HMS Queen Elizabeth is sailing to conduct Carrier Qualifications as well as Landing Signal Officer qualifications with 207 Squadron, the UK’s F-35 Lightning training squadron.

The vessel will begin to leave Portsmouth Harbour around 8:30am on Tuesday.

 

It hasn’t been revealed where in UK waters the latest round of fixed wing flights will take place, but we’ll do our best to keep you updated!

Next year, HMS Queen Elizabeth will deploy operationally with two frigates, two destroyers, a nuclear submarine and support vessels.

Commodore Michael Utley, Commander United Kingdom Carrier Strike Group, is reported by Save The Royal Navy here as saying that HMS Queen Elizabeth will be escorted by two Type 45 destroyers, two Type 23 frigates, a nuclear submarine, a Tide-class tanker and RFA Fort Victoria. The ship will also carry 24 F-35B jets, including US Marine Corps aircraft, in addition to a number of helicopters.

Prior to the deployment, it is understood that the Queen Elizabeth carrier strike group will go through a work-up trial off the west Hebrides range sometime in early 2021.

When asked about whether or not the UK has enough escorts to do this without impacting other commitment, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said:

“The size and the scale of the escort depends on the deployments and the task that the carrier is involved in. If it is a NATO tasking in the north Atlantic, for example, you would expect an international contribution to those types of taskings, in the same way as we sometimes escort the French carrier or American carriers to make up that.

It is definitely our intention, though, that the carrier strike group will be able to be a wholly UK sovereign deployable group. Now, it is probably not necessary to do that every single time we do it, depending on the tasking, but we want to do that and test doing it. Once we have done that, depending on the deployment, of course, we will cut our cloth as required.”

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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8 COMMENTS

  1. Good luck to the officers and crew of the QE and 207 sqn, don’t prang one of the F35s.
    As for the tasking next year, it looks like a reasonable Carrier Task Group, possibly the Americans can throw in a Cruiser and Destroyer. I just keep thinking that it might be a good idea to have the CTG on a fixed bases, what I mean is once the DDGs, FFGs and RFAs have been allocated then they stay with the Carrier, on operations, go in for refit at the same time, train at the same time etc. That way in times of peace one complete CTG is at home going through refit, repair, training, leave etc and one operational. It also means that only three crews would be needed for the two CTGs. The extra DDGs and T26s would work with the Amphibious Group and the T31 for independent operations. I would like to see five more T31s or better yet ten corvettes more like the Khareef or Sa’ar 6 classes and their cost, they are about £120 million each. By having the corvettes it would be possible to have five squadrons made up of a T31 and two corvettes, three on overseas deployment for example 1 squadron in the Persian Gulf, one in the West Indies and one where its needed or to show the flag, one undergoing refit and repair and the final one on work up. That then also means that the Batch II OPVs except the Falklands OPV could come home and work in the fishery protection role and the T31 squadron that is working up would take care of English Channel escort duties.
    So could we please have an extra £2 billion over five build years for the Royal Navy please and a thousand more sailors. Before people shout about another £2 billion, about 50% of that will come back to the treasury in taxes, income tax, VAT on extra purchases etc, it is also possible that with the extra work created 500-1000 people might be taking of unemployement payments saving say £250 per week per person (unemployement benifit, housing benifit, coucil tax) or £125,000- £250,000 per week or £6.5-£13 million per year or up to £65 million over the five year project time saved all be it from a different government department.
    I left a lot of lee way in the overall cost it should be more like £1.5 billion or £300 million per build year but I did include the salaries for an extra thousand sailors avaraging £35k per year.
    With the T26s and T31s being built in Scotland, hopefully the new FSS Ships would be built in Liverpool or Belfast the corvettes could be built in a reopened Appledore/Portsmouth or up in Newcastle. That would really help some of the more deprived areas of the country. Who knows if we can build a good 2,000-2,500 max 3,000 ton and about 100m in lenght corvette we might even get some overseas orders.

    • I’m not sure why we cannot go back to the Rating System. A 1st rate would be a carrier, a helicopter carrier 2nd Rate, an AA Destroyer 3rd Rate, anti Sub 4th Rate, General Purpose 5th etc…

    • All our escorts need to be able to do CTG duty as & when needed, so I think making it a fixed team is a non-starter given our tiny, over-stretched, aging(T26) escort fleet. Cancel HS2 & use some to give us a few more FFGs.

      • I agree, £100billion+ to save 20 mins and only to the Midlands and central England. What could defence do with that extra budget over ten years, as I said in my original post give me an extra £2 billion over five years and I would give the RN an extra ten corvettes, 1000 extra men and two squadrons of three Hamina class attack boats. Or better yet, £10 billion over ten years and you will get the three FSS Ships, three Canberra class, ten corvettes, six attack boats and eight air independent diesel attack submarines such as the Soryu class
        Added to the future T26s and T31s the two carriers and six T45s that really would give the RN a punch. The Army would also benifit as they could use the Canberras to land three armoured battle groups (an ABG is 14 Tanks, 28 Warriors, Artillery, Air Defence, Long Range Anti Tank, and engineers plus the foot sloggers, about 700 men, the Canberra class can take over a 1000 men and equipment so the ABG could be re inforced with the RM) and the RAF would have five platforms to play with the F35s.
        Yeep that sound expensive but think about it diffrently, the London Olympics cost $10.5 billion converted thats about £9 billion. What did we get something that lasted a month, much of which got torn down and then more money spent to convert to a football stadium.
        With the same investment the RN has punch for 30 years, the army has flexiblity, the RAF has platforms. It would take ten years to build almost 300,000 tons of shipping. From the overall cost almost 50% would come back to the Treasury through taxes, income tax, VAT etc. An extra 10,000 jobs would ether be secured or created almost a 50-50 split meaning 5000 people would not be claiming benifits meaning more savings to the treasury. Plus a further saving of £90 billion for somthing that might save 20 minutes on a journey.
        Give the Army and RAF £10 billion each and the rest of the HS2 budget on the NHS say £30 billion and schools £15 billion, £15 billion for social housing and £10 billion for roads and the country would be quite happy it would create tens of thousands of jobs, so bin the HS2 project. The money is planned to be spent so spend it whee it is needed.

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