The UK’s upcoming deployment of HMS Prince of Wales to the Indo-Pacific is intended to achieve full operational capability for the Royal Navy’s newest carrier while reinforcing allied carrier strike group integration, according to Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard.
In remarks made before the House of Commons Defence Committee on Tuesday, Pollard outlined a refined strategic approach to the UK’s carrier deployments, noting that this Indo-Pacific mission would serve as a key milestone before the vessel is reassigned to operations within NATO’s area of responsibility.
“The primary military purpose as to why we’re deploying HMS Prince of Wales is for it to achieve its full operating capability operating alongside other carriers of our allies, which are in the Indo-Pacific,” Pollard told the committee.
The exchange followed a question from MP Mike Martin, who asked about the wider aims of the deployment. In response, the minister underlined that beyond building operational readiness, the deployment supports NATO’s broader force posture.
“At the end of its deployment, we will be able to dedicate a fully tested, fully operational carrier to SACEUR for its activities in the NATO area operations from next year,” he said, referring to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
Pollard also highlighted the flexibility of maritime power projection:
“One of the advantages of maritime power is the ability to move them around. So at all times in any deployment — whether that’s for the carrier strike group or for a single ship — we retain the ability to move them and to deploy them in different manners. And that option… is quite considerable.”
This marks a notable development, demonstrating a shift toward making Royal Navy carrier deployments more NATO-driven and closely aligned with alliance priorities.
The Indo-Pacific deployment of HMS Prince of Wales, expected later this year, follows the 2021 Queen Elizabeth-led Carrier Strike Group 21 mission, which also included operations with allied navies in the region.
While the earlier deployment was broadly seen as a showcase of global presence, today’s comments suggest a more operational and alliance-focused rationale behind the current strategy — one aimed at delivering tangible military readiness and interoperability.
The ship is expected to return from the Indo-Pacific in time to assume a NATO-facing role in 2026.
Capability not needed. Better to have more frigates and destroyers plus RAF ac and not the useless low range and payload F35Bs……
Yes, we should totally cancel three decades of development and billions of pounds of investment in a capability to buy some more light escorts to focus on a non existent Russian submarine threat that just happens to be flavour of the month.
With Murmansk being in easy sailing and helicopter range of NATO countries now and the Russian long range bomber fleet being decimated the carriers are more important than ever.
Amphibious raids on Russia’s Northern coast are about the only conventional threat and hence deterrent we can pose to Russia. Also the world largest operator of carriers and guardian of the world’s ocean’s just told the world it’s packing up its toys and going home. Seems like a daft time to wrap Europes main carrier capability to save a few quid.
This is absolute rubbish. What were you smoking last night?
Is it rubbish? It seems pretty accurate to me. Curious to hear your thoughts
He doesn’t have any thoughts 😀
Insults over commentary is his disruptive technique on actual debate, probably best ignored where possible.
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No David, J. Is right on this issue, we need to pursue the ruZZian subs in their bastions, let them chase their own their tails there!
We need more ASW cabs on carriers and armed with plenty of torpedoes!
I am not saying a carrier will go into a actual
bastion, but get as close as possible in the high North assisted by hunter drones and cabs.
Indeed you need a carrier battle group to crack the Barents Sea bastion..not because you would send the carrier in but it allows you to provide air cover to any incursion into the bastion and hold it at risk. You can kill any ASW aircraft and any surface fleet incursion will have air cover.
I agree. It would be madness.
I don’t have quite the same conviction that the US is off into the sunset. But if it is, then yes, all the more reason.
These are expeditionary assets.
People need to realise the world consists of more than just Russia, and we are a global country with global interests.
I don’t think that is the usual Jonathan….unless he had a really bad night!?
It most certainly is not.
I’d wager they don’t actually have a western name.
It’s not me
Different icon, different J(j)onathan ^_^
Couldn’t agree more. People need to look at a globe occasionally to find the area covered by NATO. Then the vast majority that isn’t.
We need a JEF Base in Greenland or it will turn Orange by force.
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F35Bs have a greater unrefuelled range and better endurance than F18, and I don’t hear people complaining about the “short reach” of US carrier groups.
The carriers are unique in Europe and in the current environment throwing them away to rely on France and the US seems counterproductive.
It also has a better range than Tornado GR4 before it was retired…. 950 Nmi F35B vs 850 for Tornado
Keep your “facts” about the F18 to your self. We all know the F35B is rubbish any every other carrier aircraft is amazing for no reason 😀
His comment is designed to rile mate.
Throw away, drive by shootings like this are common here, that have no foundation, and quite possibly foreign motivated.
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Trouble is they don’t ! Getting off the deck with a full munitions load uses a shed load of view without the use of a catapult so with full load F35 has much shorter range !
Any official data on that?
That’s what I read,their range weaponless is irrelevant.
But according to some it’s really good ,better than the rest🤪.
I read it wasn’t.
Who’s right,who’s wrong,tune in next week to find out.
Not in this Country perhaps. But in the US, there is a real worry over the performance gap the USN’s F18s face against Chinese J20s armed with PL15. As the likely scenario is that the Chinese jets can get in range and bang off the PL15s, before the F18s can do the same with AMRAAM. This has in part led to the early adoption of the AIM-174 (SM6) as an very long range answer to the F18s short comings. As the AIM174 guidance will be done via E2D or F35C.
The other problem the USN carriers are facing, is that the Ford class carriers are still not cleared to operate the F35C, so can only embark the F18. The FA/XX is still a very long way off. With more of the Nimitz class reaching the ends of their lives and being retired. The inability for the Fords to use F35s will only make things even worse in the short term. I’m sure the F35 will be cleared within the next couple of years as the urgency increases.
You really don’t know what you are talking about.
Clever
Well done.
Where was the RAF air cover over the fleet during the Falklands campaign?
Waiting for the next intellectual golden nugget!
RAF No. 1 Squadron was aboard Hermes and conducting ground attack operations in support of land forces.
What are you talking about? F-35Bs are hugely capable aircraft and carriers give us capabilities that can’t be achieved with other types of ships.
Yes, let’s instead develop a network of island bases, procure around 50 x F111s and move Australia 400 miles west like the RAF did back in the 60s.
It wasn’t Australia they moved, they were trying to prove that there was no need for RN Carriers as the RAF could cover everything between the ME and Australia with F111. It was actually RAF Gan which was on the Maldives. The reason was that Gan was the Key staging post for refuelling between RAF Khormaksar (Aden) and RAF Changi (Singapore). If you go onto Google maps and do a bit of measuring you’ll see why they moved it west a bit to the exact mid point, which was within the range of the F111 they wanted to buy.
Those legs are over 2000 nm, whereas Changing to Darwin is less.
Jon, these carriers will serve for 50 years. How can you know whether they will be needed over that period? You do know they have 4 roles, unlike USN carriers? Carrier Strike, C2, support to Cdo/amphibious ops and HADR.
Have you looked at a map recently? Look at Europe. Especially the seas between, say, Iceland and Norway. The distance is about 1472km. The range of an F35 is about 2100km. Now stick a carrier somewhere in the middle of that gap and you’ve closed a dirty great big hole in the defence of the UK. Yes, we need more frigates and destroyers. Plus systems to stop enemy vessels dragging anchors over various cable and pipelines. But those carriers have a function as well.
That was always RN Cold War role to bottle up the Russian subs in the Greenland Gap – who whole design of the Invincibles / T23 / Forts was around that.
So someone told you the J-20 had longer legs and you took that to mean the F-35 had short legs huh?
Just as nations around the world build Aircraft Carriers eh?
Is that really your own idea? Or what your controllers told you ?
It is very much needed.. the pacific has very little to do with why we need a carrier force.. the security breach from the U.S. says it all.. they have no interest in the western Indian Ocean but we do.
So if we do spit our strategic interests from the US ( which seems likely now) and we no longer need to be in the pacific, as we have little interests that really require a kinetic response if we are no longer in lockstep with the US. Trade and friendship with Japan etc does not require kinetic involvement in any future western pacific war.
But we do need to
1) be able to exert control in the western Indian Ocean, this is vital to European interests as those MAGA Americans leaders so eloquently pointed out in their texts.
2) competent in the high north.. you need carriers for the high north
3) threaten the Russian bastions as a meaningful deterrent..the only way to really dominant and breach the Russian Barents Sea bastion is with a carrier force in the high north.. so it’s a massive deterrent. A surface action group of major surface warships without a carrier battle group would not be able to do this.
4) compete and protect our major interests in the south Atlantic… everyone is talking about the mineral resources in the high north..but everyone is also side eyeing the Antarctic waiting for the first power to break the Antarctic treaty and start mineral extraction.. we own the best bit of that continent and our south Atlantic territories are essentially the doorway to those best bits… at some point we are going to have to pick our allies ans fight of the rest of the world in that region.
5) Africa, poor Africa is still in the place it was in the 18,19,20c in that it’s fragmented weak and open to exploitation of the major world powers.. look at the geography Africa to Europe is as South American is to the U.S. it vital we have the ability to limit other powers interference.
Some many reasons we need carriers and a fundamental reason why the MAGA US has zero respect for Europe is its inability to power project, as we move into a world we’re the US is seeing itself as a single dominant power if Europe is going to fight its own geostrategic corner it needs carriers.
JD Vance may have no interest in the western Indian Ocean but America and Trump very much do. Almost their entire diplomatic and military focus has been on the region since January 20th.
It’s worth noting JD Vance is the Vice President which is normally one step above the White house janitor in most administrations
The key to winning any global war since the 1950’s has been control of the gulf and western Indian Ocean. That’s why America has an entire fleet devoted to a tiny body of water.
You can’t fight China in the SCS or the straits of Taiwan. You fight it by blockading the Pacific Ocean from the Falkland Islands and Panama and the Indian Ocean from Diego Garcia.
There is nothing China can yet do about that scenario.
In reality Jim, when you look at Vance you are looking at the future of the MAGA movement they are driven by a dogmatic dislike of European power and influence, they don’t really see a world beyond the pacific and in reality the are a bit naive around the limits of US power.
You say china cannot fight china in the South China Sea you are correct.. but china is getting to the point it can start to successfully contest some of the key choke points.. it’s building a base close to the strait of Malacca it’s got a base around the gulf of Aden, it’s building another base in the gulf.. it’s been buying up favour like there is no tomorrow in some key Indian Ocean states.
Navy wise the PLAN is a big blue water navy that essentially play acts as a green water navy. It essentially alway now keeps 2 surface action groups in the Indian Ocean, it’s got a CBG and within a few years that will be massively upgraded.. it’s finally got it’s SSN program sorted and will be putting competent4-10 new SSNs in the water over the next few years..
The biggest advantage china has is actually around belief and political robustness.. essentially china is developing its whole economy and society ready for a significant period of suffering..they are planning to hurt.. because they believe that the US is actually incapable of taking any pain.. and that when it comes to mass dying and shattered economies the US will blink and they will not.
A navy without carriers is not a navy. It’s a coast guard.
I’d say you’re right. Carriers are best at being sovereign airstrip 1000s of miles away not 10s or even a couple of hundred from what are effectively allied countries. It’s an expensive capability and requires us to purchase tge most expensive and least capable F35. Yes we can all get emotional on the topic but if we’re not going to deploy globally and Europe is what we’re defending there’s far better capabilites to spend money on than 2 Carriers.
This makes sense. A carrier can be deployed to almost any theatre and is not as vulnerable to targeting as static airfields. They are essential too to any amphibious and reinforcing operations undertaken by NATO. It is not just about aircraft performance and payload, but about flexibility, power projection and creating uncertainty in the eyes of a potential opponent.
This move won’t do anything for the Australians’ confidence in our willingness to help protect them from Chinese expansionism.
I would have thought AUKUS is probably a bigger indicator of that. You can guarantee that if China seriously threatens Australia then Russia will be very active in threatening Europe so an active uk carrier force in the South Pacific is a fantasy in reality. Australia needs to be more self sufficient in its defence work on ties with South Korea, Japan and India and hope its ties to the US don’t take a similar turn to Europes. I do fear as stupid as it would be that the US may start thinking the South Pacific isn’t crucial to them either that if they control the Americas then they are safe. Naive but that is the direction of travel with the belief I fear that they can cut up the World like Napoleon and Pitt. Don’t think Brazil and others in South America will longer term cooperate on that. Mexico’s canal backed by Chinese money is just one example the US will have to grapple with. Only so many threats you can make to your neighbours.
We should build two more carriers. One for Canada and one for Australia. The question then is will the USA still provide the F35B’s. I’d place a great big order for another 60 ‘B’s right now.
Not unexpected; a move which opens up interesting possibilities. Could we retain Bulwark and reconfigure a littoral strike group North with POW and Bulwark and littoral group South with Argus and a T31. This would free the 3 Bays to be dedicated MCM motherships.
No, where are you getting the crew
JEF. Time to extend multi national operations further. We have Dutch marines in the lsg south and FAA helicopters on Norwegian frigates. Why not get a JET crew on Bulwark?
Because they are also running out of crews
Dunno. Just asking; is it an idea worth pursuing if you could find the crew or do some engineering changes to Bulwark so it needs less crew.
Actually sensible.
It is right that the QEC occasionally demonstrate the ability to deploy ar distance. They might need to.
And it is right that they then return and spend most time in the European and Atlantic areas.
Agree, the diplomatic impact of the carriers and their contribution to software power should also not be underestimated and they can’t do that if they are always in the North Sea.
Would America be se nice to us at the moment if we had hundreds more tanks, frigates and jets fighters geared up to defend Europe instead of a carrier strike group?
America doesn’t give to craps about Europe, they care who can send stuff to the pacific. We probably would not be spear heading a 6th Gen fighter program with Japan either and it’s also unlikely we would be the only non Pacific member of CTPP.
Not bad for a few billion.
We should be there for Oz and NZ.
David Lloyd, I know your “history” with Jim goes back a few years now but seriously, no one really cares. You’d be better off just engaging in a civil fashion, maybe you could ask him to explain his comments and if you feel the need, reply with your own.
I suppose it depends on what constitutes the NATO “area”. NATO rarely gets itself involved outside the North Atlantic, the Med. and perhaps the Gulf. So Global deployment is dead? An Aukus/Japan carrier group is dead? There is certainly a gap in the North Atlantic so a carrier there would make sense, although it does make a very big target. I can’t see the logic in deploying to the Med. Maybe the Gulf then, relieving the U.S. to move another carrier to the East?
The Navy’s assets were assigned to NATO at the time of the Falklands War. That doesn’t stop them being pulled in order to carry out operations elsewhere if the national interest requires it. Right now the situation with Russia is likely to result in deployments to the North Atlantic being a priority. Obviously if we end up in another global war then all bets are off as to where they might end up deployed.
I completely agree with this position in the new world order. Doing the CBG 2025 into the pacific is required because we said we would do it, and some friends expect it and we don’t want our enemies to see us as weak.
But beyond that, with the US essentially abandoning Europe we need a re evaluation of our strategic alignment and priorities and my personal view is that our pacific alignment and support in countering china was essentially a linchpin of our relationship with the US and supporting the wider western alliance. Now that has gone what is our purpose in the pacific and it should basically be a policy of be on friendly trading terms with everyone..because in reality the only thing in that region that effects our security is the amount of trade and wealth we gain from the region.. because there is no specific ally that hugely impacts on our geostrategic position in the areas of the world that matter to our security.
NATO first is really now code for European and our own interests which are the high north, acting as a deterrent to Russia by having a threat to its Barents Sea bastion ( and a CBG is the only realistic threat apart from the odd SSN incursion).
But we also need to understand that actually our middle eastern and western Indian Ocean interests are now paramount and the carrier should be spending time in and around the western Indian Ocean and gulf of Aden, eastern Mediterranean areas.
Finally at some point all the side eye looks at the Antarctic will explode into a new frontier and we own the best bit as well as the fact we own all the islands that give easy access.. we will need to be ready for that and I suspect within 10-20 years you may see a UK carrier make a pointed trip to the Falklands and our south Atlantic territories..maybe stopping of at the nation in the region we have decided to make a strategic alliance with.
Ummm…while largely agreeing w/ your contention that a UK reassessment of the geostrategic value of the defence of SCS/I-P area nations may come under review by a future HMG, willing to wager there would be exceptions/carve-outs, specifically: Australia, New Zealand (and possibly Singapore). Remain unconvinced that the UK would not attempt to come to the aid of those countries, if hostilities commence w/ the ChiComs. At some point, every hunted lion will turn, attack and attempt to savagely maul a predator. Not nearly as certain re HMG policy re other I-P democracies.
Not nearly as certain re future HMG defence policy w/ respect to other I-P democracies. 🤔
Potentially I agree on Australia but in reality Australia is 4500Km from china and although the Australians get a bit twitchy about china in reality china has no real present obvious ambitions around that bit of the South Pacific or Indian Ocean..china’s ambition are very much focused on the china seas and north of the equator.. it’s essentially the same as South Africa getting a bit worried if France decided it was going to get control of Morocco against.. they won’t like it but it’s not a direct threat. If one day China threatened Indonesian independence then you would likely see Australia react in a profoundly negative way.
You have to remember also china is Australias biggest export customer by a very very big margin..1 third of Australian exports are china dependent..compared to 5% for the U.S. and 5% for Japan.. that’s 210billion of exports into the Chinese market every year, china on the other hand is also Australias biggest import partner at 24% of all imports into Australia or 100billion.
In the end China and Australia have a very very good and healthy import export relationship, which is actually in Australias favour by 100billion a year.. there is going to need to be very very good reason for Australia to ever go to war with china..and to be honest it would only be a water tight trust and alliance with the US and that is not there anymore.
Australia is not going to war with china just because it invades Taiwan and has a war with the US in the western pacific.. not unless it had a very good reason or a lock tight alliance.
This is one of the reasons I truly cannot fathom what the hell the MAGA party are doing..it’s like they don’t realise they are heading to a war with a peer power 10,000Km from home, which means it’s going to drag and drag and the only way they would have a really huge advantage was to harness the US great strength which was its leadership of the western alliance…it’s geostrategic insanity of the worst order. That’s what offends me more than anything…the US can do what it want it’s a sovereign nation.. but I don’t recall in any of my readings of history a hegemonic power with a near peer enemy literally throwing almost half hegemonies wealth and power away..which is what trump has done by essentially casting the European nations away and essentially selling them out to an enemy power, and even worse an enemy power that not only despises the U.S. but is also really a bit of a global minnow when you get beyond the bluster and nuclear weapons.
Not really seeing how carriers are needed with NATOs Areas of Interest.
No great surprise, focus changes as the threats change . There’s an actual hit war in Europe so obviously that has to be the ficus at the moment. Too easy for people to misunderstand this as something permanent.
Could someone knowledgeable in naval matters explain what a carrier would add in Eastlant and Northern waters?
Its role is to serve as a floating, manoeuvreable air field. It has fast jets on board primarily to strike enemy land and sea targets.
Do we envisage a Russian surface fleet putting to sea in the North Atlantic? Obviously not, as they can’t muster a surface fleet
What are we going to strike then? The only real target is Russian fleet bases around Murmansk. They are heavily defended and an air strike might take an unacceptable level of losses, surely this would be a job for land or air based long range cruise missiles?
The carrier could usefully act as an ASW base with a dozen Merlins on the deck. But given the number of air defence and ASW escorts needed to protect the carrier, it would seem more sensible to just send an ASW squadron, with a T45 for air defence and 3 or 4 T26 frigates for
T/A ASW job?
The carrier air group could usefully intercept any attacking aircraft heading our way, but then again we have Typhoons at Lossiemouth for precisely that task.
We are not likely to be doing amphibious landings in Iceland, Greenland or the Faeroes and I doubt the carrier would be used to pit troops ashore in northern Norway, which would be a risky use of a carrier.
I am left scratching my head as to what role the carrier could usefully play in the North Atlantic.
Back in the day, Ark Royal was part of NATOs plan to contain GIUK and move forward to Strike the Kola, as well as secure the air space N and N West of Britain.
TPL had a very interesting set of documents on this plan from the NA at Kew.
Let’s just let the rogue states keep guessing where uk carriers are deployed.
The Chinese only have one more carrier than the UK, and if they attack it, they will have a beef with the whole of Europe, which will be a trade partner they need after alienating the US.
“…it would seem more sensible to just send an ASW squadron, with a T45 for air defence and 3 or 4 T26 frigates for
T/A ASW job?”
The RN would really struggle to deploy a ASW squadron of 3 or 4 T23/
T26’s at a time, in the ‘High North’ and with the air cover required there from distance land bases.
If you are really going to threaten the Russian bastion in the Barents Sea you need air power to back up you surface groups..if you put a surface group in the greenland sea to threaten the Barents Russia would overwhelm it with long range navel aviation.. there is no way Russian long range navel aviation is overwhelming a CBG with 24 f35s, this then gives your ASW based surface action group freedom to penetrate the Bastion at will. It wil also suppress Russian long range ASW patrols which means your SSN can do the same thing.
essentially with a Carrier battle group in the high north NATO can put massive pressure on and crack the Barents bastion at will.. without it your surface group will not survive staying in range of long range navel aviation and your SSNs have to run a bigger gauntlet of ASW capability and run greater risks..
So it’s a massive deterrent… however weak we all think the RN is depth wise, Russia knows we can stop put a competent CBG and surface action group as well as SSNs in the Greenland sea Norwegian Sea..and plow strait into its bastion..that is a massive deterrent above everything else because it would spell the death of the Northern fleet.
It does not make much sense anymore for the UK to be militarily involved in the Indo-Pacific, for at least two reasons: as others mentioned, it was done to support the US while the US was protecting Europe, which is clearly not anymore the case; and the UK has not nearly enough power projection to make any difference against an increasingly powerful China which already has the largest navy in the world and more nuclear warheads, in addition to being actually ehere rather than thousands of miles away.
The only European country which needs to be there is France because of its territories but again they would not be able to do much against an aggressive China so their solution in the long term might be to attempt some protection of those territories as part of an EU effort, to give in return the EU a presence in the area.