HMS Prince of Wales and the carrier’s embarked F-35 stealth jets are preparing for Exercise Strike Warrior.

HMS Prince of Wales recently left Portsmouth to lead the UK Carrier Strike Group in a critical autumn training programme.

This includes participation in Exercise Strike Warrior, a major multinational exercise in the North Sea off the Scottish coast.

For the first time, F-35B Lightning jets from 809 Naval Air Squadron deployed on a Queen Elizabeth-class carrier, marking a milestone for the squadron, which formed at RAF Marham last year. The deployment will see the jets carry out day and night operations as part of a multinational task force of warships, working alongside partner nations.

The exercise will allow pilots to achieve their carrier qualifications, while engineers and technicians will learn to maintain and support the UK’s most advanced fighter jets in the challenging conditions aboard a warship at sea. Wildcat helicopters from 815 Naval Air Squadron will also participate, further developing their air-to-air capability by using Martlet missiles to defend the ship.

HMS Prince of Wales has undergone extensive preparations over the summer, including Operational Sea Training, where it was ensured the carrier is ready to handle emergencies such as fires and floods. After completing Exercise Strike Warrior, the ship will enter a final support period in Portsmouth before its global deployment next year.

The Carrier Strike Group staff and aircraft will disembark following the exercise, with HMS Prince of Wales continuing its winter programme before preparing for the 2025 deployment.

The Queen Elizabeth class carriers are the most powerful warships ever built for the Royal Navy, displacing approximately 65,000 tonnes and measuring 280 metres in length. The carriers are capable of carrying up to 40 aircraft, including the advanced F-35B Lightning II stealth fighters and a variety of helicopters.

Commissioned in December 2017, HMS Queen Elizabeth has already undertaken significant operational duties, including a global deployment in 2021. HMS Prince of Wales, commissioned in 2019, has also deployed operationally to the United States as well as around Europe and the Arctic.

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
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48 COMMENTS

  1. I wonder if they will be used in real action, against the Houthis for example, before the F35s can deploy a wider range of munitions.

    • Yeah, can only use Paveway iV which requires the F35 to be over the target. Probably conduct ‘aggressive’ CAP’s to target any drones that come the CSG’s way.

      • Typhoon has a wide range of weapons and has only used Paveway IV against the Houthis. What weapons are you thinking about, no aircraft in the world carries anything like SPEAR at the moment. Paveway IV is pretty much the best direct attack munition in the world at present.

          • JSOW has been integrated onto USN and USMC F-35Cs. SBD II/Stormbreaker should be hitting Early Operational Capability on F-35Bs about now, and F-35Cs next year, but IOC for Stormbreaker isn’t scheduled till 2026 on both Bs and Cs.

            There have been recent photos of F-35Cs doing flight testing with captive LRASMs, but integration is still ongoing.

            In the USN the F/A-18 has been the priority platform for strike weapons.

        • Paveway 4 is one of the most accurate and flexible weapons any fast jet can deploy. And has considerable stand-off range. The RAF has dropped more Paveway 4s than any other weapon since its first introduction into service back in 2007. It’s received considerable upgrades since then. An all aspect stealth aircraft like F35 with Paveway 4 can hit 90% of all potential targets. From high value strategic targets. Moving targets, to individual people. Night or day in any weather. F35 and Typhoon are capable of dropping 6 bombs to 6 individual targets in one pass.

          • What’s the carrying capacity of the F-35B internal weapons bay in terms of Paveway IV?

            And whatever the answer is I assume that since (eventually) the 2 x internal Meteors will be (as I understand it) mounted one on each of the inner faces of the weapons bay door then whatever Paveway (or eventually other weapon such as 8 x SPEAR 3) load is being carried on the centre hardpoints within the weapons bay will still leave the door-mounted hardpoints free for 2 x Air-Air missiles. Is that right?

          • Yes. F35B can carry 2 Paveway 4s internally. And another 4 under the wings. Yes. AMRAAM/Meteor can still be carried internally with 2 Paveways or 8 SPEAR.

      • Paveway has a stand off range of around 20miles…most people seem to forget that the bomb does not just drop off the aircraft and somehow dumps all its energy. If you release a guided bomb from a fighter it will have energy related to the energy state of the fighter..and the fighter can lob the bomb. So you’re actually throwing the bomb up into a ballistic arc travelling at and have all the energy of something travelling at the same speed as the jet fighter.

    • No that’s not true, the pavaway IV has a stand off range of around 20miles. The RAFs weapon of choice for most things is the paveway IV even on the typhoon that has plenty of other options.

      • I didn’t state anything, true or otherwise. I am just curious why there appears to be no plan to use the carriers in the Red Sea in the kind of mission they were bought for.
        Eisenhower and its F18s were there for months.

          • Which begs the question,we are flying from there why haven’t the cousins asked to base a couple of Sqns there instead of a big expensive carrier in the RedSea? Is there a ban on anybody than us using Akrotiri?

          • Red Sea presence is to defend the civilian merchants ships from Houthis-Iran.
            Cyprus being thousands of km away makes it impossible.

          • Definitely not, the Americans certainly use the base too – I was having a look at RAF Akrotiri the other day on Google Maps satellite and saw a number of U2s outside of a hangar

          • You’re quite right,the memory isn’t what it used to be! I can remember them going off early in the morning and then drifting in about lunch time back in the day🙄👍(late 70s)

          • Probably because Uncle Sam likes making a statement, and doesn’t mind splashing the cash of sending a CSG to the Red Sea.

          • First of all, the US is deploying a Carrier Strike Group with supporting surface warships that can do things airplanes can’t do. Secondly, a US aircraft carrier is Sovreign American territory, and the US doesn’t need any other country’s permission to strike its enemies from it. It requires UK Government permission to launch strikes against an enemy from Cyprus. And no US Administration in its right mind would rely on Keith Starmer’s Labor Government for that permission. Thirdly, that Carrier Strike groups primary mission is in support of Israel not bombing the Houthis. Fourthly, basing fighter squadrons on Cyprus would require establishing a large logistical presence and tail.

          • “And no US Administration in its right mind would rely on Keith Starmer’s Labor Government for that permission”

            You have absolutely no grounds or evidence to support that ridiculous assertion.

        • I am just curious why there appears to be no plan to use the carriers in the Red Sea in the kind of mission they were bought for.

          I can only think that RN don’t consider that the carrier is ready for even a semi hot zone like that. It would have been a wonderful training, but as almost everything in West we move too slowly.

          • QE commissioned 2017, POW in 2019. But apart from a strike against Isis in 2021, no involvement in actual operations. £16b for something you’re not willing or able to use doesn’t seem great value for money.

          • Has the USS Ford, commissioned 2017, conducted a strike against ISIS, despite an extended deployment to the Eastern Med? Carriers can take a decade to get up to speed. I tend to agree with Alex, but I’d say it’s the Carrier Strike Group that isn’t ready, rather than the carrier itself. The CSG 25 deployment is taking years of planning and preparation I know that in war a carrier gets rushed into service no matter what its state, as we saw in the Falklands, but rushing it to somewhere like the Red Sea right now, when we aren’t really prepared to conduct a long bombing campaign agains the Houthis, would be a waste. Better the RN continues the slow build up to be able to fight from a carrier in a peer conflict.

          • But in ‘82 RN hadn’t gapped fixed wing aviation so there was a deep pool of experience.

            So rushing something into service with people who knew and could us different from a cold start.

          • The carrier do not need to do a long attack campaign against Houthis to get a good training an war zone that is not too hot. Something else, including schedule inflexibility and political of getting a carrier in a warzone.

    • The middle east is currently at boiling point, if it errupts then I would guess yes, as western economies will tank whilst any war is going on and there will be a massive desire to avoid it spreading.

  2. Anyone know if the RN is planning to fit the 30mm cannons? I know this topic has been flogged to death in the past (sorry). Now that PoW is scheduled to deploy on CSG25 next year, I was wondering if anyone knows if the RN will revisit? Maybe the Bofors 40mm slated for the Type 31 instead of the 30mm? Our carriers still look perilously naked when it comes to self defence!

    • No news. I wonder if that is not the main reason to not be employed in the Red Sea.

      The way RN manage the carriers are quite puzzling.

      • No carrier of any nation has used close in defensive weapons for many, many years. If ever. If they do, the escorts are not doing their job properly. Carriers are to generate airpower. The aircraft they deploy are a carriers best defensive weapons. And the F35 is as good as it gets. Carriers do not put themselves in halms way. That’s the escorts job. The best tools for the job.

        • Just because they haven’t used them doesn’t mean they are redundant. One of the biggest lessons from the Falklands is that you don’t neglect close in defences on *any* vessel regardless of how it’s intended to operate, it only takes one missile to slip through your outer air defense zone and you can lose a ship.

          The last carrier to fire an on board weapon in combat would have been HMS Invincible who fired 6 Sea Dart SAMs (unsuccessfully) during an Exocet attack against her. Carriers can and will be targeted, newer naval missiles have ranges that mean the carrier may always be within striking distance and the geography of certain regions may also confine combat to unfavourable distances. With the lack of escorts currently effecting the RNs capabilities the carriers do run the risk of not being fully protected if an immediate needs for them is to arise suddenly, escorts are just on line out of many that offer some protection, it’s still vitally important that protective continues all the way to the flagships themselves.

          • And it’s because of the lessons from the Falklands that the RN has put the investment in the escorts. T45 with Sea Viper is about as good as it gets at the moment anywhere in the world. They have invested in the best tools for the job. Let the carrier concentrate on generating it’s own weapon systems. Aircraft. The layered defence system has proven its worth. Carriers are not operated like big destroyers. We took Sea Dart off the Invincible class to make room for more aircraft. Getting a kill chain on a carrier is incredibly difficult. Plus, they do have 3 x phalanx. Defensive aids, and probably some pretty nasty EW. With the combined capability of T45 and T23. Sea Viper/Sea Ceptor. The networked combat systems and what’s to come in T26/T31. Plus the capability of allied NATO escorts and the air dominace capability of F35. I’d argue these are best protected carriers in service outside of the US Navy.

          • And were are our enemies carriers right now? They are in port in bits or they don’t exist at all.

  3. If SDR2025 doesn’t result in additional funding for the MOD, CSG25 might be PoWs last swansong under the white ensign. The RN’s Maritime Enterprise Planning Group, which oversees naval planning and strategy, is reportedly considering a scenario where the carrier is sold to help resolve the MOD’s funding crisis. Not only would the sale of the carrier bring in perhaps £1 billion, but the de facto ending of the ‘Carrier Enabled Power Projection’ concept would reduce or eliminate the need for its other components, e.g. fewer F-35B’s, a ‘Tide’ tanker could be sold, Fort Victoria could be sold, the FSS project could be cancelled, even two T26’s might be deemed surplus and available for sale. Add on the expected sale of the Albion’s and that’s a substantial once off capital gain, significantly reduced running costs, and the manning crisis in the RN and RFA largely solved for a while. 

    If you think the above is far-fetched, remind yourself of the events of 2010. Ark Royal sailed on a routine deployment, SDSR2010 was published and a month later she returned to Portsmouth flying her decommissioning pennant. Over the next few months all the Harrier’s were sold to the USMC for spares, and large cuts made to the RN’s escort force and the RFA.

  4. It will strike small and weak nations, such a shame. Why don’t you try to strike Russia? Without the US, you couldn’t leave outside your port with those ships.

    • Sure, because Russia’s navy looks so powerful whilst getting a kicking from a nation that barely has a navy to speak of!! Lol. And I think you will find that the RN is perfectly capable of offensive ops with or without US assistance…

  5. I’ve been reading the UKDJ for a few years now. I can’t help but wonder if I’m the only one raising an eyebrow at articles like this. I respect all the work George Allison does bringing us military news, but this one feels a bit like government window dressing. The articles concerning the F35 or the carriers often seem to repeat the same press release. Perhaps I’m imagining it. In cases like this the comments are more interesting than the article :/

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