In an awe-inspiring display of British air and sea power, HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Carrier Strike Group have showcased their round-the-clock operational capability in a new video.

The video, posted on Twitter by the official account of the UK Carrier Strike Group, offers a rare glimpse into the intense and steadfast nature of maritime operations.

What is the Carrier Strike Group doing?

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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63 COMMENTS

  1. First again although I’ll appear about 15th 😂 absolutely awesome display of how first class the RN is without doubt the king of naval aviation in HMS QE . To all the shitehoose naysayers on here we have and can do what nearly everyone else can only dream about👊🏼

    🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

  2. we may not have that many planes, as of yet, but these men and women sailors are working their guts of, in all weathers to be ready,
    professionals at their best, and proud.
    shame they are not appreciated more by those in charge.
    just saying?

    • I don’t know how many planes are needed to optimise the sortie generation rate, which was the key metric the ships were designed around. Obviously there’s a minimum requirement for sustained operation, but I am getting a bit tired of people constantly complaining that the decks aren’t packed out with aircraft.

      • 36 for a daily sortie total of 108. This ambition was the key factor in almost doubling the initial planned size of the carriers.

        • No chance of that ever happening – although i assume thats for one carrier and not the 2 (as people seems to change those goalposts at will to suit whatever arguement they are making at the time).
          So 36 F35B’s then for 1 carrier – not sure when that number is scheduled- as there will never be 72 available for both?

          • No arguments are being changed, It’s what they were designed for. 36 or 38, that’s why it’s so big. 8 is what we have managed so far after 6 years plus the 12 USMC aircraft.

          • Because I’m only talking about the actual facts and designed capacity of F35b’s which were the 38 mentioned ( or 36, or 42 depending on which source you read) Helicopter numbers and types were and remain additional options for a mixed and varied load.

          • We have over 70 aircraft confirmed for purchase and all will be trained and carrier capable so why don’t you think we can put 36 on the deck?

            How often are we ever going to need 108 sorties a day?

            These carriers a floating forward operating bases able to handle fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft and carry hundreds of soldiers.

            Their not designed to sale round the world with dozens of low end 4th Gen aircraft to threaten second and third tier powers.

          • Mate, two carriers were designed with the specific capability to carry 36, 38, 42 or even more plus and in addition to other aircrafts and 138 F35’s was the initial number ( well 150 originally) … envisaged. What are you not getting about all that…. Do you choose to just ignore facts ?
            .

          • Yep very true but the way things stand reaching these numbers is like flocking a dead horse 🐎 sadly 👍

          • I think that Tempest is part of the issue: the RAF have (belatedly) realised that supporting British industry tends to get you more investment (as the Navy have done with their ships), and seem happy to wait for the jam tomorrow and save the money on F35s (and upgraded Typhoons) for that bright future. The problem is that leaves us with insufficient combat air, without even adding the additional requirement of these carriers.

            The carriers are incredible. We should invest in the aircraft (F35s, Merlins, and Predator drones if the trial goes well) to truly let them fulfil their potential.

            The RAF cannot wait until 2040 to have enough aircraft: they need more combat air, either typhoons (maybe with loyal wingman) or F35s. We will have 100 typhoons and 48 F35s in 2025. We need closer to 200 or preferably 250 aircraft.

          • They we designed to carry 40 aircraft, it was never specified that this would be 36 F35’s.

            The carriers were always designed around the concept of operating different air groups based on different mission sets.

          • There was never an aspiration to have both carriers with 36 F-35s simultaneously. The idea of having two carriers is to make sure there is always one available at reasonably short notice.

            There were discussions to have three carriers, two UK one French, scheduled to ensure one would always be immediately available, but that didn’t come off.

            There was also talk about how it might be possible for the two UK carriers to work together during war time, but only one would be kitted out as a strike carrier. The other would have maybe 8 F-35s and helicopters for amphibious work. I don’t think the specialist amphibious configuration worked out either.

            What was rarely talked about during construction that currently seems to be almost a given is that the F-35 capability will be bulked out by drones. There certainly didn’t seem to be joined up thinking expressed about what that would do to the core F-35 capability. While I think it’s inevitable, I’d hope it doesn’t lead to a reduction in the initial aspiration to run a surge 36 x F-35 strike carrier.

            Once that’s there, we can look at configurations such as 18 F-35 and 24 loyal wingman drones, but unless we want to spend twenty years reaching a reasonable strike CONOPS, we need to plough on, working towards the full F-35B + rotary capability. There seems to be growing emphasis on the need to fight tonight, not just in a decade [and about time too]. Even though the F-35 isn’t fully ready, it’s a lot more ready than any loyal wingman drone, especially for V/STOL carriers. It’s not like any extra F-35s time won’t be grabbed by the RAF in a heartbeat when drones subsequently reduce the requirement for F-35s on the carriers.

          • Hi Jon – that too is my understanding – one for jet ops, one as a hybrid commando/helo carrier. Makes good sense.

          • In essence thats exactly why I mentioned ” which ever arguement to suit” …and is the epitome of the circular.conflated arguements regards the carriers availability and usage on here.
            The bottom line is either we want 2 carriers fully ‘armed’ or …we dont…
            70 F35b;s in total wil not provide contingency to do both so I imagine there will only ever be 1 really available- and even that will in truth never be fully armed as far as I can see.
            The F35B program in relation to the carriers is in reality at bit of a damp squib-or at worst a bit of a joke.

          • I have followed the carrier story from its inception in the Labour government defence review of 1998. There was concern about a reduction from 3 Invincibles to 2 new hulls, countered by the clear ambition to build larger vessels. Once we decided to join, and part fund the F35 programme, the size of the new design grew substantially, driven as lord west explained in 2004 by the ambition to be able to fly 100+ daily sorties, this requiring@ 36 aircraft.
            I have never been a fan of the carrier programme, concerned above all about how much would need to be lost or delayed to fund them and their aircraft.
            But we have them and it is worth comparing what we have now with what we had before. Only the Ark Royal ever operated supersonic aircraft, @ 12 F4s. Eagle never did with a fleet of obsolete Sea Vixens for fighter operations. So even with the current small numbers of F35s, our carrier capability is greater than anything we have had since 1960. If we can deploy with 24 F35s in 2024/5, the huge cost starts to look worth it.
            If Mohave trials on POW are successful, we may be able to avoid the large costs of fitting an EMAL system to operate large UCAVs.
            If we never reach the maximum aircraft numbers for which the they were designed, the carriers could be enhanced by increased self defence systems, reducing the present near total reliance on our inadequate numbers of escorts.
            But it is all taking a very long time.

      • You may well be fed up with people complaining about the number of aircraft on deck but the U.S. has just sent two carriers with eighteen squadrons to the Med. Meanwhile we, after six years have two carriers at sea with eight aircraft between them. Fat chance of us ever being global Britain. For any tempted to tell me that everything will be alright in five or ten years time please don’t bother because like Ian I’m tired of it.😏

        • Why would we send the carriers out with every single aircraft we own? It makes no sense to do so.

          Other aircraft will be in maintenance or being used for training other pilots which is just as important as doing at sea based exercises.

        • There is a stated goal of putting 24 UK fighters on the carrier for CSG ’25, about 18 months from now.

          To achieve that will take a massive amount of training, not just of the pilots, also the 500 or so aircrew needed to support the fixed-wing contingent alone.

          Whatever plan is mapped out to reach that will require planes and trainers to be prioritised for the training programme. While it would be nice for everyone to be already trained and getting in some ship time, that’s clearly not the current situation, and if that means we can only afford to put eight F-35s on a carrier right now, then that’s what it means. Taking people away from training would be the wrong move. And let’s not forget we’ll also have F-35s flying in Eastern Europe for the foreseeable future, monitoring the situation in Ukraine.

          I think even getting two fully trained carrier squadrons by May ’25 will not be a gimme.

          • So, as I have said many times, down the road, if we have the planes, if the crews are trained, if we have the budget….IF is the order of the day with UK defence.

        • Sqns of 1970s designed F18’s that would be sat on deck while our F35B’s would be taking part in the first night of war sorties against advanced integrated air defence systems. The most advanced and capable fighters mankind has produced. 8,12,16, 20, whatever the max number we could deploy now in late 2023 is enough to make a massive difference to the battle space in any conflict, paving the way for those F18’s and other 4th gen aircraft that wouldn’t be taking part on night 1. The F35 fleet is growing. The French don’t have 5th gen stealth capability. They only have 42 Rafale M’s after many more years of service and one part-time carrier. We are not the USA with a USA sized defence budget or economy. It’s pointless to make that type of comparison. We are planning to deploy 24 British F35B’s to the Far East on POW in 2025. No other nation outside of the US will possess that kind of capability or deployabilty. And with so much more still to come with UCAV’S, new weapons, T26, T45 weapons upgrade ect. FC/ASW, SPEAR3, Meteor ect. That will be a hugely capable carrier strike task force in the future.

      • I’d. Be impressed to see a full surge exercise held where we can see if they do what’s on the tin and generate a 24 hour sortie rate.to the expected numbers

      • But the whole point of this discussion basically boils down to, Why build two large carriers capable (as designed) of carrying and operating at least 36 F35b’s in addition to other aircraft (as planned) if all we have now is excuses and comparisons to long gone assets ? Seems to me we all bemoan the lack of “everything” yet condone the lack of F35’s. Why is that…. why bemoan the lack of Escorts, Merlins, Subs, Tanks, Wedgies, C130s, Army personnel ,ASM’s in fact virtually everything yet for some reason, we seem to be happy with this carrier situation….. It’s beyond my thinking 🤔

        • Don’t worry by 2027 both carriers will be gone imo. It solves a lot of problems once they’re gone. Firstly we don’t need escorts so frees up a huge part of the fleet. We can buy the F35A which is cheaper so we can buy more. Lastly people can stopping moaning about how rubbish they are.

          However the carrier situation, if it does stay, is a rare increase in capability. We very rarely deployed more than 4 Harriers for instance. Those Harriers would last minutes in contested airspace. 2 QE class offers more deck space and higher sortie rate than we had with three through deck cruisers. There’s only one other Navy currently able to deploy 5th gen aircraft at sea. Japan will follow soon, but there carriers are smaller and lower sortie rate. The main issue is the low buy rate which is because of delays in the F35 program but thats not entirely in our control. If we’d not opted for the F35 we’d need emals which also suffered delays, so had we gone that route we would have been still be in the early stages of working up the first carrier, so around 3 years behind where we are. With catapults, we could have bought F18 which is out of production or Rafale, the later is no cheaper than the F35 and a 4th gen design.

          Not having fixed wing AEW is a shortcoming but we haven’t had that since the Ganetts were retired. But with the deck space we this could be explored. That was never an option before the QE class.

          I’m more disappointed Ocean wasn’t replaced than the carrier story which is rare positive shame they won’t see out the decade imo.

    • Yes, I wonder if we send a QE class to the Norwegian sea with 8 F35B and 9 Merlin’s and we send a Nimitz class with 40 F18, 10 F35C, 4 E2,s and 4 sea hawks which ship would find the most submarines and survive the longest. Actually doing this in October and November I wonder how many CATOBAR aircraft would get off the deck on a given day much less the utility of an F18 or E2 looking for submarines.

      QE class and Nimitz/Ford class are designed around completely different concepts.

      Just like in WW2 we had to build armoured carriers able to survive in the Mediterranean and South China Sea while the US built un armoured carriers that did not stand up well to attack by land based aircraft but could launch massive alpha strikes against flimsy Japanese carriers.

      Try operating a chinook or an Apache from a Nimitz class or landing nearly 1,000 airborne soldiers from one.

      This was tried in the mid 2000’s in the Indian Ocean because the USN did not have enough LHD’s at the time and it was a disaster.

      For what the UK a needs QE class is the best design in the world.

      For what the USN needs having 40 QE class for the price of 10 CVN and 10 LHD is probably superior as well.

  4. Great video which shows what the RAF and RN can do with the limited resources they have But Carrier Strike is still just a shadow of what we were promised 25 years ago. E.g. It was expected that by 2015 the FAA (not the RAF!) would have received about 60 of 80 Future Carrier Borne Aircraft (JSF, Super Hornet or Sea Typhoon), and be ramping up to four frontline squadrons plus a training/OCU squadron.

    • Yes but the F35 is years behind schedule. If we had bought a bunch of block III aircraft to pack out our carriers we would have the same issues as Australia and the USA, dozens of obsolete airframes that have never seen combat and they would be unable to fire UK weapons.

      If we had bought sea typhoon or F18 we be even worse off.

        • Sea Typhoon was never a viable option. BAE conducted two navalisation studies which identified too many serious problems for it to ever be taken seriously. It was always F/A-18C/D vs F-35B vs F-35C for the FCBA. IMHO a buy of a few dozen Super Hornet’s to replace the Sea Harrier FA.2 was the way we should have gone, their lower cost paying for the carriers CATOBAR fit. These could then be supplemented and eventually replaced by F-35C’s. I don’t like conspiracy theories, but The Daily Telegraph has published several articles claiming that c.2004 half a dozen senior civil servants decided to block this approach, and were successful. The RN reluctantly agreed to participating in an RAF led F-35B programme (meaning STOVL) rather than facing cancellation of its new carriers.

          • That would, in my opinion, have been the more prudent and future proofed approach.-Any links to those articles ?
            However the fly in that particular ointment could have been the EMALS availability
            Shame we didnt continue to develop our own all those years ago ..still thats the free market ethos for you

          • There is still lots of stuff on the internet about the BAE Sea Typhoon, e.g. https://defense-update.com/20110210_naval_typhoon.html and https://ukdefenceforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=302, but the technical detail was in industry presentations, papers and specialist mags published in the 2000’s. Very hard to find 15-20 years later. But if I remember correctly the biggest problem was deck clearance, and strengthening the undercarriage and airframe for arrested landings without adding a lot of weight. Overall, the safety margins – particularly if returning with weapons – were considered by the MOD to be inadequate without a major redesign. As for the Daily Telegraph, their articles are behind a paywall, but one example is here if you can access it: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/07/17/how-13-whitehall-mandarins-crippled-britains-aircraft-carriers/

          • my understanding was that there wasnt an option of a conventional steam catapul.
            Although I was never quitre sure why …was it something to do with using Nuclear Power to generate the steam so no nuclear power=no steam catapult…I could be worng ?
            It was always stated that EMALS and F35C’s were intertwined as a solution- Im not sure how accurate that widely touted inter dependability was in practice.

          • A conventional steam catapult could have been considered, and of course British carriers since1950 with a steam catapult had conventional, not nuclear, propulsion.

            But you are right that EM launch was considered rather than a steam cat.
            Wiki: “Converteam UK were working on an electromagnetic catapult (EMCAT) system for the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier.[42] In August 2009, speculation mounted that the UK may drop the STOVL F-35B for the CTOL F-35C model, which would have meant the carriers being built to operate conventional takeoff and landing aircraft using the UK-designed non-steam EMCAT catapults.[43][44]
            In October 2010, the UK Government announced it would buy the F-35C, using a then-undecided CATOBAR system. A contract was signed in December 2011 with General Atomics of San Diego to develop EMALS for the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.[42][45] However, in May 2012, the UK Government reversed its decision after the projected costs rose to double the original estimate and delivery moved back to 2023, cancelling the F-35C option and reverting to its original decision to buy the STOVL F-35B.[46]

            So EMCAT was rejected for cost and delivery date reasons.

            Of interest is that the US with their huge R&D budgets have never managed to make EMALS all that reliable:

            “A June 2022 GAO report states “The US Navy also continues to struggle with the reliability of the electromagnetic aircraft launch system and advanced arresting gear needed to meet requirements to rapidly deploy aircraft.” The report also indicates the Navy doesn’t expect EMALS and AAG to reach reliability goals until the “2030’s”.

  5. So I’ve been thinking about aerial decoys, such as MALD, and wondering if the CSG needs one.

    So far the fleet has no attritable assets and while that will (hopefully) change with drones and SPEAR, particularly the EW variant, I wonder if an interim solution is necessary or possible.

    Obviously the F-35 has great stealth but it would work even better if the enemy was looking in the wrong places.

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