The UK Carrier Strike Group has announced that Italian F-35B fighter jets have operated from HMS Prince of Wales as part of Exercise MedStrike.
In a tweet, the Strike Group said: “Fantastic to welcome Vice Admiral Aurelio De Carolis, Commander in Chief of the Italian Navy Fleet. Truly impressive to see their F35B fighter jets operating from @HMSPWLS during Exercise MedStrike.”
Exercise MedStrike is currently underway in the Ionian Sea, between Taranto and Sicily, bringing together two carrier strike groups, 21 warships, three submarines, 41 fast jets, 19 helicopters, ten patrol aircraft, and more than 8,000 personnel from allied nations.
Fantastic to welcome Vice Admiral Aurelio De Carolis, Commander in Chief of the @ItalianNavy Fleet.
Truly impressive to see their F35B fighter jets operating from @HMSPWLS during Exercise MedStrike. #UKItaly #CSG25 #MedStrike #ITSCavour #strongerTogether pic.twitter.com/Q5HYuzwTZR
— UK Carrier Strike Group (@COMUKCSG) May 9, 2025
The exercise, which runs from May 5 to May 11, aims to integrate and train NATO forces in a range of operations, including anti-submarine warfare and air defence.
The Italian Navy’s Carrier Strike Group, led by the aircraft carrier ITS Cavour, is working alongside the UK Carrier Strike Group to enhance operational cooperation. Commodore James Blackmore, Commander of the UK Carrier Strike Group, described the exercise as a significant test of skills alongside NATO allies in a strategically vital region. He noted:
“Working at the heart of a powerful NATO force sends a strong message and shows clearly the phenomenal capabilities that not only the UK possesses but the alliance as a whole.”
The exercise is part of the UK’s ongoing global deployment under Operation Highmast, aimed at reinforcing security in the Mediterranean and Indo-Pacific regions. Participating nations include Canada, France, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Türkiye, and the United States, highlighting the multilateral nature of the operation.
Operation Highmast itself is the UK Carrier Strike Group’s headline global deployment for 2025, led by HMS Prince of Wales. The mission spans eight months, covering the Mediterranean, Indo-Pacific, and other key regions, aiming to reinforce UK and allied presence while demonstrating maritime power and cooperation. The deployment involves air, sea, and land forces from multiple NATO and partner nations.
Is that a harrier that I see as well?
Good eyes, they’re dinky compared to the f36 stent yhey
not exactly stealthy those harriers were they?
Yep ITS Cavour currently operates a mixed airwing of 6 F35Bs, 9 Harrier AV8-Bs and a dozen or so mixed helicopters. Cavour is about the same size and equivalent to ex HMS Hermes.
I think it’s only 4 rotors when they have the harriers and f35s
Yes, for about 5 seconds I was SO excited to see Harriers parked up on the POW! Then I realised…
Yes, 4 Harriers in the picture at Cavour stern.
Unpossible! We were told cross decking could only be done with a CATOBAR carrier.
That was before everyone and his mother actually decided the RN was onto a serious thing with F35b carriers.. now there will be more F35b carriers than CATOBAR carriers..
To be fair, most STOVL carrier nations where STOVL operators before the RN bought F-35. The Italians had Guiseppe Garibaldi operating harriers since the 80’s, Spain’s Juan Carlos I predates F-35, Thailands carrier was a Harrier carrier before it ran out of spare parts, the USMC was a Harrier force, and Japan was never going to CATOBAR it’s destroyers.
and won’t take long either.
The Queen Elizabeth Class where originally suppose to operate Harriers while waiting for F35B then Dave came along and scrapped everything to save a couple of quid.
Not everything, all Harrier GR7, all the Sea Harriers, and I think many of the GR9s had already been cut.
But yes, what were left, Dave cut.
the pathetic sum of116 million for the 72bharriers to get given to the US was as bad a deal as the first UK got for ocean
It’s worth remembering that Italy is ordering 40 F35Bs but will probably only ever be able to operate one squadron from its carrier.. it will also have around 100 f35A so does not really need its F35Bs for land based ops.. this means it’s very likely that if E NATO ever went to war or a European force had to have a large carrier airwing somewhere..Italy is the one place an Elizabeth could grab any extra European f35b squadron from as even if they load up their own Carrier they will still have a squadron left over ( they are planning for 1 airforce and 1 navy f35 squadron.. both of which will rota onto the carrier).
It does mean that Europe as a whole will have 5 f35b squadrons.
I think you need to remember that the Italian Navy also flies F-35 off Trieste, so we’re probably looking at 24 aircraft flying off Italian flat tops, and the remaining 16 being reserves and OCU, so while Italy may from time to time deploy F-35’s onto a QE for combined ops, I don’t think it’s a given that the 2nd Italian squadron would fly from a RN flat top.
Not yet.
With trieste the navies plan is more “ fitted for not with F35” its primary function and design is as an amphibious vessel, it will have an emergency secondary role as a limited carrier, but only half a squadron of F35bs. Essentially the trieste is fitted this way so if the carrier is in refit or out for some reason they can still generate fixed wing navel air cover. But if the carrier is operational they would tend to be using Trieste for its primary function..loaded up with amphibious forces. Trieste is not really a true carrier, its a very well built multi purpose LHD.
Trieste is now clearly thought as 2nd carrier first than LHD by Italian Navy.
There is even some talk that the 3 new LPD’s might be replaced by one more Trieste like instead.
I feel like the media is really under reporting on the CSG so far. Wish we had more media about it.
Suggestion: After we reach the 48 committed B models, let’s switch the rest (hopefully another 48 or so) to C models to benefit from longer legs and bigger bays. Initially the B model operated with a CSG bias and the C model from land bases. That way if we ever decide to do a CATOBAR conversion, the jets would be ready.
C model seems to be a bit cheaper too.
I know, I know.. 2 models, loss of operating efficiency etc. But the Italians can do it..
The Italians can do it, but they have zero cost savings from it, and the Italian Carrier force is small enough that they can never embark more than about 25 F35’s at any one time.
The British Carrier Force can embark north of 70 F35’s.
North of 70 jets on paper but is there realistically any chance of ever fielding such a UK sovereign force afloat with a shared pool of perhaps 80 or so airframes in total? Vanishingly small I’d argue.
I suppose the thing that concerns me is an inevitable squabble for fast jet resources leading to the carrier being denuded of the resources it needs to be effective. It may be better to reintroduce some specialisation which – as I understand it – was the reason the FAA was created in the first place (and the RAF, and USAF for that matter). If you buy that argument then a split buy starts to make some sense – particularly actually if the other part of the buy is the A model (again as Italy has done) since these appear to be around 30% cheaper to buy. Lastly, with so many European nations procuring the A model, I wonder whether the arguments around dis-economies of scale of a split buy really still hold water.
You’ve completely missed the point:
Italy. Anything above 24+ training fleet and attritional reserve can’t embark on carriers.
Uk. Can embark entire F35 fleet on its carriers.
We need more than 48Bs
We clearly need more than 48 jets, just not sure they all need to be Bs – reasoning above.
48 is not even enough for 1 carrier
A mixed F35 Fleet would involve the ‘A’ and ‘B’ versions,not the ‘C’, i don’t think the MOD is capable enough of thinking outside of the Box to consider the ‘C’.
A is much cheaper than B&VC and has better performance than B. The main drawback is boom refueling. Best solution, given our Air Tanker contract, is to donate some of it to the European Tanker Pool in return for access to boom refueling tankers from that, and backfill the donated capacity with a couple of A330s with booms. We also get to refuel P8s and E7s for starters.
And that it can’t fly off a Carrier, which in turn limits the carrier Airwings. Remember that 2 QE’s at sea with full warloads is north of 70 F-35’s.
we’ll never reach that. Yes it was conceived at that volume but I expect 2 x 18-20 will be the new max, with the rest being UAVs and helos. An A/B split means likely the entirety of the B fleet will be dedicated to the carriers as the As can handle the RAF’s stand-alone land-based tasks
Same as OOA. Congratulations on missing the point.
Italy split buying does not reduce its max carrier airing because it can only embark 20ish airframes.
The UK can embark 70 fighters. Which means every F35 that can’t land on a carrier is a potential limitation on strike power.
Since you agree we are never going to have more than 70 F35s, then they should all be able to surge onto the carriers.
Lockheed has already stated they can build the F-35A with the F-35C refueling receptacle. Nobody has optioned it yet, but it was rumored to be offered to Canada.
Neither deal that bad for end of life kit. Ocean was only expected to be in service about 20yrs and was cheap (£154m) in the first place, so getting £84m back for it and saving on running costs made sense given budget constraints. We essentially paid £70m for it. Same with the harriers – we’d binned them to save running costs, money made from selling the fleet was a bonus really, they mainly went for parts.
Not stealth at all except to civilian radars. 1930s chain home can see them as can anything with an L band set.
Like the su34 for example and s300, s409, s500, s550. Buk M3, pantsir and most AWACS
Everyone has the tracking algorithms now which is why they have to try and increase their standoff ranges.
^ this is a complete myth that gets peddled a lot apparently.