HMS Prince of Wales is once again back at sea having departed Portsmouth, joining sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth in waters around the UK.
HMS Queen Elizabeth returned to Portsmouth on Friday, 1st November 2024, after completing a 10-day period of training. Following a quick turnaround, the carrier set sail again on 4th November for further operational training and defence engagement.
This marks a big focus on readiness after the ship underwent critical repairs earlier this year at Rosyth, which included work on the starboard propeller shaft coupling following a technical issue that had previously caused the vessel to withdraw from the NATO exercise Steadfast Defender. During that time, HMS Prince of Wales took on operational responsibilities.
Powerful British Carrier Strike Group assembles off Scotland
HMS Prince of Wales, which also recently set sail for training and operational exercises after having returned briefly after exercise Strike Warrior, joins HMS Queen Elizabeth in a busy period of activity with both carriers at sea.
Currently, HMS Queen Elizabeth is focused on routine operational training and defence engagement, with a planned visit to a European city. Her expected return is slated for before Christmas.
The carriers
The Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are the largest and most advanced warships in the Royal Navy, designed to serve as the primary components of the UK’s Carrier Strike Group. This class includes two vessels: HMS Queen Elizabeth, commissioned in December 2017, and HMS Prince of Wales, commissioned in December 2019. Built by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, these carriers were developed at a total cost of approximately £7.6 billion. They replace the earlier Invincible-class carriers and are built to support a variety of maritime operations.
Each Queen Elizabeth-class carrier has a displacement of 65,000 tonnes and a length of 284 metres. Their propulsion is provided by integrated electric systems combining Rolls-Royce Marine Trent MT30 gas turbines with Wärtsilä diesel engines, producing a total power of 158,800 horsepower. These vessels are capable of speeds over 25 knots and can travel up to 10,000 nautical miles on a single mission. They have berths to accommodate up to 1,600 personnel, including crew and air support units.
The carriers can house an air wing of up to 40 aircraft, including F-35B Lightning II jets and Merlin helicopters for roles such as anti-submarine warfare and airborne early warning. The flight deck, equipped with a 12º ski jump, is optimised for short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) operations, enabling the launch and recovery of F-35B aircraft. The hangar deck provides additional space for the maintenance and storage of these aircraft, with dimensions of 155 m x 34 m x 7 m.
For defence and situational awareness, each carrier is outfitted with a Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS), 30 mm DS30M Mk2 guns, and heavy machine guns. The radar and sensor systems include the S1850M long-range radar and Type 997 Artisan 3D radar, providing extensive tracking and detection capabilities to support the carrier’s operations.
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Good keep those ships active.
with aircraft on them
Why on earth would you pointlessly put F35s at risk of the corrosive nature of the sea you are just carrying out routine crew training in local waters?
So you can prove your manned hood to the Americans off-course.
Even when conducting amphibious operations or anti submarine operations these carriers must have atleast 50 F35B’s onboard so no one accuses us of not being a great power any more 😀
Because crew training should include flight operations to ensure aircrew and deck crew are at their peak and consistently aware that the environment in which they work – the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, is one of the most dangerous places in the world!
That is the real answer.
Synthetic training gets you so far. Even with the fire hoses out.
Then there is the oggin and the weather with the joys of a slick deck in the freezing cold!
I’m not sure about their peak.
As I recall, a significant proportion of deck crew had never set foot on a carrier before CSG21, much less having plied their trade on one. Only 55% of 617 Sqn had previous embarked experience and around 10-15% of engineers were on loan from 207 Sqn. While 207 pilots had been carrier qualified, their prior engineering and maintenance work had been done from RAF Marham. The number of required maintenance crew per plane was significantly underestimated anyway, being insufficient to operate and rectify planes at the same time: a lesson from Exercise Strike Warrior 21 that wasn’t acted on, ostensibly due to lack of time. It didn’t help that only three of the UK planes was fully mission capable when they embarked on the deployment so engineering started in a deficit.
I think I’d settle for the inexperience issues of 2021 being addressed ahead of deployment next year, nevermind raising crew abilities to their peak. Let’s try and get the number of experienced engineering and maintenance crew sufficient unto the number of planes we hope will deploy. The USMC deployed 255 support staff for 10 planes, we deployed 113 for 8. If we were to hit USMC ratios for 24 aircraft, we’d need about 600 support crew. Realistically we should shoot for something like 480 for the F-35s alone. So I’d want to see QNLZ as well as PWLS flying F-35s just to give the massive number of required support crew some pre-deployment carrier experience.
We still haven’t seen any exercises in the run up to CSG 25 with anything approaching 24 fixed-wing planes so deck crews can gain experience with larger numbers and more crowded decks.
Yeah obviously they would not be active aircraft carriers if they carried no aircraft i suppose
good to see and a great picture. Lets hope it is a good sign for the future.
Are there any jets embarking for these shake down periods? Keeping flight deck and maintenance crews current on fixed wing ops is vital or accidents like the forgotten intake blank debacle will occur.
the non flying aircrew is part of the ships core crewing level the carriers are also, even without the arrrestor system, an emergency option for anyone else in distress
30mm DS30M Mk 2 guns ? We wish ! 🇬🇧👎
Errr yep, purchased and stored, but not fitted….
We have heard this before , is there a source – given the current threat from unmanned sea drones so aptly demonstrated by Ukraine but also the Houti , why on earth if we had them would we keep them in store ?
The reasoning is if you had fitted them on the Carriers as planned, you would need the Maintainers to Sail with them too,and they are in short supply.Keep them in store = no Maintainers required.
2/2 Carriers active
6/9 (soon to be 7/9) Frigates active
2/6 (almost 4/6 soon) Destroyers active
3/6 submarines active
And a healthy order book with deliveries starting soon to boost some of these numbers.
Looking past the small overall numbers the percentages that are active is pretty good compared to our contemporaries and is steadily increasing as well; just need to start doing the same with the RFA now…
Careful now such a positive outlook isn’t usually to be found around here ….
Whilst I’m all for the glass half full I’d be wary of assuming my cup runeth over!
The sheer mass is so poor and as others have stated the issue is with a few key trades (engineering of various flavours) that may well hamper getting all of that to sea in the short term.
The RFA issue really does need sorting pronto as I suspect QEC are coming into port to store and refuel.
I do wonder how practical and necessary it is to keep both ships so active and available at the same time. The reality of 2 large carriers was so we had one available. Personally I would like to see the RN maybe focus on having one available carrier and one available Albion, I’m not sure that the headcount planning was ever set up to crew 2 carriers and an Albion all at the same time, which is may be why we are now seeing the Albions put out to pasture.
I think it’s going to be necessary for the next year, at least, for two active carriers, because of CSG25, one will need to be available at home, maybe to utilise 207Squ, with more F-35B’s arriving in the next year. If necessary in an emergency, French ASW or SAR helos could embark?
Would be nice to see a few AAC Apache’s training on one of the carriers to give more possible future options.
I do recall, maybe 2 Apache had embarked on QE for a exercise a few years back.
For amphibious training I assumed?
QNZL will be going into a period of maintenance in 2025. I believe some of the work planned for next year was brought forward to this year when the ship was benched due to the propshaft issue. I can’t recall any estimates of how long the ship is likely to be in maintenance for
It would be misguided for one carrier put into long maintenance period, while PoW away with CSG25, I think?
So which one has the plane
Yeh with no planes