massive escalation in the Middle East. It’s a tough call in a very sensitive region.
Election year and everyone knows it. After the shame of Kabul I would not trust Biden one jot. Then I never did. It seems Obamas policies toward of Iran have just continued. Fence sitting gets nowhere. Action against Iran is long overdue.
It is a tricky situation. Do nothing. And our enemies take advantage. Take action. And we risk starting another prolonged war In the Middle East that nobody wants, and creates even more hatred against the West. Not easy decisions. Election year or not.
Itās not only that itās not wanted I donāt think the US can afford it..china is looking and itās measuring up the USN..one of the win conditions for china is getting the USN over extended across the globe and western shipping lanes disruptedā¦the western major powers getting tied up in a war in the Middle East with Iran could sea china making a decision that we could all profoundly regret..we know itās already very close to make it that decision within 3-4 years.
The problem is Iran is not the key enemy and threat here that the US needs to think about..neither is Russia..the big threat for the US is china and the unfortunate reality for the US is that the PLAN is now able to seriously contend with the USN in the western pacific.. The US military can no longer really afford to dedicate the resources needed to engage in a major war with Iran, as it would lead to an opening for china. The U.S. knows that if it plays itās hand wrong it could end up with major wars on a number of different fronts and theatres and that does not end wellā¦the problem is play your hand over strongly and you cause the wars you donāt want ..play weakly and you get the wars anywayā¦.itās perilousā¦the end of history paradigm ( which was the biggest load of steaming hubris ever produced) and the peace dividend have left the US and its allies in a bit of a pickle..that need very carful management..
Only on paper. The USN SSN force is completely unmatched in the world.
Look at what the RN SSN’s did to the Argentine navy in the Falklands, scale that up x25. The PLAN would be hiding in port.
Unfortunately Chris you have to understand the context of the likely campaign and the fact that the Falklands was completely different the RN vastly outmatched the Argentinian navy, but suffered the Tyranny of distance and because of that just about won with great loss. At that time the RN was well around three times the size of the Argentinian navy..with 64 surface combatantsā¦.
The PLAN would not hide in port and to think something like that of your enemy is foolishā¦
The PLAN is not a paper enemy almost all its warships are very modern, it undertakes extensive exercises each year to practice its war and outnumbers the USN in many area..finally the US will be reacting into the Chinese area of control..you do understand what that would meanā¦the pacific is vast and it 10,000 miles wide..the majority of the US resources in the pacific are on the eastern pacificā¦with another large force on the western pacificā¦this means the USN is spreed and risks defeat in detail if china managed strategic suppriseā¦as for the SSNs scaring away the PLANā¦those SSNs which would be around 10-20 at best would be oporating in the enclosed china seas..having to get in enclosed watersā¦that the enemy would have sown with detection devicesā¦it will have to fight against a dedicated modern AIP electric boats that are considered by many to be possibly some of the best in the world at presentā¦these electric boats are designed to fight in enclosed seasā¦china has more large surface combatants then the USN by a very large markā¦it has a staggering number of green water surface combatants..well armed answer modernā¦.the PLAN is a modern navy..that is larger by a margin than the U.Sā¦.the only major advantage the USN has is in carriersā¦.the problem is the USN will be reacting into the china seas around Taiwan..which means the. Probable four carriers with 12 strike squadrons of 180 aircraft will be fighting the PLAAs 3000 combat aircraftā¦.
The west once worried about the vast numbers of the soviet armed forces..china pisses all over whatever the Sovietās hadā¦itās also almost entirely new..that chinases military industrial base is huge itās wealth is hugeā¦itās resolve and belief is rock steady.it believes the U.S. is the aggressor and it is the party defending itselfā¦.itās people believe are patriots and think they are defending their nation..
Just consider for a second their leaderā¦this is a man who has gone through more suffering that most will ever likely knowā¦heās a true believer, profoundly clever and will not stop until his nation is made whole. He thinks he can beat the west..the 1 million member of the chinas communist party believeā¦the 1.5 billion chinase people believe and if they donāt they go to a correction facility and come out believing..
This county puts the equivalent of the RN in the water around every year and a half..itās building around the UKs strategic deterrent every year and a halfā¦the US DOD estimates that its spending 10 times on defence what it declaresā¦it declares around 209billion dollars..so the DOD suspects it may be spending 2090 billion dollars a year the U.S. spend about 800 billion dollars a year..so the Chinese defence budget is more likely 2.5 times larger than the US defence budgetā¦according to the DODā¦
anyway back to Xi and knowing your enemy so you donāt make stupid assumptions like he will hide his huge overwhelming ( largest in the world) navy in port because of around 10-20 USN SSNsā¦( which will be fighting for their lives against twice their number of modern electric boats in their own back yard under enemy air umbrella and in seas sown with passive sensors)
Xi was the son of two of Mao Zedongs generals ( anyone who does not consider Mao Zedong anything other than a military genius does not study warfareā¦shit peacetime leaderā¦genius fighter) so his early years were that of being indoctrinated into the Maoist paradigms of struggle ( and the belief that china is struggling to reunite and above all āmustā suffer to do this..fundamentally part of the Chinese national belief is one of pain, suffering and final reunificationā¦when you really get this, you understand why Tawain will cause a world war and why China will accept almost any cost to win its unification..its mission is reunification above almost everything.. anyway back to Xiā¦his life was one of being indoctrinated as a leader of the party..until his parents were charged with crimes against mao and imprisoned..Xi and his siblings were cast into the streets after being interrogated and threatened with death..and lived on the streets of a third world nation..his sister killed herself at that timeā¦as an older teen ( 15 I think) he and his siblings were collected up with the rest of the street kids as part of the cultural revolution ( the bit of Chinese suffering for the cause that killed 2 million people) he was sent to the country side basically made a child agriculture slave.. he rebelled and escaped back to the city..he was then arrested ā¦in the end he was given hard Labour…after a few year he wandered back to the village he had been assigned with nothing but a box of book mainly on the teachings of Maoā¦brutalised into being a true believer..he then spent a few years trying to join the communist party..was refused time and again ( after all he was the son of traitors to Mao who has been sent to a hard Labour camp)ā¦finally he was given party membership..in 1974..he was then sent to university as a peasant student to study chemical engineering..returning as a party memberā¦he gradually climbed the party hierarchy..returned to university to study a doctorate in law and ideology ( communist) and by 2012 he was the undisputed paramount leader and only the second such figure since the revolution ( Mao being the first)ā¦this man is utterly drivenā¦a profound believer in the causeā¦very very clever infact by a long way the greatest statesman and leader on the planetā¦..but the most important part of that is his belief in the destiny of the Middle Kingdom and the fact he is the man who will go down in history as the one who reunified it after the long struggle since the end of the century humiliation ( the Chinese believe in a never ending cycle in which the Middle Kingdom will be brokenā¦( which was the century of shame)ā¦struggle and willingness to suffer for reunification ( which is the later half of the 20c up until now) answer final reunification ( which is dependent on reunification with Taiwan)..
So if you think the PLAN will hide in portā¦you really need to first study the capability that the PLAN has ( its building programmes, what ships it has in commission, what exercises it does every year)ā¦as well as its industrial capacity ( it has 250 times the ship building capacity of the U.S. china builds 80% of the worlds ships) but you also need to understand the Chinese people and were they arm their beliefs ( especially around Taiwan) and what they having been willing to suffer for Those beliefsā¦as well as itās leader, the Chinese communist party and finally the military works of Maoā¦.then come back to me and tell me china will be scared into port by some SSNsā¦..
that was absolutely hilarious, thanks. whats the chinese equivalent of bob from oklahoma oblast? it doesn’t matter whether china is scared or not, they’ll get sunk and blown up all the same. china will suffer another yet another great humiliation. it’ll make russia’s embarrassingly botched invasion of ukraine look like desert storm.
It would be nice if you are correctā¦but sadly I think you are living in a wishful thinking land..Russia is a nation with a GDP of less than a medium sized European nation and a navy that is rotting, an army that had only 160,000 professional and semi professional soldiersā¦the US department of defence thinks china may be spending up to 2900billion a year on its militaryā¦ā¦completely different fishā¦.underestimating your enemy and suffering from hubris has been the start of many a tragedy.
Seems foolish to let your enemies know when you’re coming. It could cost your own troops lives as the enemy have time to prepare. You give a final warning but after that leave it as unpredictable as possible, preferably with some mis-direction.
Biden has made terrible mistakes, but Trump is a Putin Quisling, a clear & present threat to western democracy & rule of law.
That’s a lot of “Jiz”….. ļ»æšļ»æ
10 EU nations will soon be operating F35. Greece will receive a letter of acceptance from the US for 40 F35’s. And the Czech Republic has signed to receive 24 F35’s. That will put over 500 F35’s on EU and UK soil by 2030. Not included USAF F35’s.
Over 600 actually.
Notice the Turks arenāt on that list. Looking at the Greek order they have to be thinking āwe effed upā.
Indeed for all its doubters its in really the only horse in town..and the f35b particularly is a game changer for navel air power.
That’s true pal. Some 19 warships across allied nations will be 5th gen F35B/C capable. That is serious capability to put to sea. And our enemies have nothing that comes close. Copy cat technology has serious limits.