HMS Prince of Wales, originally at 30 days’ notice to sail, has now sailed at eight days’ notice to fill in for HMS Queen Elizabeth.

The vessel was originally hoped to sail yesterday but sailed this afternoon from Portsmouth after a brief 24-hour pause.

The carrier will lead a carrier strike group of eight ships – four of them British, including frigate HMS Somerset and two Tide-class tankers from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary – supported by US, Spanish and Danish vessels.

According to the Royal Navy:

“They form one of the most potent naval forces of the exercise – an allied fleet of 40 vessels, drawn from more than two dozen nations, is committed to the seagoing element of Steadfast Defender, which will take place off Norway’s Arctic coast in March. Britain’s flagship brings the awesome capability of her F-35B Lightning stealth fighters from 617 ‘Dambusters’ Squadron at RAF Marham, submarine hunting and airborne early warning Merlin Mk2 helicopters from RNAS Culdrose, and battlefield Wildcat helicopters of 847 Naval Air Squadron from RNAS Yeovilton.

Before heading for Norwegian waters and the High North, the Carrier Strike Group will hone its collective skills in northern Scotland courtesy of the UK’s regular Joint Warrior exercise. From there the force moves to the High North and Exercise Nordic Response – the maritime element of Steadfast Defender – with the emphasis on protecting northern Norway, Sweden and Finland to defend the Nordic nations from ‘attack’.”

HMS Queen Elizabeth was supposed to sail for this exercise but a fault was found prior to departure.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

58 COMMENTS

  1. According to the newspapers, sailing at 8 days’ notice when you are supposed to be at 30 days’ notice is deemed to be ‘an embrassment’…

    • To be fair though, the fault on the QE was initially found on the 8th of Jan…. so we should assume that certain minds were focussed on the possibility that QE might not sail, especially given the previous issue with POW’s Coupling…… Add that to the Failed departure yesterday and it doesn’t really sound that far off….. personally I think it was embarrassing on both counts but I’ll be happy to see the positive side…. the fact we can actually deploy such an amazing ship given the state of our defence forces at the moment….. Interesting times ahead I fear.

      • The issue might have been found then but the decision not to risk her would seem to have been taken significantly later in the month. The notifications to crew were sent out at almost the exact moment that the change of ships was announced to the press and a number of crew members were reporting that they saw it first on websites before they got their recall notices.
        Judging by that alone this is a magnificent effort by all involved to get her turned around and out to sea.

        • Any major issues should come to light over the coming months, especially up in the High North (Exercise Nordic Response).

          Tuesday 2/13

          Morning

          Gale warning with dangerous seas. Small craft advisory. Use extreme caution. Large short-period wind waves.
          Seas: S 3.8 to 4.9 meters at 9 seconds.
          Winds: SSE 29 to 40 knots.

          Afternoon

          Very windy with large choppy seas. Small craft advisory. Moderate short-period wind waves.
          Seas: S 2.8 to 3.7 meters at 8 seconds.
          Winds: SSW 20 to 27 knots.

          https://

          buoyweather.com/wxnav6.jsp?program=nww3BW1&grb=nww3&region=NO&latitude=60.5&longitude=4.0&zone=1&units=m

          • Good afternoon Nigel…. I don’t know if you visit this place but I always take a look at Zoom Earth….. It’s a great site to view all different weather info in the North Atlantic area….Way better than the BBC and Met Office sites, in my opinion.

          • Hello Frank, Not visited this one before from memory, It should prove very useful for the deployment cheers!

          • Got a very good view of her departing from the top of Portsdown hill mate, nice clear day to see it.

            Lets hope she stays away for a few months now (nicest possible terms).

          • Not really, the implication you made was that it took from Jan 8th to get her prepared for sea. Jan 8th they had found a problem but the investigation of that took time and the decision to switch happened significantly later.

            I think it is clear that until the final day before her scheduled departure they clearly still planned to take QE. It would be a decision much higher up the chain of command as far as risk holders is concerned that said, you know what, it is an exercise so there is no point in taking that risk when there is no additional damage.

            As such that invoked the contingency to change and the recall for the crew, who were on leave at the time, to get PoW ready to sail. That decision was taken nine days ago now and that turn around time from what was essentially a cold, de-stored ship is what is so impressive. The clock on the 30 days started when the crew recall was sent out. They are 21 days early by that math.

          • well If you believe that then fine…. personally I prefer to think that RN Staff had the foresight to pre-empt such a scenario…. therefore reducing the 30 day rule quite considerably….. but heck, what do I know ?

      • Good evening Frank, off-topic, but can you recall the idiot on here who keeps banging on about UK homeland defence and a decent stockpile of suitable missiles to defend and deter 😆

        Three former senior NORAD officials argue in this op-ed that the homeland defense must be treated like theater defense, prepared for multi-tiered attack.
        “With oceans on either side, the American homeland for centuries has had geography as a first line of defense against adversary actions. But in the op-ed below, three former senior NORAD officials say the missile-based threat to the homeland is growing and diversifying by the day, and so must America’s defenses.”

        https://

        breakingdefense.com/2024/02/the-homeland-is-not-a-sanctuary-the-case-for-more-integrated-air-defenses/?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=293750623&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8FCijz_2UF1zhE6QJ0k_wacIJxyAWn0xFRn4Tb6A8gCtGXHZ-H6lQAxi1OxPgvnG6iI13vjc3bZ1xDFl2N37JE45lGTQ&utm_content=293750623&utm_source=hs_email

    • It’s the star trek effect.
      The engineer says something will take 30 days and the captain orders it done in 45 minutes.
      Somehow they always get it done.

    • The UK media is the national embarrassment, imagine the USN trying to work up a carrier and setting sale after 8 days. No one could do this, it’s a vindication of the CVF concept.

      As for the ships being maintenance hungry they are being worked hard, all ships have issues especially aircraft carriers, look at the problems France has had with CDG and the USA with the Ford class. As for the ships some how being built to a low standard and not like the good old days just look an Invincible that had a near total failure of her propulsion system on the way to the Falklands.

      Ships break, its a fact of life, it’s what a navy does to recover that’s important and the instances both last year and this year have shown what the RN and QE class are capable of.

  2. So HMS Prince of Wales is having to rely on Spanish and Danish escorts because the only one that we can conjure up is HMS Somerset. Not good.

    • Well without even a Phalanx in PoW the carrier is basically defenceless.

      Imagine if Iranians/Houthis have a merchant in Atlantic with drones.

      • “Well without even a phalanx in (on) POW the carrier is basically defenceless” absolutely spot on mate…. apart from all the many other ships that form this CSG and all the F35’s and Merlins and Wildcats and VLS and CIWS and Main guns and Submarines and Land Based Aircraft and P8’s and GCHQ and GPMG and Advanced Sonar, Radar and Counter measures….. But yes, you are spot on ….🙄

      • Not to worry there are one or two posters on here who think the Govt will not send either carrier to somewhere they might get the paint scratched! So you see they don’t need defences anyway👍

      • Oh yes the famous Houthi blue water Naval Q ships … Honestly try to Be a little bit sensible whilst whining on and on and on

    • Not really….. It’s a 40 Nation combined exorcise, so it’s a pre planned mix of NATO Assets all combining to crate a force larger than anything since the end of the cold war……. but I get your thinking. 😎

    • It is NATO exercise! The whole point of it is to get the various nations working together. We have ships escorting CDG as well as American carriers!

    • Exercise Nordic Response is a NATO exercise. The Carrier leads NATO ships. Very good.
      American carrriers often sail on a NATO exercise with a number of Canadian or European NATO escorts.

    • There are Two Danish, Two British and one German frigate joining her at Plymouth…. there will be further Frigates, Destroyers and other ships from many different NATO States plus two Tides and at least one Astute.
      Over 50 ships in total….. 20,000 UK Personnel (of which there are 2000 sailors) out of a total of 90.000 including 15,000 Polish and 10,000 Germans.

      Wiki has a good article on the “Exorcise Steadfast Defender”.

  3. Still can’t make out for certain if any Phalanx are fitted. If they are, the radomes are grey rather than the usual white.
    Have all RN mini guns fitted on warships been replaced by .5 inch bowning HMGs?

  4. So where are all the posters who got their moans in yesterday that she had also broken down or had no crew, hmmmmm?
    I know we are in a state regards numbers in areas of our military, but come on. Who else can put a second carrier to sea at that short notice?

    • Here mate…. guilty as charged but actually, i was more along the lines of disappointed and dismayed at the apparent repeat…….. every part of me really wanted to see QE go and every other part of me wanted to see POW go too……. It’s just a fantastic thing that POW has now gone after such a short period of (Confirmed) notice and I’m more than 1000% behind her and her crew ( two friends are on her) and on top of that, i want to wish everyone on board and in the entire group, the best of luck….. POW has a glorious history to uphold and I for one wish her all the very best. Hoping to see at least a couple of dozen F35’s being flown off too….. Not just ours or the Marine core but lets see a few other NATO planes …… It’s the perfect exorcise to prove this NATO International operational ability after all…… 40 Country’s, 90.000 People, it’s a rather strong message in a rather tricky time.

      • Begging your pardon, Captain, I don’t include you. I don’t recall your jokey comments included moans about breaking down or that there were no crew, all seemingly baseless.
        Only that she’d not sailed.

        • 😆…. you are excused mate….. my jokey comments mostly cause me trouble though….. lol……. every so often I want to unveil myself to you on FB….. yet my better judgement reigns me back lol…… 😂

          • Don’t worry about that mate. I won’t bite. It’ll be a blast. I’m in contact with 2 others on this site so drop me a message saying hi.

    • Yeah but it doesn’t have 144 jets on it. I want my carrier to have 36 jets on deck and 100+ plus buzzing round it like a wasps nest. Picture the final battle scene in Independence Day. That’s what our carrier should look like. 😬

    • Hi Daniele

      I must confess I’ve become a little disappointed with the amount of negative commentary form some folk on the site off late (maybe it’s just me). Anyway, this is an an excellent achievement.

      • Agree. It is like a national pass time.
        We’re all pissed off by cuts but the moaning becomes a habit for some regardless of any positives.

      • It’s been like this for ages, so many people just repeat and repeat the same old clap trap. The same comment on almost every article is tiresome and is certainly making this a less pleasant place to visit.

        • hah ha you got me good Frank ! Must be an English thing, me being of ex-South African stock. I’d better tread lightly though as I’m married to a Surrey lass!

    • Hi Daniele,
      Agreed there’s so much negativity around at the moment. I think I mentioned on here to have HMSPOW ready at short notice is fantastic and how many really can do that? As ever the true British spirit comes out when push comes to shove! I bet main stream media don’t mention if anything at the fast pace of events. They would if there were continued problems and she was stuck in port still.
      Cheers
      George

  6. Now she’s out out sea I hope POW make’s a full contribution to the exercise. Its a worrisome time in the world and we need our carriers to be assets we can rely on should push ever come to shove.

  7. Anyone know what will now happen with QE ? Does she have to be dry docked ? I read something that said this coupling issue wasn’t the same as the POW one and I’m sure I read that Divers found corrosion but then I saw mention of the coupling being inside the ship….🤔

  9. I am not sure but would this be the first deployment where PoW has squadron strength F35Bs on board? If so it will be a fast learning curve. Well done to the crew getting her ready and good luck for the Ex.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here