HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Carrier Strike Group are currently reinforcing the security of ‘Critical National Infrastructure’ as part of Exercise Neptune Strike.

The official account of the United Kingdom Carrier Strike Group, currently commanded by Commodore James Blackmore Royal Navy (COMUKCSG), tweeted the following.

Exercise Neptune Strike is a multi-domain exercise, organised and conducted by Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO). The overall point is to test and highlight the natural evolution of NATO’s ability to integrate maritime warfare capabilities of a carrier strike group to support Allied defence.

The carrier recently left Portsmouth for minor repairs and a logistics stop.

The UK Carrier Strike Group, led by flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth, recently completed the first phase of its autumn deployment. This involved participating in a series of simulated strike missions in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea alongside international naval partners.

“HMS Queen Elizabeth and her embarked jets and helicopters have proven their ability to provide the “punch” of the UK Carrier Strike Group during a series of simulated strike missions alongside international partners”, the press release stated.

Joining the aircraft carrier for these combat simulations were several ships from the UK and allied nations. Among these were the Type 45 destroyer HMS Diamond, Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker RFA Tideforce, Norwegian ships HNoMS Otto Sverdrup and HNoMS Maud, Dutch ships HNLMS De Zeven Provincien and HNLMS Van Amstel, and the Belgian frigate BNS Louise Marie.

The exercises featured HMS Queen Elizabeth’s F-35 Lightning fighter jets from 617 Squadron, Merlin helicopters from 820 Naval Air Squadron, and Wildcat helicopters from 815 and 847 Naval Air Squadrons. Their missions varied, ranging from defending against aerial threats to suppressing enemy air defences and executing strike attacks.

Additionally, HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Carrier Strike Group showcased their medical capabilities, including advanced resuscitation techniques, trauma surgery, and casualty evacuations.

The next phase of the deployment will feature UK forces collaborating with ships and personnel from Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) nations, which include countries such as Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

Commodore James Blackmore, Commander of the UK Carrier Strike Group, was quoted as saying, “CSG23 is off to a great start. Integrated training within the air and maritime environments, and alongside our European allies, has demonstrated the capability and agility of UK Carrier Strike.”

“Integrated training within the air and maritime environments, and alongside our European allies, has demonstrated the capability and agility of UK Carrier Strike”, reaffirmed Blackmore.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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53 COMMENTS

  1. is it normal for a carrier to come alongside to be replenished, or are we seeing the effects of having Fort Victoria unavailable for a significant period of time?

    • If you trawl around the net looking at the names of the RFA ships sold or retire, it’s amazing how many are still playing a trade years af th country decided that they weren’t up to the job anymore. It’s clear that the make up of the fleet support network is done on a ad hoc basis

    • She was in Portsmouth for repairs to the aircraft lifts.

      Fort Vic could be deployed on an unplanned CSG deployment now but is being saved for a deployment next year and then obviously the huge deployment in 2025.

  2. I see Kent has her NSM fit-out which is good to see but are they quad packs or just dual, I couldn’t quite make that detail out?

      • Oh interesting, thanks Paul, I thought Harpoon had been withdrawn completely. So, are these tubes vacant, or occupied, if you know what I mean? I suppose I don’t have the clearance to know the truth!

          • Indeed….. That’s why the QE are embarking Phantom, Buccaneer, Harrier and Sea Fury from RNAS Yeovilton…… POW will be getting Wasp, Swordfish and Scimitar apparently….. I’ll just get my coat……😎

          • It was a bit of a death trap, the FAW 1 was designed in such a way that it was almost impossible for the observer to escape..it was very difficult to land on a carrier..in the end over the decade of its service life 51 aircrew were lost as well as 40% of the airframes…50% of the accidents were fatal..which is a very very high number…

          • I hope the FAW 2was better ,did read some years back that there were plans for a Super Sea Vixen but the USA Phantom won the decision all political of course.However to keep the UK Aircraft workers in the deal that’s why RN Phantoms had Rolls Royce Engines.

          • They did try a bit with the FAW2 at least in theory the observer could eject….it was still a bit iffy evacuating…there was one case of a poor observe getting stuck halfway out the aircraft… as for the phantom in the end the RN did not have a lot of choice…essentially there was no real options from the UK after the total self destruction of the UK airo industry that was the madness behind 1957 defence white paper in which the UK government inexplicably decide that manned aircraft were no longer needed and basically binned every single developed program involving manned aircraft apart from the lightening….one of those profound bits of self harm that the UK government seems to engage in now and again…

          • Very true think what we may of had TSR2 etc .Sadly UK bad decision making still lives from time to time . 👍

          • A lot of fatalities came when Seavixens on bomb runs,top of the bomb runs, munitions arming blew the wings off.. rescuing the aircrews (crashes)was a nightmare. specially with the toasting fork ejecseat pin,and aircrew coming to mid rescue..🤪💩😇

          • It did have a few but they were in the early days…a coupe of prototypes had Fatal incidents ( with test pilot crews)..there was one failed launch that was fatal and another fatal crash in the 1980s when an airframe suffered catastrophic failure and broke up mice manoeuvre….but nothing like the death rate of sea vixen…at leat the crew had a chance of ejecting form a buccaneer….although I’m pretty sure for all time crashes of modern post war aircraft the harrier may take the. Biscuit…with 237 written off in accidents or lost in combat….infact a couple crashes near me, I was a plane spotter as a lad sent my time parked under the flight line

          • Buccaneer had Barostatic (underwater) auto ejection fitted..good job,seeing they were wave skimmers.Yanks hated exercising against them!👍

        • Harpoon Out of service date in the RN is due December 2023, so it’s not formally gone out of service yet….interestingly it’s still only been reported as a due date and not confirmed..as Supportive stated the world is in a very fine balance at present…I suspect harpoon will stay until it can no longer be certified as safe or NSM is fully operational….it would not surprise me if we actually saw harpoon running side by side with NSM until all or most of the escorts are refitted for NSM…it’s not the time to retire anything without replacing at present…you can feel the metaphorical balloon filling up…

          • Thoughts of Harpoon withdrawal and NSM fit-out make my mind wander and think about Herc withdrawal and whether we should have pen’d a deal for the other A400s that were mooted. That said, we’d be lucky to see anymore A400s in RAF colours for a couple of years, I’m sure. Same thoughts about Typhoon Tranche1 withdrawal and the E-7 order. Anyway, I mustn’t verbalise, I’ll only get people started on here!!! 😆

          • You’d think an obsolete missile which is bought and paid for woukd be better than no missile.

            Look at the quantity of obsolete kit being used in Ukraine.

  5. I guess this will be the norm once we retrench to the North Atlantic and North Sea. Pottering around a few miles off the coast protecting wind farms. Which is probably needed as its been found wind farms are interfering with onshore radar to such an extent the MoD has launched a project to seek new technologies to mitigate this. So far 3 years in there’s no solution. Retrenching naval assets as per Labour’s plan is an obvious solution.

      • I’ve nothing against renewables. In fact years ago I work on green energy projects in 2 developing countries well before the bandwagongot up a head of steam. I just don’t like the misrepresentation of the arguments where renewables are concerned.

          • Fairly obvious really massive investment in renewables under the guise of energy security. But the only way to secure ir is to have your Navy protecting it, especially when those renewables interfer with very shorebase radars meant to detect threats against them.

          • Still at least we can be net zero hey …..
            That should warm the cockels of your heart even if it won’t warm your dear ol’ bones on a mid winters day

          • Good point, so get rid of the carriers and use the escorts to protect the windfarms. The first defence review from the next government could be interesting.

          • Of course I didn’t say that. We got the carriers primarily to deliver air power beyond the range of our land air bases.
            No reason to use carriers in our back yard – they are for expeditionary warfare far from our shores. They are for ‘Global Britain duties’.
            Protecting undersea pipelines and oil rigs with a Carrier Strike Group – its just wasteful.

          • Yeah, you couldn’t make it up we’ll be spending the equivalent of over half of the defence budget on renewable energy and need most of the fleet to secure it. Just build 28 Dreadnoughts and plug them into the grid to give more reliable power generation.

        • The 7/2/23 speech? Healey makes lots of speeches to RUSI. I cannot find him saying we have to retrench to the North Atlantic and the North Sea.
          I have this: “However, our Indo-Pacific military commitments need realism. British Armed Forces are ill-served by leaders pretending they can do everything, everywhere. Especially as – over the last 13 years – UK full-time forces have been cut by over 45,000, one in five of the Navy’s surface ships have been scrapped and over 200 RAF planes have been taken out of service. Just as we would not expect Japan or Australia to deploy much of their military to Europe, nor does it make sense – especially at this moment – for UK forces to devote an increasing share of their scarce resources to the Indo-Pacific.“

          • This is a point. . All that’s left of the Armed forces after they’ve disappeared up their own assholes.😉👍

          • If you reading the whole speech its very against Global Britain and pro European. I voted remain btw

            “Just as we would not expect Japan or Australia to deploy much of their military to Europe, nor does it make sense – especially at this moment – for UK forces to devote an increasing share of their scarce resources to the Indo-Pacific.“

            Referring to Indo Pacific “We can support them with UK technology, capability, diplomacy. And of course, closer defence industrial cooperation”

            So not militarily.

            Other extracts

            Britain’s security strategy must be ‘Nato first’

            The first priority for Britain’s armed forces must be where the threats are greatest, not where the business opportunities lie.
            “This is in the Nato area – Europe, the North Atlantic, Arctic. This is also our primary obligation to our closest allies.
            “After Ukraine, European allies will have to take on more responsibility for European security.”

            The gung-ho promotion of ‘Global Britain’– which all too often means ‘anywhere but Europe’ – must end. 

            I think many would argue Australia, Japan, New Zealand are a close allies, some may say closer than some EU countries.

            Then there’s this,

            https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/london/20332.pdf

            https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-wants-defence-deal-british-29989575

            If you can find the same for non European nations form Labour then please share.

            If you read all this differently then fine, to me it looks like a push to move closer to home. Which is fine if that’s their policy, I don’t align to either Labour or Tories but its clear our armed force will be less global under Labour and therefore won’t need assets to project global power. Again fine if that’s what the British public vote for. Some may wish to pretend or believe otherwise because of political allegiances. The problem is with politics its very often ‘we need to do something opposite’ irrespective of if its the right thing to do.

          • I have a fair bit of time for Healey. It is a good initiative to have an bilateral arrangement with Germany – and one with Poland would be good too.
            I too think that we should step back from confronting China – let the US be the world’s policeman in that neck of the weoods as the USN is dominanat in the Pacific. But we should show support for Australasia – AUKUS may well be enough.

  6. A matter of curiosity, as the RN at present do not have a fixed wing Fleet Air Arm and therefore must share such activities as required with the RAF.
    Do we have a joint chief of staff were such matters are decided as to when and where the RAF will participate in Naval matters, or do the RAF have rule over the Senior Service ??

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