HMS Prince of Wales will shortly arrive in Scotland to load up on ammunition ahead of a major NATO deployment.
The aircraft carrier left Portsmouth yesterday.
The 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier is heading to Glenmallan in Scotland for a routine logistics visit.
Sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth has previously visited the Northern Ammunition Jetty at Glen Mallan near Faslane multiple times since it was upgraded.
According to a news release on the upgrade work:
“We awarded a £67m contract to VolkerStevin in 2019. Alongside them, we worked with managing agent Jacobs, which provided engineering and professional services, as well as designer Arch Henderson. In completing this major project, £20m was spent with local suppliers and small and medium enterprises in Scotland. The jetty was last upgraded in the 1970s and had reached the end of its economic life. The upgrade work has not only extended the life of the jetty by an estimated fifty years, but has also made the site accessible for the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
In fact, HMS Queen Elizabeth visited part way through the work, back in March 2021, in preparation for her first operational deployment. This was not originally planned but became necessary when the scale of the ship’s deployment increased, presenting the team with a challenge to make the jetty operational in time for her arrival. Everyone involved, from DIO, VolkerStevin, Jacobs and the various subcontractors worked closely together to enable HMS Queen Elizabeth to berth at the unfinished jetty, which she did successfully.”
Have they moved Glenmallon then ? thought it was in Loch Long !
Don’t think it’s moved. Lots of hidden stuff in the hills round there. I’ve not been past since the upgrade. Last time I saw it there was a fort Ship there I think.
It’s the headline that confuses though…. It say “Aircraft Carrier to arrive on the Clyde to load ammunition”…… maybe i’m just being picky !!!😆
Ahh I see. There is a lot of water going here there and everywhere round that area.
How it’s determined where the Clyde ends and lochs, the sea begins is beyond my knowledge
Ha….. i just think of it as Loch Long though…… it would be like calling the English Channel, The Thames !!!!!!😂
You would think by now there would be a facility to rearm our carriers much nearer to Pompey.
Get Phalanx & either the slated 30mm(but preferably replace those with 40mm) fitted ASAP. Nobody operates large carriers with just a few machine guns. Reckless insanity. We’re in very dangerous times & never know when something will crop up. Fitting a SAM too would bring her closer to allied carrier fit outs.
Great to see POW back on ops. Excellent day for departure yesterday.
The carriers both have phalanx fitted for years now.
According to Navy lookout it was fitted to prince of Wales in July 2020.
They are not on the POW at present apparently, they were removed for the refit and not replaced when she was retired to 30days notice.
Oh. That’s, Shortsighted, silly, daft. Is there a shortage of systems? I didn’t think there would be.
There’s enough for every ship that carries them. But we really need double that to allow for constant mounting
What happened to the plan of fitting CAMM to RN vessels?
I think it’s called Sky Sabre in the army and Sea Sabre for the navy – I’m too lazy to google it. Surely finding desk space on the carriers for that world beating system would be a no brainer.
Silly me “no brainer” describes MOD Acquisitions perfectly.
The T45s are getting it at the moment
The T23s already have it, it’s called Sea Ceptor
The T26s are going to have 48 cells of it
The T31s will (probably) quad-pack it in mk41 VLS
So yes, that plan is very much under way.
Sea Ceptor, thank you. But no plans to fit it to the carriers. Not even bolting the army version to the deck.
No because there’s no room designed into the ship for such a system. All the Escort ships are receiving CAMM though.
In the latest press release I found a few months ago. Babcock has been awarded a contract to maintain up to 41 phalanx systems.
Upto being the elephant in the room.
It also says 4 capital ships have them, type 45, RFA tides, bays and Argus. Obviously that’s not correct.
They don’t have them fitted. But that is about the total amount in the Fleet
6 for carriers
4 for LPDs
6 for Bays
1 for Argus
12 for T45s
12 for Tankers
2 for Fort Vic
So 43 total. So we’re only 2 short.
As on the post yesterday mon 1300hrs no Phalanx in position Painted Broomhandles must suffice FFBNW is the way forward
Johnathan said they were removed during maintenance and haven’t been put back yet. I went with the navy lookout article that said they were fitted in July 2020.
I thought they would have been fitted back on. Not great. If I have to find a positive it’s that we know they fit so could be popped on if needed at a port. The phalanx could be sitting in the ship going to be fitted at the next stop as it seemed to be a rush job to get her out to sea. I doubt it though.
So that’s 3 from the POW 3 on QE the others would be on the 45s we must of sent a few back as we had them on the 42s either they’ve been placed in stowage like the Arc of the Covernant or returned ? Goalkeeper was a cheaper option for the Invincible class and never expanded on So the POW CIWs are either still up in Rosyth or down getting refurbished Guaged and checked ready too be reinstalled
Fitting a Sam would be a great Idea…. I can confirm that my wife, Sam, is a hellish handful of offensive capability that no enemy would dare try to take on…..😂
On the Phalanx subject, I’m simply dumfounded that a £3,500.000.000 carrier lacks such a basic defence capability…. It was my understanding that we had a rolling supply. refurbishment and installation programme that specifically enabled these system to be mounted and maintained.
We only have enough for 1 set per ship essentially so they can’t be rotated with spare phalanx, rather rotated in and out of maintenance
But from memory, I thought we had a spare capacity with enough numbers to allow a constant fit out for each and every vessel that carried them ? I remember reading an article on here or NL a while back…. how silly not to have enough of these ? 😰
I figured for constant we’d need at least 2 sets per ship.
Even stranger when you think that when fully tooled up she is worth nearer £7 billion.
Well yes, there is that too…… yet so far, we can only dream of such times……..
Best wishes to you and your spitfire better half. I know when to keep my head down in the face of withering fire. BTW is she related to my mother-in-law?
She might be,,, Does she make you bleed with just a look ? 😱
Only when the barbs on her tongue find flesh.
My wife is also called Sam and can confirm that she has the same capability.
Fully agree with your comments.
anyone ever found any good sources on what the magazine capacity is for these ships ?
Yes, according to the Pompey Newsagent, it’s 56 copies of Men Only, 82 of Readers wives, 8 of bound hunks, 2086 of The national Geographic and 17 of the Big Issue…… others include the popular Mechanics series of How to mend a coupling …. How to stop a leak and how to avoid hitting the Spice island on the way out of Harbour….. (actually, I made that last bit up)
My Humour is obviously waisted on here….. that’s it, I,m off to Navy lookout…..
middling to poor…you forget the horse and hound and county life magazines.
Oh, Which shelf are they on then ?
The middle one as they are proper middle class…
😂😆
On a side note. “British Army troops and vehicles are en route to Poland to take part in the largest Nato exercise since the Cold War. Armoured vehicles belonging to 7 Light Mechanised Brigade, also known as “The Desert Rats”, alongside Land Rovers, engineers’ tractors and support vehicles were loaded into a 23,000-tonne cargo vessel, Anvil Point, near Southampton on Tuesday. Some 600 vehicles will sail from the UK, and 1,500 service personnel will fly out to join the Nato exercise called Steadfast Defender, in a demonstration of the alliance’s unity and capability. The departure comes as HMS Prince of… Read more »
Yes mate….. 2000 RN personnel, 8 RN Ships, 1100 Vehicles and much other stuff including aircraft. It’s an enormous effort either way we view the current state of our armed forces.
It’s all very good that we can do these exercises but they’re all planned years in advance. Even if something goes wrong in the last 30 days and we can deploy a second carrier instead, it’s still dissapointing that we can’t deploy a CBG to the Red Sea to do something other than some training. It seems our next trip out East to India and the SCS is more of a priority.
I take your point, Tim. However, with an ongoing war in Ukraine and deteriorating relationships between Russia and NATO, I would expect this exercise to be very closely monitored by Russian ships and aircraft. This of course could lead to a miscalculation by one side or the other. So, it will be a very good test to see if we can jointly keep them at bay and look for any potential weaknesses to exploit before we put the carriers directly in harm’s way. I agree we rely far too heavily on allies and need to have more of our own… Read more »
It will be interesting to see how many troops/vehicles the Germans have contributed. Rumour is things have gotten worse since the 2018 report, not better.
The total Troop strength is of over 90,000 soldiers.
The United Kingdom has announced that it will provide 20,000 personnel for manoeuvres.
16,000 soldiers are announced by the British Army. The Royal Navy will provide 2,000 sailors.
15,000 Polish soldiers, 10,000 German soldiers, and 5,000 Dutch soldiers.
Cheers Nigel.
10,000 Germans involved and 15,000 Polish.
20,000! There can’t be many combat ready personnel or fully serviceable vehicles left behind. Let’s hope the Iranian or Chicom sponsored illegals don’t kick off here at home. We’ll be conscripting and arming Boy Scouts.
That sounds like the Russian Army of today!
Ho ho ho the Ukrainians too I see. Running out of recovering commies on both sides! It’s all good news. The Kiev government are sending amputees to round up anyone of military age. By all accounts there are warnings on social media of where these pressgangs are at any given time. Warning locals to keep away or be drafted and be killed at the front. Let’s be honest. If these military age people wanted to take part they would have volunteered for one side or the other by now. 14 million Ukrainians fled the country already, including 8 million military… Read more »
So presumably QE is still stored up – if she needs a docking period for repairs would she have to de-store, would as much as possible have been transferred to POW in Portsmouth?.
All good questions…. I think they will all be considered and acted upon accordingly…. The very thought of 10 thousand tons of Sausages and Baked Beans spoiling in her Freezers just doesn’t bare thinking about !!!!!
And on a serious note….. The whole Illustrious history of the Royal Navy was based upon it’s successful ability to provide stores and Vituals for it’s enormous fleets all around the World….. it’s often overlooked and seldom mentioned but the Empire was built as much upon the ability to supply stores as it was to provide ships and weapons….. As always in the history of Warfare, the ability to re supply is often the difference….
Logistics, logistics and logistics. The teeth arms always take the urine out of the REMF logistic “loggies.” But the truth is, without them everything grinds to a halt PDQ.
Now the real reason for this reply.
Q. How do the Royal Logistics Corps solve problems?
A. By thinking outside of the box. (At least it’s clean.)
😆
Needs missiles.
Quite frankly the RN has been decimated by the bean counter politicians for years. The current PM couldn’t arrange a oarty in a brewery, weak and spineless just staring at spreadsheets all day. No clue! Who decided to build two non nuclear powered aircraft carriers? Refuelling such ships at sea leaves them vunerable in times of war. Velly cheep mentality. As for propellor couplings it just shows how failure of QA/QC regimes has come to light. They don’t even know the meaning of deburring! A bit like Boeing with their aircraft with door plugs being sucked away and planes falling… Read more »
Just hope it makes it better keep those water pumps running. Personally I would be asking for a refund on these
You know , let’s be honest ,we’re in pure rag order . Have to keep swapping over weapon systems ,nothing near a full airwing , I doubt its a full complement on board. But ,I want to know how much ammunition she’ll actually be stocked with ,last I heard we didn’t have enough to fully load them . How the Yanks must be holding their heads in their hands and despairing.
All around us we are seeing deficiencies galore, from every area of defence procurement. Our decision makers are barely addressing ‘today’. Meantime, in the long game, China has opened it’s 5th Antarctic ‘station’ which loosely put sits on another future ‘choke’ point of the globe (they have Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, Red sea, Cuba and now between Australia and Antarctica as ‘stations’ or friends). Surely, ploughing ahead blindly building a bit of this and a bit of that is about as relevant in 30 years time as the Royal Navy itself? Note: UK estimates to have built 30… Read more »