Royal Navy warships have been learning how to work as a Carrier Strike Group in preparation for the deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth.
The exercise saw a simulated British ‘Carrier Strike Group’ involving HMS Queen Elizabeth and 36 F-35B jets.
According to a press release, British personnel have been taking part in ‘Fleet Synthetic Training’, exercises used to put US Navy carrier strike groups through their paces.
The press release states:
“Working from the Maritime Composite Training System site at HMS Collingwood, US carrier strike groups, including the USS Harry S Truman, have worked with ops room personnel from HMS Dragon and HMS Richmond, both of which played the vital protection role for the carrier.
Regular and reserve personnel from across the Naval Service, as well as colleagues from the RAF and defence experts from the US have also been involved in the role-playing.”
Leading Writer Natalie Brady, of UK Carrier Strike Group said:
“The exercise allowed me to experience at first hand how impressive carrier strike will be with all the cutting-edge technology in the ships and aircraft.”
Commodore Betton said:
“Training in this way offers enormous benefit, not only in being more efficient and less expensive than live training, but also in allowing a highly-tailored training package, delivered in a short space of time, focussed on the specific training needs of the team.”
And to think a few years ago the internet whingers said we would never get the new carriers into service.
We are getting closer all the time.
I agree, but to be fair, politicians did a good job clouding the whole project in uncertainty. HMS Prince of Wales was tossed around more than a caesar salad between being mothballed, sold, scrapped, placed in reserve… Then the HMS Queen Elizabeth was to be fitted out in accordance with French and US navies with cat and doled out to them… Thankfully common sense has prevailed with costs being incurred as a result of it all…
Agreed Dave and there are now rumours that one may yet STILL be mothballed as the Navy is reportedly short of 500M…. crazy!
Rumour again,which you seem to want to turn into fact. Why do people jump onto unproven negatives .Alarm and despondency prevails
36 jets? So based in 2050 then.
Interesting the article doesn’t confirm the 36 jets will be ours……
Carrier battle group training is vital as a preparation for QE class entering service. The RN current force structure and lack of escort warships probably means we will only be able to support 1 carrier operating at a time. unless the RN gets an uplift in manpower 3000-5000 more personnel and resources (at least 26 frigates and destroyers) we will only be able to protect and deploy 1 carrier at a time. HMG needs to wake up to the fact that as an island nation we need a powerful navy able to safeguard British sea lines of communication, safeguarding trade… Read more »
We need a minimum of 12 escorts for the carrier groups – 6 assigned to each in a 1 on 1 off configuration. These would be deployed in 2 AAW (T45) and 4 ASW (T26). – although going forward this is likely to be T26 (with Sampson) and T31 with the T45’s retiring. We do however need another 24 escorts on top of this to do all the other stuff we are committed to. Given we currently have 15 Minehunters that can be replaced by the Atlas Arcims (or other) MHVC system, 19 Front line Escorts and 5/6 River class… Read more »
I don’t get why they didn’t pretend HMS Ocean was the carrier and escort it in a similar manor, when we had the UK battle group sailing south. Instead we didn’t even bother sending any escorts.
Couldn’t agree more steve