Merlin helicopters from HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Portland have dropped underwater weapons.

820 Naval Air Squadron have performed the first Training Variant Torpedo (TVT) drop from a Merlin launched from a Queen Elizabeth Class Carrier.

More detail in the tweet below.

 

What is HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Carrier Strike Group doing?

The Royal Navy say that the aircraft carrier, crewed by up to 900 sailors, with her F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters and Merlin helicopters, is leading a mixed group of warships from various nations in the waters of northern Europe.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said:

“The UK leadership of this international strike group shows the strength of our commitment to working with Allies to promote security in Europe and demonstrate our resolve against any threat from potential adversaries.

With both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales deployed simultaneously, the Royal Navy sends a strong message that the UK’s capability for carrier operations is among the strongest in the world.”

The first phase saw the carrier’s deployment saw F35 fighter jets taking part in Exercise Cobra Warrior, the RAF’s largest bi-annual exercise, including aircraft from the Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the UK taking part in joint exercises.

The 18-day exercise involved RAF Typhoon and F35 jets, A400M and C17 transport aircraft, and Voyager air tankers, developing interoperability alongside allied aircraft and practicing integration between fourth and fifth generation fighter aircraft across air, sea, and land.

Commodore James Blackmore, Commander of the Carrier Strike Group, said:

“It is with much eagerness that the UK Carrier Strike Group is now assembling for deployed operations – the first time the UK CSG will be under my command. This autumn’s deployment showcases the UK’s capability to operate at range from the UK and demonstrates our continued commitment to North Atlantic security.

The Carrier Strike Group is an agile and highly capable force and we are excited to be heading to the North Sea and North Atlantic along with our International Partner Nations to reinforce security across the region.”

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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33 COMMENTS

        • Kudos to the BBC on this one. Intelligence and political failures. Can’t see overconfident and arrogant Netanyahu lasting long when the dust settles. Looks like he was congratulating himself prematurely on his deal with SA. He underestimated Iran: the Daily Telegraph are spot on about Iran. They are intent on displacing SA as the regional power in the ME. They fund Hezbolla, Hamas, Houthi in Yemen, build and sell drones to Russia. They are ruthlessly exploiting the Palestinian sense of injustice, fuelling the fire with Islamic fundamentalism and provoking Israel to overreact. We need to call a spade a spade: Iran’s Ayatolla Ali Khamenei and his team are Evil incarnate.

        • He thinks it’s a disgrace that he hasn’t managed to divert more of it into his wife and mates bank accounts….

          If he could achieve that is a given he would increase the budget significantly.

        • Whilst I don’t rate Shapps he did at least state that the defence budget needed to be increased substantially.

          I do think we need to move on this pretty fast now. It should have been done two years ago when we had the Ukrainian wake up call.

          It is not impossible as Hunt is the son of an admiral. Hunt also is getting increasing flexibility as the UK finances are recovering faster than most people thought that they would do.

          The fact that P8(s) are being sent to keep an eye on things is significant and I would be surprised if that fleet isn’t boosted as the one thing that Mad Vlad has are subs and we (NATO) are short of subs and the UK very short.

          Whilst sending Argus may appear strange it is a good Cab platform for medium intensity operations and she can support Merlin, Lynx or Apache.

          With the Argentinians being given 24 F16’s to make mischief with that will require more combat frames down South. So there is another area that will need to be boosted. Mind you the cheapest solution would be to offer the Danes double the money and donate the F16’s to Ukraine – I suspect the Danes would prefer that anyway as it enhances their security without annoying a NATO partner.

          • Yes it’s all steadily declining….the thing is it’s pretty guaranteed that Hamas were “supported” by Iran and therefore probably Russia….we are seeing a bit of a geopolitical snowball with a deterioration of security picture across the globe and if not carful we are slow rolling into something that could end up looking like a world war.

          • Israel’s plan seems to be a sweep of the Gaza strip pushing all the civilian population out and into Egypt as refugees. Once that is completed they will slam the border shut and not let anyone back in. Gaza will be subsumed into Israel as more land and rebuilt devoid of its original inhabitants.
            The recent Israeli attacks on Syrian airports were a message and the first attempt to stem the flow of arms into Gaza or Lebanon.

          • Ok. So war crimes by Hamas are to be followed by war crimes by Israel. That could bring in all the Arab states plus Hezbollah in a major Mid East war

          • That’s Hamas and Iran’s plan mate, relying on the extreme, and expected response by Israel to reduce over a short period of time any international sympathy and support they had and hope to garner moral and possible physical support from the old alliance of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria!

          • Irans plan …. yet it was all unknown to Israeli and US intell

            But you are sharing your own intell which supposedly is so much superior to those 2.
            ROFL

          • Agree with you SB, what does seem to bug me about the PM is every time he is asked about defence spending he plays the same old record saying he’s has put more in than anyone since the cold war with a smile on is face.Which maybe the case .Trouble is it’s not enough and he knows it but keeps useing same old record again and again.No interest what so ever and yet our forces are expected to do more. 🍺🇬🇧

        • Sunak is probably thinking. I wonder how we can get the defence budget to buy some goods or services from one of the companies he and his wife own or have shares in. He is a money man. Doesn’t care about anything else. Same goes for Hunt.
          When you have such low moral values in power don’t expect them to do the right thing or to invest in our armed forces to properly prepare for the coming conflict.
          Utter folly.

          • IT’s Crazy doesn’t care about this Flag 🇬🇧 more for this one maybe 🇮🇳 or am out of order .

          • Well, you are probably out of order 🙂
            What Rishi Sunak’s career illustrates is the extraordinary advantage conferred by education at a top public school. His GP father and pharmacist mother earned enough from the NHS to pay his Winchester school fees of around £40k per year! Not only did Winchester (a good school) ensure his talents were realised but crucially that’s where you join the network that facilitates your route to ‘the top’. Join the condervative party, on to Oxford, Stanford and Goldman Sachs and $$$ fall out of the sky.Top it all off by marrying an Indian millionairess while you are in California and Bobs your uncle…a British Asian becomes ‘one of us’ and Prime Minister. Its a kind of manufacturing process for producing Conservative leaders. Sunak is a decent guy and smart but is a pawn in a chess game – the survival of the Conservative party as ‘default’ rulers of the country. When we beheaded Charles 1 we didn’t abolish the divine right to rule….it passed to the Tory party 🙂

          • nice summary of the rise of rishi, think we are all getting tired of the elite PM’s the tory party select for us. the tory membership is hardly reflective of the country as a whole. – 172,000 members as of September 2022

          • Whether we are all fed up we will see come the general election. Its difficult to paint the picture of how things work without being accused of class warfare…you can seeethe Daily Mail headlines ‘ the politics of envy’. But what the conservatives have have managed to do is to convince people that to be British you have to vote Tory – and subscribe to that value set; that Britishness and Conservatism are one in the same thing. It’s a con trick. The Conservative idea of levelling up is to have as many tory voters in the North as they have Ihe South.

          • It is but it has a nuclear deterrent to fund. Nuclear submarines, pensions for a lot of service people and loads of other items that aren’t included in other countries budgets. Plus GDP isn’t a great measurement as things in the U.K. cost a lot more than other countries.
            In China they can get 10-20x the value per £ spent compared to the U.K. some countries it’s even higher.

  2. Looking at the 4th ‘X’ (Twitter) pic of Portland, has this received NSM? It looks to me like there is some framework directly beneath the bridge, where Harpoon used to be?

  4. Is it really that expensive or technical to integrate Martlet and Sea Venom onto the Merlins? or is there a reason only Torpedos are carried by them ?

    seems like we are missing a trick with the limited number of airframes our political masters have decided the RN should have .

    🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

    • Put it another way

      Is it really that expensive or technical to integrate dipping sonar and sonobuoys onto the Wildcats or is there a reason they are not carried by them ?
      seems like we are missing a trick with the limited number of airframes our political masters have decided the RN should have .

      The answer will be the same. Airframe suitability and prohibitive cost Vs Operational capability.

      • I see , I note though the airframes are designed to carry 2 missiles and I might be wrong but some operators either still do or did operate them with missiles?.

        However that said as ever you have illuminated the crux of the matter cost cost cost vs capability 👍🏻

        🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

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