HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Carrier Strike Group have visited dozens of countries on the groups maiden deployment, here’s a breakdown of what went where.
Here’s a list of what countries to date the carrier strike group has had engagements or military exercises with and what they were.
| Country / Overseas Territory | Activity |
| Australia | Passage Exercise , air interaction, Exercise BERSAMA GOLD[1] |
| Bangladesh | Port visit to Chittogram |
| British Indian Ocean Territory | Port visit to Diego Garcia |
| Brunei | Port visit to Bandar Seri Begawan |
| Cambodia | Virtual defence engagement |
| Canada | Exercise PACIFIC CROWN (Pacific Ocean) South China Sea navigation in company |
| Cyprus | Port visit to Limassol and Larnaca |
| Djibouti | Port visit to Djibouti |
| Egypt | Port visit to Alexandria |
| France | Exercises Atlantic Trident (North Atlantic) and Gallic Strike (Mediterranean) Press Release |
| Georgia | Port visit to Batumi |
| Gibraltar | Hosted reception at sea |
| Greece | Port visits to Piraeus and Souda. |
| Guam | Port visits to Guam |
| India | Maritime Participation Exercise in the Indian Ocean Press Release |
| Indonesia | Port visit to Jakarta |
| Israel | Exercise Falcon Strike and Exercise Tri-Lightning (both in the Mediterranean). Port visit to Haifa |
| Italy | Exercise Falcon Strike, transit in western Mediterranean, Port visits to Augusta, Messina and Taranto Press Release |
| Japan | Port visits to Sasebo, Yokosuka, Funakoshi, Exercise PACIFIC CROWN (Pacific Ocean), quad carrier exercise (with two carriers from the USA, one from Japan and HMS Queen Elizabeth), Reception and capability demonstration, South China Sea navigation in company Press Release |
| Malaysia | Passage Exercise, Exercise BERSAMA GOLD |
| Montenegro | Port visit to Bar, Reception and Capability Demonstration, Press Release |
| New Zealand | South China Sea Transit in company, Exercise BERSAMA GOLD |
| Oman | Port visit to Duqm |
| Republic of Korea | Search and rescue exercise, at sea reception and capability demonstration Press Release |
| Saudi Arabia | Port visit to Jeddah. Passage Exercise |
| Singapore | Passage Exercise including some limited air exercising. Port visit to Sembawang. Reception and capability demonstration, Exercise BERSAMA GOLD Press Release |
| Spain | Port visits to Alicante and Cartagena |
| Thailand | Co-ordinated maritime manoeuvres Press Release |
| Turkey | Port visit Istanbul Press Release |
| Ukraine | Port visit to Odessa Press Release |
| United States | Dual, tri and quad carrier exercises. Exercise Atlantic Trident (North Atlantic), Exercise Gallic Strike (Mediterranean), Exercise Falcon Strike, Exercise Tri-Lightning Press Release Press Release |
| Vietnam | Port visit to Da Nang and Passage Exercise |
| NATO* | Exercise Steadfast Defender (North Atlantic), Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 – Operation Sea Guardian (Mediterranean), At-sea reception and capability demonstration Press Release Press Release |
*Whilst not a country, assets from the UK Carrier Strike Group also participated in NATO-led military exercises and engagements. [1] Five Powers Defence Arrangements Exercise hosted by Malaysia with participants from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK.
As a representation of the ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’ in the UK’s foreign policy, the Carrier Strike Group made its maiden deployment in May 2021 and has conducted operations and engagements in the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific. The Strike group will travel over 26,000 nautical miles from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, from the Gulf of Aden to the Arabian Sea, and from the Indian Ocean to the Philippine Sea, engaging with 40 countries. This deployment will end in December 2021.
The Strike Group comprises aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, Type 45 destroyers HMS Defender and HMS Diamond (although this ship has had recent issues), Type 23 frigates HMS Richmond and HMS Kent, and tanker and storage ships Fort Victoria and RFA Tidespring. In Addition, there’s an Astute class submarine, an American destroyer and a Dutch frigate.
I hope Covid restrictions haven’t limited the crews run ashore fun to much. This type of trip is what you join up for. Great ambassadors for the UK. And a capability very few countries could deploy on this scale, and range from home. And we are still in early days of carrier strike regeneration. Lots more to come. 👍
Bravo.
Especially as this is alongside all the other commitments, exercises and deployments rather than 1 main effort while the rest of the RN stops.
My mate in Switzerland wants to know when he’ll be able to look down from his mountain and see them?
-posting for Daniele as you know what day it is!-
😂 👍
I thought you’d like that one. 😂
What a trip. QE will be straight into refit upon return and POW steps up.
Other news: reports of an explosion in Portsmouth coming in. Anyone know the gen?
A house explosion being reported?
Thanks,
Let’s hope people are safe and it’s not anything to do with RNB.
Agreed.
News on South today and Meriden news that an explosion in Nelson Street 2 injured fire brigade stated possible Gas explosion terresthouses windows blown out updates at 22.30 bbc1 South Rob
Thanks Tommo.
Bit more news Rob it was Nelson Avenue not street Stamshaw Portsmouth Gas explosion 2 casualties 1 male 1 Female taken to hospital with Serious Burn injuries
Refit? Presumably a very minor one?
They’re planning to fit cats and traps, albeit not for F-35Cs or jets but things like Mosquito, Vixen and other drones.
Off-topic but a possible gap filler noetheless.
UK sets sights on interim strategic sealift capability22 OCTOBER 2021
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/defence/latest/uk-sets-sights-on-interim-strategic-sealift-capability
Thanks, interesting. ‘Interim’ sounds like a contract extension to me.
It could very well be, but good news nonetheless!
Indeed, don’t recall anything being mentioned before about future plans for sealift.
That is one itinerary. Congratulations to all Ships companies. We are back!
If the CSG has got some spare time and fuel Sydney harbour is still open for a visit and the sun’s shining…24 degrees today…
and hopefully cross the ditch to visit Auckland. Hope you guys are enjoying your return fro Lockdown
And Auckland harbour is pretty decent too…on a sunny day. Lol. Sydney is coming back to life but still lots of mask wearing on public transport and inside shops, shopping centres, malls and QR code scanning is everywhere. But it’s better than before. Hope NZ is improving too. I have family in Thames and Tauranga.
Cheers Mate – no sunny weather today! God willing we’ll be back to normal by xmas
Stay safe and enjoy!
I was only discussing this a few days ago with Lusty who provided me with a detailed explanation in answer to my question on installing martlet to the DS30M autocannon! A very useful addition.
“On 16th October, a Wildcat helicopter conducted the first operational firing of the Marlet missile. The aircraft, 219 flight from 815 Naval Air Squadron and based on HMS Defender launched the missile, successfully hitting the target while flying in the Bay of Bengal.”
https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navy-wildcat-fires-the-first-operational-martlet-missile/
The full load looks scary!
The removable wings actually generate more lift than the Martlets weigh reducing fuel consumption, though the Sea Venom loadouts are heavier than the boost.
https://www.navylookout.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Wilcat-Helicopter-Martlet-Missile-Trials-6.jpg
-Wildlusty appears-
I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of that! Imagine a Type 45 operating 2x Wildcat after receiving the Sea Ceptor upgrade? That’s a potential 112 missiles heading for a postcode near you! (excluding any future anti-ship missiles in place of harpoon)
The Wildcat looks great with 10x Marlet and 2x Sea Venom or 4x Sea Venom etc, but that Martlet load just looks the business.
112 missiles heading for a postcode near you!”And hopefully not this one either!”
Intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee in private briefings that the Chinese test — which they tracked closely as it was happening — marked a substantial advancement in China’s ability to launch a strategic first strike against the United States, according to people familiar with the briefings.
While it does not necessarily give China an upper hand over the US, the briefers said, there were certain elements of the missile’s capabilities and how it operated that took the officials by surprise.
China also built and successfully tested the technology faster than the US predicted they might be able to, according to a former arms control official who served until January. A hypersonic test carried out by the Pentagon on Thursday, meanwhile, failed — the second failed test since April.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/22/politics/china-hypersonic-missile-joe-biden-nuclear-policy/index.html
Very!
Hi Watcherzero,
The article Nigel links to indicates that there is currently a limit of 10 Martlet on the wings because of induced aerodynamic issues. Nevertheless, 10 Martlet missiles is still a serious payload.
The article also suggests that it would be rare that a mixed load of Martlet and Sea Venom missiles because the two systems are intended for very different target sets.
Having said that I like the flexibility that a mixed load provides…
Cheers CR
That does look the dogs….
awesome pic! I’m going to surrender -just in case.
Deployment T shirts will list all the ports with red lines through them as cancelled.
Pity as its a once in a career trip for most people and unfortunately the runs ashore have been limited to a tent on a jetty next to the ship with wifi access.
In reality the far north is the realm of subs.
Surface units and aircraft don’t fair well up there. Just keeping units working is hard enough let alone fighting them. North of the circle in winter is even worse. No daylight, bad weather, storms…Its a testing environment and when I was on ships doing stuff up there there wasn’t an easy time to be had.
A fairly coherent forward basing strategy seems to be emerging for the Indian Ocean / Gulf / Pacific area:
.
Diego Garcia offers further basing opportunities and there has been talk about future basing of Type 31s in India and Singapore in the recent past.
Australia also has a (formerly RAF) airbase on the Coco Islands, West of Indonesia with RAAF P8s forward based.
I can’t help but think that we need more ships and aircraft permanently based in the region to make the Indo-Pac presence effective. LRG (S) needs embarked aircraft facilities and looks thin without an LPD, replenishment vessels and more escorts and the RAF probably needs more aircraft permanently forward based.
Agreed, and the move from BATUS would seem an obvious re-distribution of fewer and fewer assets. Combined arms training can still take place, yet the assets are double hatted and actuly operational. Although I presume all the wagons must have had a bloody decent main period as going from BG to BG they must have been shagged and worn out. Never went to BATUS, Wainwright was our Canada deployments.
Good post JWF well thought out, a convincing case that you put forward.
There could also be some use made with the Australian bases and Ports in the Northern Territory and North Queensland as well as Perth. I hope it’s not broadcasted too much through the media.
On a side note, we’re seeing the Chinese and Russian do their joint naval exercises now near Japan/Korea now the CSG has passed on. Maybe a bit of copy-carting going on…
There seems to be some dithering about upgrading Mounts Bay as an LSS, so LRG(S) will deploy in 2023 without any embarked helicopter facilities, which makes it difficult to support raiding operations. RFA Argus could have filled that gap, but she is up for sale, and would be quite expensive to operate on such a deployment given her age. The only other alternative vessel with a large hangar is Fort Victoria, but as the only FSS, she is needed for the CSGs. We could reach some agreement with another country to provide a LHD, I suppose, but not long term. A Wave or Tide would also seem essential given the wide open spaces of the Indian Ocean. We are now paying for the very dim decisions to dispose of HMS Ocean and the relatively new RFAs Fort George and Largs Bay in 2010 and 2015. Fort George was single hulled and as a tanker less useful, but her solid support and aviation facilities are sorely missed now.
If George had been retained, it’s almost certain that she would have been upgraded to the same specification as Vic (double-hulled). The decision to scrap her effectively means that the carriers can only rely on one SSS, given the fact that the older two are incapable of directly supporting the carriers.
I would have gladly swapped the sale/scrapping of Largs and George for the scrapping of the older Forts. 2010 was littered with errors, but the loss of those two ships was perhaps the one we’re feeling most keenly, followed closely by the loss of escorts. Then again, the fact that we retained three support ships has pushed HMG to order three new hulls (well, eventually). I imagine if we only had two, the desire would definitely be for two replacements.
It’s a shame there isn’t a desire to build a variation of HNoMS Maud as a replacement, or speed up the plans for the Ellida-styled ships. The base model of Ellida has a two-spot flight deck, space for four Merlin and medical facilities. I’m sure BMT could reconfigure this as per customer requests to facilitate a suitable replacement for Argus.
Also, don’t let Gunbuster hear you call it ‘HMS Juffair’, and don’t let anyone from Bahrain hear you call it ‘Bahrein’. 😉 As an addendum, the Merlins have also returned from Oman.
Given that even after the 2010 review we still intended to deploy a carrier taskforce it seems nuts to scrap one of the support ships (Fort George) something really wrong there
Where havent they been!!!! Top marks to all involved, well done!
No CSG port visits to 🇦🇺 and 🇳🇿 just yet… but could be in future plans.
Anybody would swear we had a large Navy.
The CSG has now lost one of its escorts. The Sullivan’s has just left to begin its journey back home, don’t believe another AB took its place. Not entirely sure when the USMC F35’s will leave, most probably when QE gets back to Pompey?