HMS Prince of Wales has arrived in Scotland to load ammunition ahead of Operation Firecrest, the Royal Navy’s major deployment to the North Atlantic and High North, the UK Defence Journal understands.
The 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier left Portsmouth earlier this month and is visiting Glenmallan for a routine logistics visit, taking on ammunition and supplies before the deployment gets underway. Glenmallan, on the western shore of Loch Long in Argyll, is home to a munitions facility and has historically been used by Royal Navy vessels for ammunition loading ahead of major deployments.
Operation Firecrest, announced by the Prime Minister at the Munich Security Conference in February, will see the carrier strike group deploy across the North Atlantic and High North, with HMS Prince of Wales leading the force. The operation is designed to deter Russian aggression, protect critical undersea infrastructure and demonstrate the UK’s ability to project force at scale within a NATO framework, coming against a backdrop of a 30 per cent increase in Russian naval vessels threatening UK waters over the past two years.
The deployment will include activity under NATO’s Arctic Sentry mission and exercises alongside NATO’s Standing Naval Maritime Group 1, which is being led by the UK throughout 2026. Parts of the operation will fall under NATO command, including close cooperation with Joint Force Command Norfolk.
The Ship
HMS Prince of Wales (R09) is the second of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers and currently serves as the Fleet Flagship. Commissioned on 10 December 2019, the date marking the 78th anniversary of the loss of her Second World War predecessor to Japanese air attack off Malaya, the ship displaces around 65,000 tonnes and measures 280 metres in length with a 70-metre-wide flight deck. She was assembled at Rosyth Dockyard from blocks built across shipyards around the UK, with construction beginning in 2011.
The carrier is designed around short take-off and vertical landing operations, operating F-35B Lightning II fighters from a ski-jump ramp alongside Merlin and Wildcat helicopters. She can embark up to 36 F-35Bs and four Merlin helicopters in standard configuration, with surge capacity for significantly more aircraft. The ship is powered by an integrated electric propulsion system using Rolls-Royce MT30 marine gas turbines and Wärtsilä diesel generators, giving her the ability to move approximately 500 miles per day. She can accommodate around 700 ship’s company with total onboard personnel rising to around 1,600 when the full air group and command staff are embarked.
In 2025, HMS Prince of Wales led the UK Carrier Strike Group on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific under Operation Highmast, conducting over 1,000 F-35 sorties and engaging with more than 30 nations before returning to Portsmouth. She now heads north for Operation Firecrest, her most significant NATO-focused deployment to date.
Is it 65000 tons or 85000 tons?
It’s 65000 tons with British crew but at least 80000 when the Americans embark.
Other answers include…
It depends on load
and also which Ton/Tonne/short/long measurement is used.
I think she came in at 68000t in the end, anyway that will be her standard displacement, usually some fluids and stores, some crew i.e. enough to move about. 80000t will be her deep load, with full everything from baked beans through spare parts & weapons, full fluids, expeditionary crew (i.e. marines) and 40+ aircraft.
Brom, good point. Wkipedia says: Estimated at 80,600 tonnes (79,300 long tons; 88,800 short tons) full load
By all definitions that I have read, including many American ones, she is a supercarrier, no matter what Trump thinks.
Depends if you categorise ‘super-carrier’ as merely a matter of tonnage, or of capacity, or of capability, or as a mixture of the three.
The British have used ‘standard displacement’ in all official documents for ships since the Washington treaty. This is essentially the ‘unloaded ship’ number. This was a cheat-code essentially to get around limitations on actual fighting capabilities. Full load displacement is pretty much always much higher on a warship. E.g. a Ford or Nimitz class is not 100,000 tons standard. I believe they’re actually closer to 80-85,000. However, USN practice is to claim full load rather than standard.
As far as whether the QEs are or aren’t supercarriers, they are roughly equivalent in tonnage and physical size to a Forrestal, which was the first of the so-called ‘super-carriers’ so they definitely qualify.
Super dooper.
Tonnage is interesting but it’s the number of aircraft carried I would have thought. The U.S.S. runs about 75 aircraft per carrier. As I understand it C de G of France usually embarks around 30 Rafales, a couple of Hawkeyes and some helicopters. So QE/POW are more like the latter. We’re never likely to see her carry any more than that.
The rule of thumb is that it’s roughly 1 aircraft per thousand tons if you’re squeezing them on there. The QEs can carry many more aircraft than they are carrying. Some of that is a money thing. Some of it is a desire to limit the chess-games required to maneuver aircraft.