British F-35 jets will fly from HMS Prince of Wales in the Arctic and North Atlantic when the carrier sails from Portsmouth on Sunday, returning fifth-generation airpower to the skies of the High North as part of the second phase of Operation Firecrest, according to the Royal Navy.
The carrier deploys with an air group comprising F-35 jets, Merlin Mk4 Commando and Mk2 anti-submarine helicopters, Wildcat helicopters and Malloy drones, accompanied by the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless and more than 1,200 British personnel.
Louise Sandher-Jones, the Minister for the Armed Forces, placed the air wing at the centre of the message: “The deployment of the HMS Prince of Wales and her air wing to the High North and the North Atlantic, operating under NATO leadership, is a clear demonstration of the UK’s commitment to the Alliance and contribution to the enduring security and stability of the North Atlantic.”
Commodore Richard Hewitt, who commands the UK Carrier Strike Group staff, said the group would work with allies throughout: “Led by the UK Flagship HMS Prince of Wales, the Strike Group will bring together a range of assets and capabilities, while taking every opportunity to train, operate and integrate with our NATO allies and partners.”
They are flown by a joint Royal Navy and Royal Air Force force based at Marham.
Operating them in the Arctic brings problems the Indo-Pacific deployment did not. Deck icing, salt spray freezing on surfaces, low cloud, short daylight and a sea state that moves the landing spot all bear on an aircraft that lands vertically onto a moving deck, and the maintainers work on an exposed flight deck in conditions that degrade both people and equipment faster than warm water does. Running a fifth-generation aircraft in that environment, and proving the stealth coatings, the sensors and the logistics chain can take it, is a large part of why the deployment is worth doing.
Russia’s Northern Fleet operates from the Kola Peninsula and the government’s Arctic Policy Framework, published this week, described it as capable of threatening Britain, Western Europe and North America, with expanded patrols and new capabilities across multiple domains. The same document committed Britain to stepping up its defence contribution in the region, including doubling the number of troops deployed to Norway to two thousand over the next three years and taking on a role in NATO air policing from Iceland.
The strike group will operate under NATO command and contribute to the alliance’s Neptune Strike series of exercises, working with Norway, Denmark and Germany. The Royal Navy said the focus of the phase is operational readiness, interoperability and preparedness to respond in a region it calls increasingly important.
Prince of Wales will also host the Atlantic Future Forum and the International Sea Power Conference in Oslo during the deployment, bringing defence leaders, industry and policymakers aboard to discuss Euro-Atlantic security.
The ship is due to leave Portsmouth Naval Base at 1700 on Sunday 18 October, weather permitting.
What size air wing can we deploy?
I bet it is not bigger than 8 F35’s or if so it won’t exceed 12 as there are not enough to cover training or maintenance post the Indo pacific deployment in 2025!
I think 8 on the Prince of Wales and 4 at Barafoss in northern Norway to show that the planes aren’t stuck on the aircraft carrier would be a good option, but I have no knowledge of any plans just pointing out where maximum learning could come from.
My spelling is terrible it should be Bardufoss
In theory we have 43 jets, so if the star aligned we could create a air group of 43 jets. Highly unlikely to be possible even in a war footing but in theory. More likely a max of 14, using the tutorial 1/3rd rule, altough probably more if pushed.
Andy, I don’t now. However….we had 24 F-35Bs for much of CSG25…and an unknown number of helicopters. No other nation on the planet, including the US, has deployed as many 5th gen stealth aircraft on a carrier.
But it’s all we’ve got!!!
All fur coat and no knickers.
Meanwhile ALL the US carriers (including the marine ones ) are stacked full, and even the French can put a decent air wing together.
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USMC stacked full! All 6 of them per ship🤣😂🤣😂
Not sure what you’re getting at. Real Men don’t need a coat or underwear.
I do think the general issue the RN has with generating the level of global deployments it needs do tend to get people distracted from the fact in war a UK carrier battle group of the carrier, 2 T23s, 2 T45s, an Asute, 24 F35Bs and a load of Merlin’s all backed by UK based strategic air power ( AEW, ASW and tankers) parked high in the Norwegian Sea is a problem Russia does not real have an answer to.. unless it wants to throw 40-50 year old maritime strike aircraft at a 5th generation air wing or risk its irreplaceable 3 modern SSNs by throwing them at probably the singe best ASW screen on the planet and I don’t think Russia would ever risk its SSNs on such a risky move…
Plus various European aew and aaw escorts looking for a home, conventional subs, and land-based aew and aaw stuff.
asw not aaw.
The only thing I’m dubious about are the 2 x T23s….two fifths of the remaining hulls….
If it was war and a very serious everything at it…but the quicker we have a fresh pair of T26s the better..
Nobody is doubting that is a decent capability, we just know theres nothing behind it. You’ve essentially just decribed our total available Navy on any given OP. Thats not good enough for a first rate Navy. You need way more than what we have because ships will 100% be getting sunk early on in any real fight. A couple of weeks in the fight and that task group will be shagged, what then?
Have you seen the state of the Russian Navy?
They will essentially be fighting 3-4 Russians escorts and probably 2 Russian SSNs… our ONLY saving grace is the fact the Russian navy is Even more fucked from a modernisation point of view.. Russia has no more depth to fight the RN than the RN has to fight Russia… the only difference is the RN has E NATO behind it with another 100+ escorts and 50 40+ subs.. and 3 more carriers.. with the US a bit further behind but with another load…
Looking at wiki Northern Fleet i would say 6 SSN 2 SSNG and 4 SSK are active. If they have intension for war they will probably deploy 2/3 ,there are also a couple more in reserves.
Hi Alex but only 3 of those SSNs are peers.. the SSGNs and 3 SSNs are 35-40 year old relics, they were not up to trafalgar or LA fight 2 standards…
The SSKs will not have the speed to engage a carrier battle ground or try to penetrate its ASW screen and those SSKs are old and must snorkel every couple of days… that would mean they are dead in the Norwegian Sea under NATO air cover…
The issue is if the UK and friends can use the carrier to guarantee air superiority then sea control and sub sea control fall into place and I’m not sure Russia has the platforms it would risk to break that…
IMO you are painting ASW with too much certainty.
You would need to paste the Norwegian sea with sonobuoys, which no country in post Cold War has quantities.
I doubt that UK has any sizeable number being without LRMP for so long to not talk about the minions…
If the CVTF is going to Norway the SSK can try to intercept.
Problem os we can no.longer manage 2 x Type 23, or 2 x Type 45. On this occasion there are no Type 23s so no ant-sub hunters and just the one Type 45. Pretty poor show as things go on our part.
Yes but if it was an actual shooting war they would move heaven and earth and not be worried about the peacetime constraints.
T45 availability is about to get an awful lot better. RN is coming out of the bottom of the availability curve.
I’m sure the couple of hundred sub-, ship-, and air-launched anti-ship missiles Russia’s Northern Fleet could muster against a British carrier group aren’t much of a threat.
Those missiles don’t just develop their own kill chain and fly themselves.. a platform has to detect, identify, track, target and engage the carrier battle group before they die.. and how is a fifty year old strike bomber going to do that in the face of AEW aircraft and F35s ? As for the surface fleet, a surface vessel does not survive in an area where the enemy has air control.. because the enemy Always gets the kill chain before it does ( radar horizons matter). Finally the SSNs which are the big threat.. Russia has only 3 SSNs in the northern fleet that could be considered peers.. the other 4 or so are essentially 40 year old relics… now is Russia going to risk its 1-2 active SSNs by throwing them at a carrier screen ? When Russia considers these boat utterly vital in the protection of its strategic deterrent ?
Assaulting Russias bastion under its air cover.. problematic and risks loss of irreplaceable platforms, Russia sending its platforms out into the Norwegian Sea to hunt a UK carrier group.. probably more problematic and likely to involve Russian lossing its plaforms.
Without an air-to- air refuling capability and a long-range AAM, those F-35Bs will provide a limited protection to those Poseidens and Wedgetails. At the same time, Russia can bring to bear some very long range AAMs that would threaten those Poseidens and Wedgetails.
The Airbus A330 Voyager can provide full flight refuelling to the F35s in the Norwegian Sea and the F35s have AIM-120D with a range of 100 miles.. the wedge tails will we able to detect any raid from 600+ miles.
USN typically deploy only 14 F35 on a carrier strike group. In addition to around 40 to 48 F18. The F18 is basically doing the heavy lifting, a bomb comes missile truck if you like. Not through a lack of F35, it’s the mix they require.
The USMC who operate the B variant as we do, deploy between 6 and 10 onboard ship. Typically 6 is the figure. Remember they are dedicated to ground support of the ARG. Also they are Expeditionary in name and in tactics. There plan is to get ashore as soon as possible to enable Close Support missions.
For the USN and USMC their is no plant to fill a ship with F35 of any description. They know it won’t work for them.
I don’t recall us having 24 planes for much of CSG25. I believe we had 18 most of the time. We increased to 24 on an exercise in the Mediterranean on the way back and spiked at 26 through cross-decking a couple of planes, I think from the Cavour. Earlier this year it was reported that although we had had the planes on the carriers, we only had enough spare parts to maintain 12 and extra had to be sent out from Marham to keep planes in the air.
We need to keep building up the numbers to make sure that the logistics are up to snuff, as well as the pilots, engineers and planes themselves.
Excellent news!!
As the JEF countries already have 130 F35A’s, and a lot more coming, I doubt whether our 6/8/10 (?) will make much difference.
They will in the bear gap which is the main thing the British carrier group will be doing in a shooting war. Holding the bear gap and threatening Murmansk.
And well within range of Russian aircraft and missiles..
So basically, a re-incarnation of Ilustrious and Invinvible with 5th gen stovl fighters and creaking asw frigates?
The comment has been made before that you don’t want to wear out all your F35 and subject them to the corrosive elements unnecessarily, so ..say 8.. is sufficient to keep skills up and so on. It is basically an exercise, not going to war.
AA
That’s a good capability when NATO assets are factored in and with the fleet size and lack of will to spend more a realistic mission.
The Invincible CVS would have done the ASW mission with a token planned load of 5 SHAR, so we were still reliant on other nations assets.
As critical as you can be about.yhe current fleet , even putting a down F35B on. QE is a vast uplift.
What would a war posture look like? French and Spanish fighters and MPA deploying to Iceland?
Combined German, Norwegian, UK P8s.
Norwegian and Swedish fighter sweeps supported by Voyager.
NATO SSK, a French SSN or two.
Plus Canadian and US ASW assets.
Pretty much dominates there Russians.
Spell check failure…has the edit/ delete function gone?
Years ago.