There has been considerable debate over the prospect of deploying the UK Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to the Indo-Pacific region in 2025. Here we look at the outline programme for the deployment and consider the case for and against a change of plan.
CSG21, led by HMS Queen Elizabeth proved the UK carrier group could operate at distance for a sustained period and signalled Britain’s commitment to regional allies in the Pacific region. Since 2021, the RN has declined in strength and deploying the carrier group is a significant undertaking in terms of cost and operational strain. More critically, the threat to Europe has become greater and there is a credible argument that deterring Russia should be the main focus of all UK military activity.
Highmast
The CSG25 deployment (operation HIGHMAST) has been in the planning for more than two years with training, maintenance and operating schedules for much of the fleet synchronised to support this set piece activity. The exact composition of the CSG has not yet been made public but some details are known.
The fleet flagship, HMS Prince of Wales, will lead with COMUKCSG and his staff embarked. HMS Dauntless and HMS Richmond are confirmed as the RN escorts. Another frigate and HMS Dragon may also participate for some of the deployment. The composition of the group is likely to be slightly more fluid than in 2021, with different escorts joining for parts of the deployment. Norwegian frigate HNoMS Raold Amundsen will join the with an RN Wildcat helicopter embarked. An Astute class submarine will also be attached to the group under command of COMUKCSG but not necessarily always in the vicinity of the carrier.
It is not yet clear if a US destroyer will participate. In 2021, USS The Sullivans was fully committed, including taking part in the pre-deployment qualifying exercise. If operating in the more contested areas such as the South China Sea, long range anti-ballistic missile capability of the USN assumes great importance, as does full AEGIS system to complement the RN’s Sea Viper general air defence capability. (The AEGIS combat system and sensors carried by the HNoMS Raold Amundsen is a scaled down version and not anything like as capable as the Arleigh Burkes’.)
Logistic support will be provided by RFA Tidespring and Norwegian auxiliary HNoMS Maud. RFA Fort Victoria will not participate so the group will lack its own capability for solid stores replenishment at sea by heavy jackstay. Maud can carry around 200 tonnes of ammunition or dry stores while Tidespring can carry some stores in deck mounted containers. Any solid store or ammunition transfers at sea will have to be carried out by VERTEP (lifted by helicopter).
COMUKCSG, stated confidently last year that 24 British F-35Bs will be embarked on HMS Prince of Wales for CSG25, with 617 Sqn and 809 NAS providing 12 jets each. Given the issues with lack of engineers and pilot training that plague the Lightning Force and wider RAF, it is possible that this ‘all out effort’ may only be the case for part of the deployment. Lessons may be taken from the loss of the jet during CSG21 that personnel fatigue and overstretch were a contributing factor. Either way, it will be a step change in operating scale for the airgroup and ship’s company. To date, the Lighting Force has not managed to generate more than 8 jets to embark simultaneously on either of the carriers.
The remainder of the airgroup will be composed of Merlins and Wildcat helicopters mirroring the CSG21 group. 820 NAS will provide the Merlin Mk2s including up to 3 CROWSNEST-equipped aircraft. 845 or 846 NAS Merlin Mk4s will be kept busy in the VERTREP, troop carrying, Maritime Intra Theatre Lift (MITL) and Joint Personnel Recovery (JPR) roles, possibly supported by a single RAF Chinook. Wildcat Helicopters will be embarked on the escorts and possibly a couple on the carrier operating in the maritime strike and force protection role.
No Dutch warship will be integrated into the group for this deployment as HNLMS Evertsen did in 2021 but a variety of other navies will exercise with the CSG at different times during the deployment.
Red Sea test
The exact route of the deployment is not published in advance, but the general outline is known. Leaving the UK in late April, the CSG will enter the Mediterranean, they will pass through the Suez Canal and into the Indian Ocean before continuing into the Pacific. Port visits to Japan and northern Australia have already been officially confirmed. The CSG will participate in exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 off the north coast of Australia during July. The deployment will last 8 months and all participants will return home before Christmas.
The Red Sea leg of the deployment raises some interesting questions. The Houthi rebels in Yemen ceased attacking merchant vessels following the cease-fire in Gaza but have said they will resume the attacks as the situation in Israel has not concluded to their satisfaction. Donald Trump has just ordered a new round of strikes on the Houthis from USS Harry S. Truman CSG currently in the Red Sea. To achieve the aim of eliminating their ability to attack merchant shipping may prove more difficult than he expects, even with a more ‘gloves off’ approach than was adopted by the Biden administration. Future assistance in this mission from the RN could be welcome in Washington.
A scurrilous article in the Times citing a “senior defence figure” (ie. another off-the-record briefing by the Army against the aircraft carriers) claimed that the MoD “fears” the carrier could be attacked by the Houthis. Written with all wisdom you might expect from a disciple of Max Hastings, this is because aircraft carriers have “become obsolete in an era of missile and drone strikes”.
The focus of this article is not to debunk the ‘carriers are obsolete’ nonsense, but HMS Prince of Wales will be well protected by escorts. Large capital ships are inherently more vulnerable when in waters and within range of weapons based ashore but it does not mean they can’t be protected and can’t act offensively themselves. Should The Times article accurately reflect the thinking by some in Whitehall, then the UK really has lost its understanding of how to exercise hard power. If the political backbone required to accept even the smallest level of risk has really fallen this low, then it makes armed forces nothing but a showpiece.
In the event that appropriate leadership can be forthcoming in London, then it is those in Yemen that should be worried if F-35s are launched from the carrier to degrade their military capabilities. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower spent much of 2024 in the Red Sea on active combat operations and was kept safe by her escorts including HMS Diamond. In fact, the Houthis have failed to hit any warships despite multiple attempts using ballistic missiles, one-way attack drones and USVs. It should also be noted that the French Carrier strike group passed through the Red Sea in December 2024 without incident when the Houthis were still very active (although the De Gaulle did not conduct any offensive action).
The case for returning to the Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific is the new centre of global economic and military competition and the UK needs remain engaged and maintain relationships in the area. The ‘tilt’ to the Pacific as outlined in the 2021 Integrated Review, remains a pillar of British foreign and defence policy, despite the change of government. The CSG deployment reinforces this commitment, reassuring allies such as Japan, Australia, and South Korea that Britain remains a dependable security partner. At a time when China is increasingly assertive and threatening Taiwan, this demonstrates the UK still has the will to send forces to support allies in resisting Chinese attempts to dominate the region.
While China is likely to complain about any freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, it recently sent warships on a circumnavigation of the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone (Feb 11th – March 7th) including conducting an unannounced live firing exercise about 200km east of Canberra. The PLAN and its maritime militia in the form of its enormous coastguard and fishing fleet are becoming ever more aggressive towards their neighbours, seeking to take control of the sea’s natural resources far beyond their own EEZ.
The UK CSG deployment will not go unnoticed in Washington where the focus is moving towards containing China and away from European security. The CSG deployment may provide London with some diplomatic leverage to protect its trade interests with the Trump administration. It also reinforces British status as a security stakeholder and may encourage the US to maintain its commitments to alliances such as the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group, the Quad, and AUKUS.
There is also a large ‘soft-power’ element that is must not be overlooked. There is considerable value in defence diplomacy and the carrier in particular provides a spectacular platform for promotion of British industry and exports. AUKUS and GCAP are large scale examples of how defence-industrial relationships between the UK and Pacific nations are increasing.
From an RN perspective, this is an opportunity to exercise with a variety of partners. In particular, working with the US, Australian and Japanese navies to deepen interoperability and personal connections. It also provides important experience for the ship’s companies and all who participate, testing people and equipment over a long period and in a variety of environments.
The 2021 trip was considered operationally successful but notoriously difficult for crew morale, as COVID-19 restrictions severely limited shore leave and social interaction. This deployment should offer much more excitement and opportunities for meaningful runs ashore. Interesting port visits transform a deployment from a relentless operational slog into an enriching, career-enhancing experience that strengthens retention in a service struggling with people shortages.
Reasons to hesitate
Deploying a carrier strike group thousands of miles from home stretches the RN’s resources and will involve the greater part of the operational fleet. Escort numbers are at an all time low, evidenced by the reduction in the number of vessels allocated to the CSG. There is also an argument that the funds spent on this deployment could be better spent on plugging some of the obvious gaps in equipment, infrastructure and munitions stocks.
With President Trump undermining the defence of Ukraine, threatening to reduce the US military presence in Europe or even abandon NATO, Putin is emboldened. Despite its on-paper economic and military advantage over Russia, Europe is in poor shape to resist without the backbone that has been provided by the US since 1945. While Putin’s battered Army is in no state to fight another land campaign in the immediate future, the Russian Navy and Air Force are still a significant threat.
From a containment and deterrence perspective, maintaining as much combat power in the European theatre makes sense. This is mitigated slightly by co-ordination between carrier-operating nations, the French CSG is currently on their Clemenceau 25 deployment to the Pacific but will be back in Europe when HMS Prince of Wales departs. HMS Queen Elizabeth is now in a reduced state of readiness ahead of refit later this year. It should be noted that the QEC carriers are being maintained under a new model with more frequent on-going support work. The dry docking and major upkeep period will be relatively short compared with carrier refits of the past due to the work already done.
The value of the UK Carrier strike group in protecting Europe is often underplayed. Not only is the carrier a declared NATO maritime command platform, but carriers would be employed to interdict Russian submarines and aircraft coming ‘around the corner’ to attack the UK or coming through the GIUK Gap and into the Atlantic. The offset ASW strategy, which was core to Cold War thinking, would involve the use of carrier aircraft to strike the Russian Fleet bases in the Kola peninsula to neutralise much of the naval threat at source. More generally, carriers would be needed to provide air cover for shipping bringing the vast amount of energy and material that Europe imports from across the Atlantic and further afield.
While demonstrating commitment to regional security is important, there is a fine balance to maintain in the UK’s relationship with China. Beijing remains a key trading partner to the UK, despite the being seen as a competitor and potential adversary. China is still a significant export market and an important supplier despite efforts to ‘onshore’ more of the supply chain and reduce their involvement in tech and strategically important industries.
The PLAN has grown by approximately 55 warships and submarines since 2021 the majority being surface combatants, now totalling around 395 vessels. In the same period, the RN contracted significantly. The relative ‘deterrent effect’ of the UKCSG is diminishing, especially as the PLAN is rapidly developing its own conventional aircraft carriers. Only when effectively integrated with much larger US, Japanese, Australian and other’s forces could the UK military contribution be a really meaningful and deterrent to the Chinese.
Analysis of the combat readiness of the UKCSG is beyond the scope of this article but some of the issues are assessed in more depth in a previous piece here.
In summary the CSG25 deployment will have many diplomatic benefits for the UK and is an opportunity for the RN to deepen carrier operating experience with the QEC carrier and a larger air group. This must be balanced against leaving the European theatre at a time of uncertainty and the unavailability of platforms that will follow the deployment.
Main image: HMS Queen Elizabeth leads the Carrier Strike Group in the Indian Ocean in 2021. Photo: Sgt Petronilla.
“Carriers are obsolete nonsense” – I shall remember that when one of them is sunk.
Stupid Argies in the Falklands War then.
In other news, foot soldiers are obsolete because they keep dying.
Tanks are obsolete because they keep exploding.
Hundreds of drones are shot down over Ukraine every day, are they obsolete?
Attrition has been a feature of war as long as people have been throwing rocks at each other, the only requirement is to protect and robustly support the assets you have.
Not the same.
You can only have 2 carriers not 100000. If your huge investment can be destroyed in dissimilar wps/tactics the question arrises. Same thing occurred for battleship.
Historically, dissimilar weapons and tactics tend to be temporary inconveniences, not paradigm-shifting wunderwaffen. In the late 19th century, the jeune ecole preached that fast boats with torpedoes rendered batteships obsolete with their destructive power and low cost; instead, they forced some relatively minor adjustments to tactics and designs, and the battleship remained king for another half a century.
Its only when something outright better comes along that platforms are truly obsolete. Carriers replaced battleships because they’re faster, hit harder at a far greater range, and (through the virtue of not risking the ship itself in direct combat) are more survivable.
Today’s situation is far more similar to the 1880/90s than the 1930s and 40s. Yes, long range weapons and cheap drones pose a threat to carrier groups; but as the war in Ukraine is demonstrating, there are already a lot of counters to them. Both sides are losing thousands of drones a month to jamming, and warships at sea are considerably harder to target and easier to defend than frontlines separated by a dozen miles.
It was not the carrier that was better, it was the aircraft.
And aircraft was a dissimilar weapon to the battleship.
There is no way that will be worthwhile to invest in carriers if 1000km long range guided missiles are the norm. More range if launched from airliners type aircraft that everyone have.
Most seas and a big chunk of oceans would be off limits. A 1000km missile is not a 30 years project to see the light and achieve operationality.
And can be constantly improved significantly much faster than the sexy complex machines we in West like to have.
Aircraft are the main armament of a carrier; no one is daft enough to compare an empty carrier to a battleship and say the carrier is better.
1000km missiles do indeed exist, and they’re not especially uncommon; Tomahawks have ranges far in excess of that. They’re also incredibly expensive, costing ~$2 million a pop. For reference, you could fully load two T26 frigates with Tomahawks for roughly the price of a single Lightning.
Of course, the comparison sucks, because comparing missiles to aircraft ignores the reality of the aircraft. 48 Tomahawks certainly hit harder than one jet, but aircraft can deliver a variety of munitions (generally much cheaper ones to boot) at the same or longer ranges, and can do so for decades instead of just once. In the case of a 5th gen fighter like the Lightning, it’s also a defensive and sensor platform providing a million times more utility than a one-way weapon.
Drones, missiles, and aircraft all have different strengths and weaknesses. Before you go repeating silly comments about overly complex Western tech, remember that:
-Western tech and weapons have enabled Ukraine to decimate Russian forces
-China is investing heavily in technological improves and replicating Western forces; they aren’t building massive aircraft carriers for no reason, are they?
Battleships vs the rest.
Battleship = resilient system / expected to give and take.
Battleship = stand up fighter / not just an ambush predator.
Battleship = conventional gun based ordinance.
Gun based ordinance — Limited expansion in a controlled environment driving dumb projectiles with an explosive payload towards exposed targets within visual range.
Variations of these basic tenets across a number of centuries.
Conventional was up against unconventional all throughout the ages.
First it was fire ships then it was bomb ships.
Then it was spar torpedoes — with the basic proviso that success is based on letting go the torpedo once you had found your target.
Self propelled torpedoes are / were just the next development in unconventional tactics against battleships.
Beating them without outgunning them by playing a different game.
Aircraft and aircraft carriers were just the next generation of these unconventional tactics.
Delivery system for flying torpedoes aka bombs and torpedoes over longer ranges to the point that direct ship to ship visual engagements became the exception and not the rule.
Then came missiles aka self flying torpedoes.
But offering more capability to the conventional as well as the unconventional.
Are battleships still credible?
For one thing modern ships lack resilience.
Or to an outsider looking on they appear to lack resilience.
On hit and it would appear to be “yer tea’s oot” / “game is a bogie”.
Glesga tactical doctrines defined by generations of mothers and fathers.
Suggests that their might still be room for a battleship.
Especially as missiles extend their reach / influence.
I think resilience might make a come back.
It would appear that aircraft carriers are the “most” resilient vessels in the fleet but still very fragile given the need to keep 2 / 3 / 4 acres of deck whole / operational.
Plus steel is cheap and air is free.
China and aircraft carriers — in the Chinese Treasury there is a dartboard with a picture of Chester Nimitz on it.
Every time the PLAN send over their budget estimates it gets a lot of use.
Have you soon the Perun video on this? He does a very good job of explaining the importance of the CSG.
The RAF have 7 major air bases that are static fixed assets containing our entire U.K. based fast jet inventory that have limited if any air defence against ballistic missile attack. We currently have no sovereign AEW&C capability but carriers are obsolete. Carriers can move 200+miles a day, carry fighter aircraft, Britain’s only if not fully operational ASAC aircraft and are escorted by the only U.K. assets with anti ballistic missile capability along with surface and underwater ASW escorts.
Please stop reading the same old arguments about carriers and think a little bit more broadly. It makes for some very uncomfortable conclusions about U.K. defence capabilities.
To be Honest
UK has no Ballistic missile defence because we would only have 4 min warning that they were airborne. and you need to intercept them on the way up or in flight coming down is to late. they proved that in the 1960s
UK new long based land radars made our AEW&C Aircraft obsolete and our NATO partners took over that role because UK had greater asset’s it could support NATOs with.
1 F35B radar is better than 3 E3s and see above.
Shadow R1 is everywhere and goes about its business fairly un-monitored
RAF only NATO partner to operate RC Rivet joint
Shadow R1 were a theatre specific platform that had no requirement to operate in Europe
P8 Poseidon very capable
Just because we no longer operate from 68 airbases carriers are only as good as its escorts, and if they are fully stocked.
UK Carriers are under armed, due to how the UK Escorts its carriers compared to the Americans.
By my count, the IJN, USN and RN lost, collectively, 41 aircraft carriers of various types during WWII due directly or indirectly to enemy action (i.e., the carrier sunk because of damage caused by the enemy or because it was scuttled by its own crew after being disabled by the enemy). Which of those 41 sunk carriers refutes the statement that the aircraft carrier has been the principal, dominant capital warship of the second half of the 20th century, around which the world’s largest and most powerful navy based its naval doctrine and upon which many other navies have made considerable focus?
Indeed, other than telling us that it was a warship at the time, what further point has the sinking of any individual warship demonstrated at any point in history? Perhaps next you will be suggesting that aircraft (including drones) shot down demonstrate the end of military aviation and the killing of soldiers points to the end of the effectiveness of all land combat? Next you’ll be telling us that warfare is entirely ineffective ‘because some nations lose’…
Perhaps you would prefer a colouring in book instead of reading all this complicated stuff about naval warfare on this website?
Force Z provided a lot of hard lessons over the space of a morning.
Must be in the Top 10 military omnishambles of all time.
Political catastrophe followed by a military shambles and then a tactical failure and then finally an individual mistake.
Changed the world in the space of 2 hours.
Or more directly confirmed the change.
Britain losing an empire.
And all for the lack of 2pdr tracer ammo to give it a true Shakespearian tone.
Plus an engineering officer with half a brain.
Given Britain’s position at that time at home, the Mediterranean, North Africa and in the Atlantic it was pretty obvious that we were going to loose our position in the Far East including Singapore. No tanks, green troops, obsolete aircraft and a Navy at its very limit in what it could provide in the Far East.
Force Z even with better equipment and air cover was never going to hold the line.
All this was compounded by some poor decisions and errors as you say but the truth is we had little else to offer. It was the real beginning of the end for the Empire but it directly spawned the creation of the most powerful British naval force in our history, The British Pacific Fleet.
To me — not quite the full story.
We had 12 months to prepare at panic stations level.
However the brains trust in charge had given up and did little.
Aus was close by / the Dutch were onboard / the US had planes they couldn’t give away — so we had some resources. What we didn’t have was experience and a desire to learn.
There was a reason why there was a US volunteer force flying fighters in China — I wonder how many observers we had watching the show?
However we had no energy and little imagination.
Made little effort to work with what we had.
Sleepy Hollow type environment — those with get up and go had gotten up and gone and took any fight we had with them.
The mass sickie of the Eastern Fleet when Force Z went out has never really been investigated. A rag bag collection of 4 destroyers as an escort was a shameful effort and showed that the old sweats on the ground couldn’t be ersed to support one of WC’s poorer quality brain farts.
Add in the lack of AA capability and desire to improve all round and it was a slow motion trainwreck. We are in a similar place now — living off past glories and a conviction that any bad guys we might face won’t up their game to work their pips till the squeak.
Japan had run out of steam after 5 months — that is how shallow their resources / replacements were. Punchers chance until they couldn’t lift their arms any more.
Plus they worked their original plan well past its effectiveness.
Halsey gave them their chance at Guadalcanal and they thrifted their response in the face of losses instead of going all in when the US got a bit cocky and started coat trailing.
Force Z on the front foot would have delivered a similar response.
They just needed a smack on the face to revisit their original plan.
We were a day late and a dollar short continually for 3 months.
Embarrassing really — suggests we had been out of gas since 1919.
Pacific Fleet — have to disagree.
It just showed the world how little we had.
The stuff we couldn’t finish plus the design failures we could.
Three years of providing target practice to the Luftwaffe was a political response to a military problem. 4 engine bomber waste of resources.
Let’s be clear it wasn’t just Britain that was casual about the Japanese threat and there was more than a hint of racial stereotyping in the period that led to some very poor decision making.
The level of focus on the Far East was low in the period leading up to start of hostilities in the region. We were rather busy nearer to home trying to just survive and the reality is we ran out of resources. That we had second rate leadership in the theatre is undoubtedly true across much of the RAF, RN and Army. Having very recently visited Singapore and spent a couple of days with historians discussing the loss it is obvious morale amongst many was poor, equipment and training lacking.
The Japanese wiped out ABDA naval forces relatively easily despite some truly heroic efforts by many individual ships.
On your last two points I am sorry but you are trying to rewrite history. The BPF was and remains to this day second only to the USN of 1944/45 in the number of vessels it had at its disposal. This was being further enhanced in readiness for the invasion of the Japanese mainland when the war ended. Our biggest challenge was the size and capability of the fleet train required, which was immense given the vast distances involved. Peter Smith’s book Task Force 57 is a really informative read about this period.
The industrial effort to create the 4 engine bomber was indeed huge but if you can provide any other method upon, which we could hit back at Germany from 1941 to June 1944 then I would like to hear it.
It is not easy for us to understand in the 21st century but Great Britain’s and the empires resources were vast in WW2 and when geared up for war production outstripped Germany’s by the middle of the war but there were limits. We were exhausted by 1945.
BPF — Atlantic Fleet does the Pacific as best it could.
Distances involved — run of the mill for a global trading nation.
Effort involved — RN brains trust didn’t have the bandwidth.
BPF — further enhanced?
With what exactly?
UK military planning throughout WW2 was micro managed towards absurdity — we lacked confidence in our own abilities so everything was worked on to the nth degree.
Fleet train — we struggled at every level.
No understanding of the critical path / critical systems.
Not faster tankers just better pumps.
The US took what they had / what they could build and made it work.
D-Day — we built a floating port and forgot about the LCTs / LSMs.
They only got attention when they started to starve.
One way voyage then forgotten about.
US lost a floating port and delivered straight to the beach and guess what their tonnages went up and surpassed ours.
WW2 — we couldn’t do the little stuff / very wasteful.
Treasury penny pinching / RAF 8 gun blindspot / no 20mm.
Battle of Britain takes 3 months rather than 3 weeks.
Most intensive fighting was internal to the RAF.
Big wing nonsense — everything has to be perfect then we attack.
Malta — proper tactics changed the air battle in a week.
Heavy bomber — total waste of effort destroying houses.
We had the Mosquito and we needed to find a better aiming system.
No effort put into making a 4 engine Mosquito or any other bomber that had a full engagement with aerodynamics.
RN aircraft design — I will leave it there.
Delusions of adequacy is the best I can give it.
The disease is still with us.
Eastern Fleet — 1941/42.
A day late and a dollar short all across the patch.
We always seem to find the resources after the event.
WC didn’t help but we still were well of the pace.
Plus nearly a total disaster when we finally get there and then the IJN plays their joker with the Indian Ocean raid.
April 1942 and we still can’t defend a fleet anchorage from a naval air attack — just what had we been doing for the last 18 months?
RAF ego trips to Northern France didn’t help plus the Spitfire ban.
Clapped out Mk1’s should have been given a world tour.
There was lots that could have been done but wasn’t.
It was probably a good thing our Eastern Fleet didn’t clash with the IJN in that period given the large number of WW1 era ships and the obsolete aircraft involved on our side but that we didn’t is one of those accidents of history. The attacks on Ceylon and the loss of Hermes and the cruisers were unnecessary but remember we didn’t have Spitfires in the desert or Malta until later in the year.
The rhubarb tactics across the channel were rather desperate and we wasted aircrew on those but we were desperate to show we could hit back. That our night bombing of Germany was also ineffectual at this time was also glossed over.
We could have sent to the Far East more of the readily available Hurricane but two RAF squadrons were sent to the Soviet Union in 41 whilst we also sent hundreds of the latest versions in artic convoys ironically protected by war weary aircraft.
What certainly would have helped is not loosing 3 fleet carriers unnecessarily earlier in the war, which could have provided the air cover that we needed in the Far East during that period. However, the FAA was plagued by a lack of modern aircraft and aircrew with efforts focused on the bomber force.
It was probably fortunate our largely vintage Eastern fleet didn’t meet the IJN carriers.
The attacks on Ceylon were well planned but the loss of the cruisers and Hermes were avoidable and whilst Spitfires weren’t even available to defend Malta or in the desert until later in the year more Hurricanes could have been provided. Two squadrons were sent to Russia and many of the later versions of this aircraft followed in the artic convoys denuding us of reinforcements that could have helped stem the tide in the Far East. My only caveat to this is both the Spitfire and Hurricane had very limited range, which was a key factor in the wider expanses of this theatre.
Rhubarbs sweeps lost many valuable pilots for very little gain but was seen along with the ineffectual early bomber command raids as a valuable tool in showing we were hitting back.
However, the biggest loss to our Far East defensive strategy was probably the loss of 3 fleet carriers unnecessarily early in the war. They could have made a difference although whether sufficient aircrew and suitable aircraft would have been available is debatable with the focus on building up the bomber force, which was taking up a huge amount of resources.
In effect we had a naval base in Singapore that cost a huge amount to construct but wasn’t large enough to take a fleet that would be capable of protecting our possessions and in the event as you quite rightly say we sent a token force on a mission they could not ever expect to achieve. A fortress it certainly wasn’t.
The Spitfire ban was just so much RAF infighting and empire building.
USSR Hurricane angle — just so much right wing excuse mongery / dog kicking. We had enough planes to go round.
The issue was that the Hurricanes that we sent to the Far East were 12 gun models and this caused a few arguments later on. The Dutch had better results when the took 8 guns out as 4 was enough against a plane with no armour and bare fuel tanks.
If we had taken more notice of the air war in China we might have worked it out for ourselves.
The US were giving away their export builds due to their customers being under new management so their was a lot of stuff going spare.
Overall the fall of Singapore was down to a lack of energy.
For many it was about failing in the right way.
Quite right Fat Bloke
Singapore was considered so important that Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered Percival to fight to the last man.
On the evening of 10 February, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, cabled Wavell
… I think you ought to realise the way we view the situation in Singapore. It was reported to Cabinet by the CIGS [Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Alan Brooke] that Percival has over 100,000 men, of whom 33,000 are British and 17,000 Australian.
It is doubtful whether the Japanese have as many in the whole Malay Peninsula … In these circumstances the defenders must greatly outnumber Japanese forces who have crossed the straits, and in a well-contested battle they should destroy them.
There must at this stage be no thought of saving the troops or sparing the population. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs. The 18th Division has a chance to make its name in history. Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops.
The honour of the British Empire and of the British Army is at stake. I rely on you to show no mercy to weakness in any form. With the Russians fighting as they are and the Americans so stubborn at Luzon, the whole reputation of our country and our race is involved. It is expected that every unit will be brought into close contact with the enemy and fight it out….
Churchill called the fall of Singapore to the Japanese “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”.
As for Force Z, it epitomized the underestimation of the Japanese armed forces and the changing nature of warfare. It took four years for the formation of British Pacific Fleet when by that time the US Navy had largely won the Pacific war.
History is bound to repeat itself when you willfully dismiss your opponent,
Lieutenant-General Percival and his party carry the Union flag and the white flag on their way to surrender Singapore to the Japanese
Indeed the end.
Singapore vs Stalingrad vs Guadalcanal– discuss …
Not our finest hour — the army seemed to be having a nervous breakdown in slow motion. Good chaps who were into managed decline.
The Eastern Fleet mass sickie when Force Z was setting out on its last mission needs more work.
Churchill would say that…
Holding India and Australia was far more important in the context of of Imperial Japan holding Vietnam, Burma, Malaya Borneo, Dutch East Indies etc
What the fu*k are you on about?
Moderators , our wolf warriors are back ignoring the guidelines
WC was a journalist who got lucky — sounds familiar.
Soft underbelly nonsense should have up there with Daily Telegraph editorials — not a fan.
Singapore / Proper defence of Malaya — the DEI is then the active theatre and not the Solomons.
Oil production is then a challenge for Japan and they are under even more pressure.
Burma was a tough gig — still touch and go well into 1944.
Keep Singapore and it would have been a different war with Aus in the west being the focus rather than Aus in the east.
The Japanese had a puncher’s chance with their post Pearl Harbour war plans — we had a glass jaw and a stream of excuses.
“Which of those 41 sunk carriers refutes the statement that the aircraft carrier has been the principal”
You don’t get the point.
Most of those carriers were sunk by other carriers and carriers were useful and they more quantity than the losses.
If allies could only have build 10 carriers then most of war would have been impossible at least in the Pacific.
Quantity, time to build, time to train, time to repair also matters to the equation.
No ships are unsinkable. That shouldn’t stop you from building ships though. Saying that their versatility and ability to project significant power do make them high value targets. The answer is not never to build such an asset. The answer is to protect that asset properly.
To which any “value added” suggestion from the treasury to fit a warship “for defences but not with” or to reduce the number of escorts to an unsustainable number should be met automatically with a smack to the face.
And our carriers are the only ones in the world with no missile defences. It’s all very well saying there might be a Type 45 or possibly 2 but China could easily swamp that sort of defence if it wanted to. A full-out effort by the Houthis could easily end this carrier deployment.
Carriers have multiple layers of defences against missiles, some of which aren’t themselves missiles, such as Phalanx. Most aren’t on the carrier it’s true, but are on frigates, destroyers and aircraft. Would more be better? Of course. However, they could still be swamped.
I think fitting the 30mm guns to PWLS is a no brainer, and really I hope we have them fitted this time around. My eyesight isn’t brilliant when it comes to spotting bits of a ship and I can’t see any in the photo above from last week. Can anyone else spot them?
The 4 x 30 mm were never fitted, and they should be asap. Is no one learnin from current drone warfare elsewhere? Whats the operational status of dragonfly ?
If you mean Dragonfire, it’s a few years away. It was accelerated, but I wouldn’t expect to see it this year.
Clearly plans are eventually to fit other equipment on the 30mm mounts
What plans and when? After it has been struck?
30mm won’t stop it from being hit.
Ancilla and Dragon fire are the 2 project that come to mind
Again what plans and when? who said 30mm?
Or just wishful thinking?
James I replied to said 30mm.
And the plans are none of our business, but they have talked about mounting them, and those are the only spots
Clearly plans are eventually to fit other equipment ???
none of your business?
but they have talked about? Who talk what?
That read none of OUR business, so it wasn’t in fact insulting you. But they are not going to publicly release any info on it till they have the kit ready.
Who the hell do you think they is, the MOD
So if you don’t know any, what the hack are you saying plans? are you speaking for MOD?
30mm will not be fitted to the UK Carriers due to a arc of fire and range issue.
see above there is a issue with arming a carrier with the 30mm and where they are firing
A couple of the new Thales Multipurpose missile launchers to house multiple Starstreak/LMM might be useful or even a pair of 40mm to complement the Phalanx’s. And what about Ancilia? Big opportunity to test that out? It’s pretty poor in not giving these carriers more defensive armaments. Is it really that difficult? They could even put containerised Asraam Gravehawk on the decks!
It’s expensive to upgrade the carriers
Jon its JON
30mm that are wired and ready points but were never fitted due to quite a flaw in the operation of the 30mm, due to how the RN Escorts its carriers there was a real fear that a single 30mm shell striking a escort, could and would sink the escort or render it out of service. shocking the entire defence screen devised after the Broadsword/Coventry hick up.
Yes. I read that excuse and didn’t believe it. The idea that the carrier CMS is so poor that it would allow a carrier’s 30mm to strike an escort, but the escort’s CMS is so good that it won’t allow the escort’s 30mm to strike the carrier doesn’t sit well with me; they have the same CMS.
You’d also have to believe the 30mm was pretty impressive if a single shell could sink an 7000 ton escort. A one and a quarter inch diameter shell. Picture it. Hold it in your mind then imagine it striking and sinking a fleet escort. Seriously? I believe it could stop a car. You’d also have to believe that the crew of the carrier were pretty incompetent in firing at our own ship too.
Too much for me to swallow.
I wonder what they have in store for the next generation of munitions?
21 Apr 2025
BAE Systems has developed innovative new approaches in the production of energetics and propellants expected to strengthen supply chain resilience for the UK and its allies.
These developments follow more than £150m of investment by the Company in its UK munitions facilities since 2022, which will deliver a sixteen-fold increase in production capacity of 155mm artillery shells when its new explosive filling facility at Glascoed, South Wales, becomes operational this summer.
The Company has invested a further £8.5m in novel manufacturing methods over the last five years, leading to significant breakthroughs in the creation of next generation explosives and propellants.
The new methods will use continuous flow processing to synthesise explosive material and remove the need for Nitrocellulose and Nitroglycerine, which are high in demand across global supply chains, in propellant production.
As a result, the Company anticipates it will be able to produce sufficient explosives and propellants in the UK to meet UK Ministry of Defence and export requirements, with the initial phase of industrial capacity expected by the end of 2026.
well that Kaga only have 2 sea ram launchers so only point defence missiles, the Italian Trieste only has guns.
Trieste hasn’t long started working up. Cavour has 3x25mm and Aster 15s. Which reminds me, have they done a deal on Garibaldi yet? Even though its fighting days are behind it, it could be a nice little drone test carrier.
I understand it’s looking like Indonesia may end up buying it along with a bunch of harries to bring them into the fixed wing aviation game.. along with its 6 new frigates, up to 12 new diesel electric boats and big fleet of corvettes, 5 decent landing docks ( with good flight decks), 30 odd 2000 ton amphibious landing ships and 5 fleets support ships..they are becoming quite the regional navel power
World’s second biggest democracy is flexing a bit then. I suppose it was only to be expected at some point, but it has crept up a bit on the outside for me.
Hope the UK can get some of their huge shopping list, especially Frigates. More A140s, might then be an option for NZ for a near local T31 type build. Wish the RAN here would also get some more SSKN’s to complement the 6 Collins subs while all the faffing around waiting for 3 second hand Virginia’s to turn up or not!
Janes recently mentioned Indonesia is looking at possibly purchasing the Garibaldi and even some of the Italian Harriers?
Doh, if you check you’ll find F35s carry missiles 🤦🏻♂️
But John Healey says NATO first and he hardly cares for Pacfic allies. Meanwhile, X users want the carrier to sink refugee boats.
Like
Sink all immigrants in boats in mid sea and with NO rescuing of them
That would be Murder.
I keep seeing the loony Right claiming people are being arrested for just expressing the views of the ‘silent majority’ and that there is no real freedom of speech in the UK.
Dave’s post calling for the murder of immigrants is still up so perhaps this ‘censorship’ isn’t all it’s made up to be. However, it’s early days so perhaps he will get a knock on the door pretty soon.
Sure the German people being run down in the streets and the huge parts of france that are no go areas wont mind
if the French police popped the boats on the beach that would be a better option. they soon get there battens and tear gas when they face football fans
Sink the RNLB would be a good step, turned into uber for the channel
I recommend that the RN keep these ships in dry dock they, will be safer there.
Eight letter acronym — is that a record.
Why don’t we just day admiral?
CSG — Force Z?
RN is now a theatre company — number of limited productions every year.
They seem to have given up the hard work of continuous output.
Royal Shakespeare rather than the BBC.
How many ships are on the high seas today?
T23?
T45?
Rivers?
Output reality — 9-5 / Monday to Friday / commuting distance to Portsmouth.
Plymouth – all the the Type 23s are there now!
Fair point — but please don’t waste a good rant with facts.
An interesting take from across the channel on their readiness (translation from ZoneMilitaire360);
According to the White Paper on Defence and National Security [LBDSN] published in 2013, the National Navy must be able to deply forces in two or three permanent theatres of operations. Hence his current format of fifteen so-called “first rank” frigates, supposed to allow him to hold his operational contract. Format that, moreover, had been considered insufficient at the time.
Since then, the international context has been tense and conflict has evolved. However, the last Military Programming Act [LPM] did not increase the number of first-rank frigates. Also, the National Navy uses “artifices” as recently pointed out by Admiral Nicolas Vaujour, its Chief of Staff [CEMM], at a recent conference organised by the French Institute of the Sea.
Indeed, to increase the number of days spent at sea by its frigates, the National Navy is counting on the effectiveness of the Fleet Support Service [SSF] as well as on the industrialists so that their availability rate is as high as possible [it is currently 80%, ed]. This, with the double crew system, allows it to “do more days at sea with fewer boats” than some that have more.
“But if you ask me if I want three more frigates, the answer is yes, obviously,” said Admiral Vaujour.
The wish of the CEMM will be fulfilled. According to the daily “L’Opinion”, the need to provide the National Navy with three additional frigates was confirmed at a ministerial meeting organised around President Macron on March 13. The objective of increasing the amount of the army budget to 100 billion euros per year, in the long run, was also.
However, having more frigates is one thing. But they still need to be sufficiently armed. However, this is not the case at present, as past budgetary constraints have forced the General Staff of the National Navy to make choices, especially for the Defence and Intervention Frigates program [FDI, or “Amiral Ronarc’h” class).
It may seem paradoxical… but these choices mean that the FDIs proposed for export by Naval Group are better armed than the five [for the moment] intended for the “Royal”…
Indeed, the latter will only have sixteen Sylver A50 cells to launch ASTER 30 surface-to-air missiles, eight Exocet MM40 Block 3C anti-ship missiles, a 76 mm turret, two 20 mm teleoperated guns and two double torpedo-launching tubes. The option of integrating Sylver A70 launchers to allow them to carry naval cruise missiles [MdCN] has been ruled out.
At the same time, the FDIs commanded by Greece will be equipped, in addition to the eight Exocet MM40 Block 3C, the 76 turret and the two remote-operated guns, with thirty-two ASTER 15 / 30 surface-to-air missiles, two triple torpedo launchers and a short-range anti-aircraft system [RAM]. In addition, Athens has announced its intention to equip three of them with Sylver A70 launchers.
However, it is necessary to adapt the armament of the frigates to the current threats.
As MP Yannick Chenevard recalled in his last budget opinion, these come from “competitors with the most advanced technologies in missiles, drones or aircraft” and “terrorist or parastate organisations, such as the Houthis”, equipped with “very simple” weapons, such as air and naval remote-operated ammunition, but “in enormous quantities, likely to saturate the Defence systems of our ships”.
“In any case, recent years, especially the Navy’s commitment to the Red Sea, have shown that our ships, if they want to survive the high-intensity war, must have both sophisticated and very expensive means of anti-aircraft Defence, such as the ASTER missiles, but also simpler and much less expensive means, such as cannons. They must also benefit from multi-threat, multilayer, 360° and sustainable defences, that is to say whose ‘cost per shot’ is as low as there are many objects to be destroyed, “explained the deputy.
That being said, the FDIs have been designed in such a way that it is possible to add additional armament to them. “We have taken the precaution of leaving room to add vertical launch systems if necessary,” recalled Admiral Vaujour during a hearing in the Senate in October.
But there was still no question of reviewing their abilities. “This is not budgetary at the moment, but we could put this subject back on the table in the coming years. The FDI program has been spread until 2032, which gives time to think about it and decide, “said the CEMM. No doubt, it will soon have the means to accelerate the reflection…
Pennywise pound foolish springs to mind.
The heavy lifting is in the R&D / base engineering / system development.
Building an instance of the system should be much less resource intensive.
Big Auto — £1bill to develop a new vehicle / £1bill for new tooling and factory upgrades.
All this to produce a £30K / £40K vehicle.
Big Aero — £10bill to develop a new platform as in A350 scale.
All to produce a narrow body at 80 — fingers crossed — per month / $100mill.
Or produce a widebody at 8 per month / $300mill.
If we need to build using craft labour / unobtanium / testing to infinity then maybe we have developed the wrong system using the wrong technology with the wrong materials in the wrong configuration with the wrong build capabilities with the wrong supply chain.
Military engineering would appear to be its own wee fantasy world populated in equal measure by contractor coin clippers and service innocents.
A very good spot. Thanks for posting.
Essentially the French Navy did a T31 and bought hulls that were FFBNW a lot of things. But at least they have hulls to bolt things onto.
Same could be said of T31 at least 5 large hulls are on order that can take 32 VLS and a number of Sea Ceptor.
Far easier to upgrade a hull than to start the build process from scratch.
What the French and especially the Italians have done has made sure they all have very good sensor fits..at the end of the day popping a few more vertical launch silos is a different level of work than upgrading or adding a sensor that was not there…my big issue with the T31 is not the weapon fit, it’s the sensor fit.
I’d have to respectfully disagree.
Changing the NS100 to an NS200 is much easier than fitting Mk41 VLS.
The NS family are already integrated into TACTICOS so that is a no/low risk endeavour.
The EO is as you would expect.
A volume air search is perfectly possible on the hangar roof with an 1850 series which is also TACTICOS integrated.
I’m more bothered by the Y/N Mk41 VLS, small number of Sea Ceptor and the lack of a proper hull sonar which is a dry dock fitting item.
To be honest supportive when I said sensors I was mainly focused on the sonar fit and then the radar.. upgrading both the sonar ( to actually having a decent UMS 4110 hull set) and upgrading the radar is not a quick job and ships should have a proper medium range air search radar and UMS4110 sonar. As for CAMM it would be a bit bonkers not to fit min 24 and I would eat my hat if the min fit is not 24.. I would also be very surprised if they don’t inherit the NSM launches.. what I think would make a difference along with the sensor fit it having a guided round for the 57mm and light weight torpedoes as I think the RN has lost its mind over removing these just as sub surface drones are actually becoming a realistic threat. I do believe the T31 may just be the only frigate on the planet without a sonar and some form of organic sub surface effector… I don’t have this concern with the T26 as kingfisher looks like a reasonable option for a close in self defence weapon against sub surface targets. I suspect the Mk41s silos may end up being a bit of a red herring as a sensible use of money would. Be to fit 24 CAMM, move the NSMs over and get a hull sonar and light weight torpedo.
“ upgrading the radar is not a quick job”
It can be very quick if all the components are ready to go. And more msn hours are not wasted on GANNT charts than actually doing the job.
Kingfisher is a concept and not a tested MOTS solution. It could well never become real…. I’m dubious that it will be useful for SSNs – probably only a drone killer?
Carrier as a capital ship nonsense — recycled Treasury propaganda 0f 1934 / 36 / 38 when they could not believe the quotes they were getting for the Ark Royal.
Plus we had to big up our projected output compared to what Germany was about to deliver. Carriers are not capital ships no matter the cost that UK MIC has managed to chisel out of a very reluctant government.
Fleet operating size and strength is a national disgrace — beyond threadbare.
One element not mentioned would be an ability to load stores / spares in Aus.
Plus ferry in and out some planes half way through the deployment.
Can an F35 do base hopping — Gib / Cyprus — to bulk up the numbers for the possible Houthi led street theatre in the Red Sea?
Base point — lack of RN hulls makes this deployment half way absurd.
Living out the back of a few containers plonked down anywhere flat is not a good look.
Auld Reekie vibe in all of this — fur coat but nae knickers.
So bring back Battleships? The army should be thankful they had carrier support in the Falklands, Balkans,
Bit of a jump.
Taking a statement that carriers are not capital ships.
And morphing it into statement that wants to bring back battleships …
Although there might be value in knocking up a 25K unit that can do AAW and land attack from a protected platform with a big VLS farm.
Nelson and Rodney — come on down.
A missile is always going to be expensive, compared to having the option of dropping a laser guided bomb
Ideally you would be able to do both.
Mix and match — pick your victim.
Plus a bomb needs an external agent to get it off the ground.
That is where the economics and the capability start to get a bit tricky.
25K arsenal ship — better call it a battleship to keep both sides of North London onside — should not cause too many issues.
4 big diesels / couple of big batteries plus lots of steel and fresh air.
Tank style active defensive aids / ERA instead of trad steel.
Big and simple with a crewing range of 100 to 200.
28 knots would be well within reach.
Lots of range plus an ability as a buddy tanker.
220M hull / 28M beam = blast boxes and transverse bulkheads.
Mild steel prototype based on a second hand box ship.
We need to get innovative.
Remember half the spark for the 1905 Dreadnought came from the Lusitania.
Agree Ukraine using £500K Shoulder systems to pop a £50 drone. has proved a sore point when a shot gun will do
Why wouldn’t you just use Typhoons from Cyprus?
Slightly Off Topic.
01.04.2025
“The RAF has now retired all but four of its remaining Tranche 1 Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft, leaving 107 Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 airframes in service. (Janes/Patrick Allen)
The United Kingdom has retired from service most of its remaining early model Tranche 1 Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft, retaining only a small number to provide air defence for the country’s South Atlantic territories.
The long-heralded retirement, which began in increments from 2015, was concluded on 31 March, with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirming to Janes the formal withdrawal of most of the last of the Royal Air Force’s (RAF’s) original fleet of 53 Tranche 1 Typhoons.
With 49 aircraft in the official inventory at the time of retirement, the MoD said that four will remain on quick reaction alert duties with 1435 Flight in the Falkland Islands until 2027, 10 will be used for spares for the remaining Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 aircraft, 17 will be disposed of, 12 will be in storage for disposal, four will be used for ground training aids, and two are being considered for sale.
The Tranche 1 aircraft first entered service in 2003, and without the more advanced avionics and mission systems of later tranches were only supposed to remain operational for about 20 years. However, with the RAF facing a ‘fighter gap’ between the withdrawal of the Panavia Tornado GR4 fleet and the building up of the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning fleet, it was decided in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) of 2015 that the Tranche 1 fleet would be extended until 2040 to add much-needed combat mass.”
Wow, the army is getting the boot in early today. It always makes me smile that they conveniently gloss over the well in excess of £5Bn blown on Ajax without a single operational unit to show for it and feel the need to kick a ship class that cost only a little more than that and yet has already been involved in combat operations. That would be Op Shader for those challenged of memory.
For some reason it always brings to mind the Wizard of Oz…No ignore the man behind the curtain!!
Exactly AJAX is the elephant in this discussion. Each service got a big ticket item agreed by Blair, although Brown wouldn’t fund QEC until he had his hands on the controls.
RAF – Typhoon T3 and RIVET got a budget line
Army – AJAX
Navy – QEC
AJAX was the only one that never made it into service but well over £4.5Bn was expended before the program was culled as there was not enough left to buy a sensible number of production units and needs had moved on during the contorted process.
Army have always been sore that the budget was reallocated post cancellation. But the question should always be around the £4.5Bn and not the army song of ‘the carriers ate BOAR….’ or whatever the nonsense stanza now is.
Ajax was not culled. Production units are now being delivered.
Apologies, you are right.
Not being an army man I got my vehicles mixed up!
FRES SB?
Yes!
Years late.
APC / Big truck style / German co production was the first Army project of the umbrella FRES initiative — Blair signed up for it to keep the army onside and then they made a complete erse of it.
Points to an organisation that couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
Ajax is / was third on a long list — 25 years and we have managed to sort out a vibration issue on a vehicle that has been in development for 40 years — that takes some doing but the managed it.
The aircraft carrier project was poor but at least there was a usable — well most of the time — output.
The Aircraft carrier project itself was not poor. The only reason there were cost increases were:
1. The Brown government stretched the timeline by 2yrs due to lack of funding, increasing the price by £1.7bn in the process.
2. The Cameron government tried to switch the design to CATOBAR and cancel a unit, only to revert back when they realised it would cost no less, wasting hundreds of millions in the meantime.
Contractor gouging put up the price of the carriers by £1.7bill.
Brown’s antics just gave them an excuse to bump their guns.
An aircraft carrier is just a mobile runway — nothing more.
£500mill would be where we should be aiming for.
Point Class build economics with a roof / magazine / fuel storage for 24 flying contraptions.
Capital ships they are not.
Does the QC really have a catering staff of 67?
“ £500mill would be where we should be aiming for.
Point Class build economics with a roof / magazine / fuel storage for 24 flying contraptions.”
So you’ve revived the Max Hastings designed Suicide Class?
Remind me this well that worked in 1982?
If you’d ever set foot on an aircraft carrier you’d understand how complex one actually is and why it is so hard to make one that is useful.
How well it worked in the Falklands — first up the AC had no NATO kill switch on alert to de-activate the incoming warhead.
Second it was a last minute dot com conversion with no onboard defensive equipment that was expendable / forgotten about in the eyes of the RN at the time.
Plus it was unlucky.
Couple of PSV’s in attendance with fire fighting equipment and things would have been different.
We need to live and learn.
CSG25 has Force Z vibes about it.
Granted it has more AAW than 4 interwar destroyers but not by much.
£500mill aircraft carrier based on the current container ship architecture / powertrain / hull platform built to an ice spec plus a full complement of blast boxes onboard instead of containers — that would be one tough cookie.
Everything modularised for lift on / lift off assembly.
How much space would a 500T jet fuel bunker take up?
How much space would a 100 container magazine take up?
Biggest bomb would be OK in a 6M x 3M x 2M container?
30 flying machines — 10 grunts per fuselage?
Is that the going rate or are we up to 20?
No matter there will be plenty of space.
What we need is a mild steel prototype.
15 year old 250M box boats currently going for $30mill.
36′ deep modular hangar units would be just the job.
Fit them on top of the main deck instead of the normal 5 high container stack.
Bob would then be starting to get the eye from yer Auntie.
To me it would be worth the effort — we need to innovate.
More of the same is just not credible.
Aircraft carriers are complex …
Tell that to James Lithgow.
Tell that to anyone who has been on a cruise.
Aircraft carriers are simple ships made complex by politics / ego / ignorance. Keep it simple and most things are possible.
Round the island taxi-ing / Twin islands — just national willy waving / showing off.
366M box ship / twin skeg hull and we would be off at the gallop.
Floating filing cabinet ready for all kinds of military nonsense.
All available in slices — 80′ down below / 90′ up top.
Class of 4 or 5 and you would have more runway than Diego Garcia.
The rest of the world actually looks at the Elizabeth’s as a model of efficiency in building carriers.. no other nation has build two modern 70,000 ton carriers for the price and timescale the UK did it in. Carriers are insanely complex ships to build.that is why there are very few nations that can build them and most of those use knockoff designs to learn how to do it.
As for what you described, that would be an aviation support ship that could not go anywhere near harms way everyone on it would end up dead. Infact the crew would have a fair chance of all being dead even in peace time.. one aviation accident and the whole ship would be in pieces on the bottom of the ogin.
Not quite — carriers are becoming pretty mainstream.
There are more and more of them about.
Getting simpler as more nations get involved.
To repeat — carriers do not need to be complex.
Are airfields complex buildings / huge basement builds?
Straight road with a fuel tanker / magazine truck and a few tents get you airborne.
Plus the QE class were a 44 ton HGV designed by the Fiesta programme office — it does the job but not in an efficient manner.
QE — model of efficiency …
Best dressed man in Cov accolade.
Competition is not great.
Peacetime resilience — the RN is not a paragon of virtue using their very expensive / very complex design rules and standards.
Fuses blowing.
Valves failing.
Coffee cups ,,,
Not a great history.
Why would their be an aviation accident?
Same people working to the same standards.
Commercial shipping is a lot more robust than naval stuff.
Size generates a resilience all of its own.
Especially if it is supported by a significant damage control resource.
Naval ships have that manpower.
Commercial ships in the main do not.
20 people would make all the difference.
James Lithgow showed that it could be done.
The trick is to keep the RN brains trust far far away.
A lesson we would do well to learn.
I had meant FRES….I blame lack of coffee!
E-7.
We need more of them. With only eight hours of coverage out of twenty-four, three simply isn’t enough.
LINK
Ok, I’m wading in.
Do remind me the last time “The Army” involved any of its combat units in any sort of amphibious training. Let alone operations. If Percy Pongo was in any way interested in amphibiosity, it would have protected (as opposed to decimated) the capability delivered by 17P&M.
Ajax was not Bliar’s big ticket item to the Army. That was FRES – and that in itself is worth a comic opera. In time FRES (or something approximate to it) became Ajax, but not before a large amount of and money and (equally importantly) time had been wasted.
FRES wasnt a ‘vehicle’ it was ‘transformation, it was to be built around the US Army digital Future Combat System, or FCS.
But all just high level wishful thinking
The sunk cost was only £130 odd million
OK I used the wrong acronym in the thread above but you have no idea of the amount of bandwidth and money that went into FRES.
It was a massive project…..
“It was a massive fustercluck”.
FTFYF.
Correction cheerfully accepted
1 RIFLES conducted wadex in 2010 when part of 3 Cdo Bde.
Then you have 24 and 29 regiments – integral parts of 3 Cdo Bde still.
But the real point is; if you want to deploy the Army overseas, it’s a damn sight easier to do so if you can conduct amphibious theatre entry. The Army know that. The Army want the RN to have that capability.
I know the RN seem to find this hard to believe, but the Army don’t see you as the enemy. We actually like you and would rather work with you than somehow be critical of everything you do. Because we would rather we were all grown ups working towards a single goal.
They did. And 24, 29 and whats left of CLR are all very welcome contributions from the Army (as is 148. although that was touch and go a few years back IIRC).
However, a solitary wadex fifteen years ago (resulting from adding 1 Rifles to 3 Cdo for combat mass on a Herrick deployment) doesn’t really signal intent. Nor does eviscerating 17P&M – which is your crucial enabler for theatre entry either over the beach or via some form of port.
Bottom line is that against any threat better armed than the peace-loving natives of Umbhoto Gorge, you’re going to need a bigger entry force than a bunch of light infantry, however individually capable they are. Royal at least recognised that and tried to do something about it via FCF, even if the jury is still out on whether it is feasible or not.
This was not and is not a pop aimed at the Army, it is merely a statement of fact. It is part of the ongoing problem the Army has in defining what it is for. A one-shot heavy armoured brigade with all the bells and whistles? Or a light / protected infantry force that can sustain prolonged deployments? At the minute, its trying to be both and falling between two stools.
AJAX hasn’t just cost the same as the carriers, but it will deliver a capability which doesn’t align with any doctrine. The army is transitioning away from tracked vehicles to wheeled vehicles. AJAX is a very heavy and difficult to deploy vehicle. So where exactly will it get used? What use will it have.
And yes the retired colonels and there useful idiot media supporters are out in force talking about how all the cash has been spent on obsolete carriers and that we need to bin these because our army is smaller then it was in the peninsular war….
And dump its relics in Ukraine with no replacement.
Two major differences between CSG2021 and CSG2025…
• The invasion of Ukraine means that while we’re not in direct conflict with Russia, it is conducting hostile actions against us just below that threshold. We shouldn’t be surprised if the Russians, via the Iranians, attempt to improve the Houthis effective threat to shipping when the CSG passes through the Red Sea. The Russians will certainly be encouraging an attack.
• While conducting freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea last-time, we were assured of backup by the USA if some kind of stand-off/ blockade/ encirclement occurred with the PLAN. Not because of NATO (it’s out of area covered), but simply because of the presence of USMC F35s aboard the carrier. This time, there will be no American jets aboard and the USA now has a president who cannot be relied upon.
Visiting and exercising regional allies would be beneficial, but some circumspection with regard to navigation in the South China Sea would seem prudent.
That sums up the problem we are facing currently.
It would be far more prudent to keep them closer to home for now, under the circumstances.
Russia was already gearing up to take Ukraine in 21. It took Crimea. The RN sailed to the Black Sea – watch Chris Terill’s documentary.CSG21 faced Russia in Syria.
They were gearing up in 2021 but it was so obvious we started emergency deliveries of NLAWS and Javelins in 2021 to Ukraine. They also got stroppy when a T45 legally sailed near Crimea.
But we weren’t in a hot war.
Huge f&cking difference.
Should stay near british isles due to Russias possible threat of ww3
I guess carrier would have a marginal role in a European conflict due to the existence of large numbers of geographically distributed airbases and the aircraft which are based in them.
However the availability of a carrier in the Far East in a future defence of Australia is more decisive. Making carrier strike available in awkward locations for the PLAN presents them with problems which would be expensive to mitigate. It’s also politically astute to bed ourselves in with other powers who live outside both the EU and USA. Gives us other non-hegemonic powers to cooperate with.
Also it’s a danger to become too over focused on just the immediate tomorrow. We have to prepare for the war after the next as well as the next war.
I suggest you take a look at the distances between the U.K., Iceland and Greenland then look at that huge area of open sea north, east and west of the U.K.
Then plot the range of land based aircraft and see why carriers in the GIUK gap are a key NATO asset and have been since the beginning of NATO.
We gave up undertaking the strike role with the loss of the old fixed wing Ark Royal in 1978 but with the QEC we now have a class of ship that can fulfil this role. Whether we can provide the supporting vessels and the aircraft is another story.
The issue with the Iceland gap is the same one we had in the 40s. Carriers are large, expensive pieces of infrastructure and can be very vulnerable out there – hence the use of MACs. And the potential, if the Navy ever sorts out it’s UAVs, to have cheaper drone carriers.
At least we have ordered the supporting ships with most of them in various stages of build.
I’m not sure using a 70000 ton carrier to defend the GIUK gap is the best tool for the job. The Invincible class carriers were designed for the purpose of operating helicopter mid-atlantic in ASW role. The harriers were a nice to have for local defence.
The Russian submarine fleet is nowhere as large or as capable as from the days of Red Storm Rising. It could not unleash 100 nuclear attack boats into the Atlantic. It would probe certainly but most of its efforts would be tied up defensively keeping NATO out and also probably trying to put out the fires from the daily barrages of TLAMs arriving to mess up their bases.
I would hope the air defences across Norway-Scotland-Greenland would be sufficient to keep long range bombers away. Russian bombers are not particularly stealthy, they would have to fly a long way without fighter cover and their operational bases are known and limited in number. In summary I would speculate any career in Russian Naval Aviation in World War 3 would be quite a short one.
Those Invincible class ships had a number of USN carriers do for them what the RAF could not.
It’s there. The SSBNs.
“Nothing but a showpiece”
The only thing a friendly nation in the Indo Pacific could conclude from CSG25, is that the RN is too small to make any difference to the geo political situation. It is a display of weakness not strength. Until escort numbers recover to the planned 19 minimum, Astutes are all available and we can deploy our own FSSS , that will remain the case.
Moreover, if we can afford to send a large part of the available fleet to the other side of the world whilst a war is raging in Europe and Russia continues to probe western defences, it raises the question whether we really need the carriers at all.
A deployment to the far north and perhaps a trip past Gibraltar down to the south Atlantic would make more sense.
Luckily, Australia is strong until it loses its US contracts.
How is the South Atlantic a better idea
The principal reason for the UK spending so much on carriers was to support expeditionary operations. Although unlikely at present, a threat against the Falklands is one we would have to deal with on our own. Making sure we can do that and sending that clear message is far more important than pretending we have or need to have a meaningful presence in the Pacific.
A good article, couple of points:
While I agree that the deployment is worthwhile, for all the reasons raised, it does highlight the state of our deployable forces at the moment. As an optimist, I like to think this is a low point that we’re coming out of. But it will be a challenging thing to bring off.
We absolutely should not be trying to skirt around Yemen like we’re scared, it’s not a good message to send anyone.
We often forget that Russia has a Pacific coast and fleet as well as a European/Atlantic one. Even if we may need to be a bit more focussed on European security at present (I personally think so), sailing the CSG a bit further north and reminding Putin that his carrier is still mostly a rusted hulk would be absolutely worth the extra fuel. I really hope this is part of the plan.
Just as much as where we go, how long is spent in each place can be important. If we’re worried about Europe, then spend a bit more time in the Med- maybe fly a couple of F-35 over to Romania’s eastern border; spend some time in the Red Sea (don’t just transit through “in fear”), show ourselves to be committed to global stability in protecting a key maritime trade route; we already seem to be spending quality time with Australia and Japan, which is good, but extend that to South Korea too- maybe even detach an escort and do a little tour of some of the closer Pacific islands, alongside the B2 Rivers. If we’re already there, may as well make the most of it.
“As an optimist, I like to think this is a low point that we’re coming out of. But it will be a challenging thing to bring off.”
As a fellow optimist I agree with you.
We do have:-
That is a lot of new, very high end, warship fleet.
However, I am still a bit puzzled about why ‘manning’ is such an apparent issue as numbers are not that low. My suspicion actually is that there are plenty of RN bods but equipment issues failures and lack of budget and people to fix ships are the real nub of the issue.
RFA manning is a real issue as numbers there are very low and I find it hard to believe that this has not been addressed by a much improved pay package as the fastest way to get more large grey hulls out on the water would be to fix RFA which is a lot more than just a tanker force. ATM I think we only have one bay deployed because of crew shortages which is insane as the Bays are the most useful ships in the fleet.
Agreed, we have some good quality equipment to be brought online within the next decade or so. We shouldn’t forget that these kinds of ebbs and flows have happened throughout the history of the RN- not that it makes it a smart idea!
As far as people go, I wonder if the issue is in certain more technical roles- rather than a shortage across the field. If you don’t have enough senior engineers, you can’t replace them with ratings and let a T45 sail. DISCLAIMER not a naval man, so forgive me if the ranks/titles are wrong- trust the underlying point is clear.
As for the RFA, you’re right. There’s nothing wrong per se about being supported by the Danish supply vessel on this deployment, but the fact that we don’t have a vessel available that’s full-featured enough to do a full replenishment at sea is a problem. Could there be an issue with recruitment as well as the pay (that has now hopefully been resolved)? We’ve heard how convoluted, time consuming and inefficient this is for the Army at least- not sure how far that spreads…
And for all the Navy bashing, the other services are in lousy state.
That’s true enough, this lack of funds is causing more infighting than should be necessary. I know there’ll always be some, but scarcity drives people to fight more like rats in a barrel, to use an unpleasant phrase.
I agree this is a low point, but I don’t think we are coming out of it for several years. In fact over the next two years it will get a little worse. We will lose two more frigates at the end of this year (on top of those going this month), or at the start of the next. We might get HMS Glasgow delivered next year, and even optimistically that will only signal to me the end of the decline rather than the start of the recovery. With all the other type 23s going between now and 2035, probably even sooner, we’ll have to replace at a faster rate than they go for a recovery. In terms of hulls, that will start at the end of the decade. In terms of ASW it will take a little longer. I’m also looking forward to the announcement of the ordering of batch2 of the F-35s, another signal that rock bottom is ending.
It may get a little worse but all you can do is to control the things you can control.
In this case focussing resources on T45 upgrades and fixing the ASTUTEs that need dock time.
Bringing the new classes online as promptly as possible in a well armed state. There will need to be serious amounts of money spent on T26 and its munitions stocks as we don’t have a 5” inventory nor do we have a Mk41 inventory.
I was wondering why I hadn’t registered the fact that there’s no 5″ inventory, or to be fair to myself, why I had never connected the dots (had you asked me I’d have agreed, but I never really thought about the issue). I reckon it’s because I don’t think the Type 26 needs guns that size in the first place. It’s an obsolete NGFS “requirement” better fulfilled by the Type 31s. T26s will be too valuable to be used shelling land targets. If the 5″ers have other real word uses (not Kingfisher), that a smaller gun can’t handle, I can’t think of them right now.
Agreed also, it’s a slow road to recovery. And, similar to an illness, sometimes it looks like it’s still getting worse before you actually notice the uptick.
I was hoping that a fast buy of T26 from Norway, even if it does mean losing hull 2 or 3, would actually give sufficient boost to accelerate that programme a bit. But looks like they’re going for a formal competition. Still, we remain in a good position to win it.
If we can get P-8A up in the air, and potentially some ASW kits for Protector, I’d like to think that the gap caused by the T23 retirements wouldn’t be as severe; I know that properly they’re two different and complementary capabilities, but at least we’re not wide open. Would be a good justification for getting the ASW kits, to be honest- although the politics of that may not play well.
In terms of F-35, I now more strongly believe than ever that we should be just buying enough for Carrier Strike and boosting our buy of Typhoon to cover the slack until Tempest comes. It was always an opinion of mine, due to the cost and delays associated with the programme, and I know that Trump will be gone in 4 years. But aside from anything else, the more F-35 we have, the more reason to let Tempest slip/ get cancelled. I don’t know what the right number of F-35 just for Carrier Strike would be, but it’s definitely not more than 72.
Excellent article, much to discuss in our usual friendly way.
Hope the British Armed Forces are working on Operation Clockwork Orange II.
There wasn’t a Clockwork Orange 1.
This is a democracy, not some failed state like Russia.
The RN should fit a couple of 30mm auto cannons to HMS Prince if Wales as soon as possible. I believe the cabling, power etc is already in place.
I think, playing the cost stuff, they rather wait for Dragonfire.
They have more than enough spares with the ones taken off of Monmouth, Westminster and the rest. I suspect the real reason is that they just aren’t good enough so they thought why bother and lets just use the magazine space for something else.
They worked just fine in the Red Sea.
It’s been previously explained on NL why the 30mm were not fitted.
Link?
The pathetic and unbelieveable explanation was …. hold onto your hat…. because they might shoot our own destroyers by mistake! I remember wondering who came up with that one at the time and how it could have been transmitted with a straight face.
All the other carrier nations seem to arm their carriers pretty well. If it’s over the danger of friendly fire then just be more careful where you point your guns. And Carriers are higher in the water than ships. What about the same with the guns of the escorts in the CSG, just as dangerous in close proximity? What happened in WWii when there was only gun armaments? No Ancilia or anti torpedo type decoy launchers on these carriers yet which I find even more worrying. Unless they’re very well hidden away?
Should be remembered that Russia has Far East commitments too and by exercising in their backyard we ensure they keep a large proportion of their navy there.
Nice reply.
All
Overall it is very interesting that – despite three years of our service chiefs being sat on their posteriors whilst watching (on daytime TV) a very big war grind on in eastern Europe and, also, over a year of them also watching yet another (very bloody) one unfold right across in the Muddle East
– that all of the MOD and goverment still has a peacetime mentality…
———-
On this one occasion – and simply because of all of the planning and working up that has been done to date – I would agree with this CSG 25 deployment gong ahead.
That is mainly for two key strategic reasons
I will however 100% agree with Sean = that there is nowdays a very big risk out in the Red Sea. he is quite right that the world ahs changed since ’21
……and also, to add to his comment, there is also now a big risk in the nearby Arabian Gulf (note 1)
That is because the Middle Eastern War could – very soon – spread over into the USA starting to bomb Iran
(i.e. Trump is not joking when he blames Iran for the Houthi, Hezebulla and Hamas attacks…. so – unlike Joe Biden – Donald is fully focused on hitting back at the regional bully
(Big Hint. That is why the Ukrainian peace talks are now being held over in Saudi Arabia – and thus why the really interesting sideshow is the debate that is going on well away from the world’s media – so probably in the urinals of the Riyhad Hilton’s gents toilets – all about “what do we all do next about the very big problem nowdays called Iran?”)
—————————–
I have previously argued here on NL for the UK Carrier Strike Group to be fully deployed – and fully focused on – very regular deployments up into the Arctic.
That means heading further north than Glen Malling – and thus swapping the suntap lotion and bermuda shorts for thermal socks and woolly mittens (note 2) – and vital midge reppellant
——————————
Quite simply, the minsiter of defence should immediately sack whichever senior army officer recently spoke to the press.
It is nothing more of less than a very crude PR attempt to take the media’s eye off the ball = namely them reportiing on the quite-shocking state of the British Army’s i.e. its complete and utter lack of military preparedness “as of today”
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
“To get the RAF/RN F35 fleet properly worked up = right to speed (a key action and one which is a very very long long time overdue!).”
And sadly getting longer. LINK
cooling system delays. LINK
LM are still unclear when TR3 and Block 4 will be combat-capable. LINK
It was also interesting to note the USMC shift away from the B to the C.
LINK
Many thanks for the links = very useful stuff
Frankly it never good news when the key timeline on this type of major defence programme has been produced on what looks to me to have the same sort of elasticity as a very long piece of knicker elastic…..
It never ceases to amaze me how far knicker elastic can stretch!
LINK
Nigel
Really!
A grown man like you!
…..
At your age!
… you really should have grown out of looking at such videos!
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
PS
They’re not shifting away from B to C, they are just changing the ratio. They are still buying way more B than C.
To quote from the article you linked to
“The Corps now plans to buy 280 F35Bs and 140 F35Cs”
So 2 F35Bs for every 1 F35C.
It has more to do with mission-capable rates.
February 04, 2025
“Despite concerted effort spanning several years, results have been mixed, according to a chart included in the report. The conventional takeoff and landing F-35A has seen declines in its mission-capable and fully mission-capable rates in recent years, which are well below targets.
The short takeoff and vertical landing F-35B saw its mission-capable rate decline and its fully mission-capable rate plateau, where both metrics are still below objectives.
Only the carrier-launched F-35C has seen measurable improvement, as its mission-capable rate remained largely flat and its fully mission-capable rate inched up, but both key measurements are also beneath program goals.”
Hi Nigel, wonder then if the UK can get some near new ex USMC F35Bs to bolster the fleet in the short-term?
This debate about the F35 procurement in turn leads onto……..
…….a very interesting comparison between the all-up stengths of the USMC and all three of the UK armed services:
All up strengths of the armed services in 2024:
So, comparing the procurement of F35’s by two very similarly sized armed services:
Remember boys and girls reading Navy Lookout…
…….: the USMC is the smallest one of the USA’ armed services –
except for the US Space Force and the US National Park Service
PS.
The US-NPS is often very-seriously under-estimated .especially by the Russian and Chinese intelligence services!
Hello Quentin D63, with the budget we have, I would be inclined to hold off until all operational issues have been solved with TR3, Block 4 and a new engine package has been selected and fully tested.
Under the current US Government, I would not be spending any money at all on new kit but rather funding new projects with our European allies and South Korea.
Note the timeline in this article, they will start working on internal carriage for up to 8 Meteor and have already begun looking at a carrier-based option, the KF-21N.
Internal Weapons Bay for the EX version.
?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3ecf4101b23c282bcfe9cb7b157bdd32250a7bb8
Hi Quentin, Correction on the internal carriage for Meteor, four not eight.
Apologies! LINK
Good to see you posting again, You seemed to vanish on this and the other site for some time now. You always reminded me of The Whale Island bloke but without the anger. Anyway nice to see you again, I wonder where WIZ has gone, he’s very quiet lately ?
Hello Jim, likewise.
Nothing quite like the facts to help wasting money on expensive toys that still fail to function correctly eh Jim? Money better spent elsewhere in my opinion.
I noticed a post on the other site that stated TR3 is now fully functional, next year possibly? LINK As I am sure you are well aware, it’s always good to keep up to date!
“Didn’t the Arabian Gulf once used to be called the Persian Gulf i.e. back when I was a lad?”
Ah yes. I remember when the Gulf of America was called the Gulf of Mexico. It seems like only last month.
I’m not against the deployment per say but I do think that where the UK’s carriers (and France) would add most value is facing Russia and missions in the Middle East and the Mediterrean.
These are postings which the more capable US carrier strike groups are comparatively overkill and which the current US administration is more likely to neglect.
Missions for deterrence against China, a true peer opponent at sea, are the best use of the more capable US led carrier groups.
Even if we still work on the assumption the US is a reliable ally, it would still make sense to free them up their capacity for the Pacific while we cover the gaps that emerge elsewhere and which are closer to our islands.
Yeah NATO First Middle East last.
Why Middle East last ? or did you mis read it and thought it said Far East ? Middle East regions are 100% in our interest and have been for many decades.
I would be more convinced if our government wasn’t busy selling out Diego Garcia to Mauritius (China) and France wasn’t selling China the Kerguelen Islands. Are we really pretending that the Chinese are scared of our weak carrier group in the South China Sea when with the other hand we are selling the route to get there in future? How impressed is Australia really going to be when we make token demonstrations whilst letting them get surrounded by the Chinese on all sides, including now a 5th ‘research’ base in Antarctica and new deals with Pacific island nations?
We aren’t selling the Chagos Islands, we are paying Mauritius billions to take them away (and once again betraying the Chaggosians in the process). These are billions we don’t need to pay them and could go to Defence right now.
Nothing concrete yet though. I’d agree about the actual Chaggosians bit though.
No one is selling anything.
The UK agreement requires Mauritius to continue the lease to the US Navy- who pay annual rent ( Not UK)
Kerguelen Islands arent being handed over to China , no matter what our random name generated ‘United front’ PR people say
I said ‘selling out’ not selling Diego Garcia. Doesn’t anyone read things before posting a reply?
China cant use a base if the USN has an exclusive lease.
Where did you find that agit prop about Kerguelen , unless you believe the Communist Party of Australia, too stupid for words
https://cpa.org.au/guardian/issue-2069/the-kerguelen-islands-sale-to-china/
President Macron announced it on the 15th July 2023 – do keep up! Regarding Diego Garcia – 1) it would be a British lease, not American and 2) Diego Garcia is not the only island in the archipelago and Chinese weaponry and sensors on the other islands would neutralise its effectiveness.
Total falsehoods. In July 2023 Macron went to Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia….where he said New Caledonia belongs to France.
Its a great training exercise so that is as important that what the political objective. I think sending a carrier to the far east is good diplomatic mission for allies and reminds everyone we might be diminished as navy but we certainly not out of the game.
Should be sent as a clear support to Australia/ NZ
Unfortunately our escort and logistics force has been so depleted over the decades that a carrier group isn’t really sustainable. Unless there is a serious commitment to get escorts to 30+ as soon as possible then I reluctantly believe the carriers and their F-35’s should be sold, if there is a buyer.
🤣
We’ll be worse off without them
I don’t think many here quite grasp that the carriers have never had a full operational deployment. Nor do they grasp how many tankers would be needed to support one carrier, the escort groupS, and the aviation assets at a war time tempo.
Forget the Pacific. We should be concentrating our efforts closer to home. If China ever does invade Taiwan we should not be involved. Leave it to the USA. We do not have the resources and we are kidding ourselves if we think we do.
HMS Dragons is a Daring Class destroyer not frigate. How can a Navy Website get this wrong. Mind boggles
At least they spelt it right. Dragon.
Who cares? Call it Buckingham Palace if you want.
How do the French deploy their only carrier to these areas and not worry that it is an undefendable target. Or is this some thing that us Brits are not capable of.
They sail under a White Flag.
(sitting back now with my hard had on ready to see just what flak I’ll get for daring to even type that).
You will have to try much harder to get anything like a proper reaction!
……because…
……..whilst on a similar subject last week |(the French) I mentioned (just in passing) “Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys”
……. and I only had one comment back
And even he then very quckly surrendered = after I had only fired one broadside!
It’s much easier on “The other site” !
A couple of points from someone across the pond: 1) I see the concern about the thin escort. If memory serves me correctly the last British carrier deployment to the Pacific had 2 type 45 destroyers (although there may have been some engineering issues that came up side lining one) as well as one or more ASW frigates, an Arliegh Burke class destroyer with BMD capability, a Dutch Frigate, and a submarine. Given the increased threat in the Red Sea I would be concerned if it was an American asset sailing with such a thin escort. 2) I do appreciate having our allies also worrying about rules based order even if the current administration in Washington is less concerned than the last 3) The article seems to identify the 2 type 45 destroyers as frigates. I have been under the impression for years that they were classified as destroyers and referred to as such. It seems surprising to me a British source would make the mistake unless I had the wrong impression about their classification.
You’ve misread the article, go take another look.
Just remember what happens to poorly defended capital ships with no air cover. Prince of Wales and Repulse. Currently residing at 55m depth off Singapore. The RN would be knackered…if it came against the PLAN at this time. Sack it off and stay closer to home and to some credibility.
It would be sacked off if stayed close to home then, facing mass Russian politics attacks.
As I understand the deployment to Red sea or the Sea of Japan would be supported by allies, the carrier the centre of an international task force.
We are not at war with China and actually how good are the PLAN? What war fighting experience do they possess?
Sadly the state of the RN reflects the condition of the U.K. military and the overall country. But we will be in the company of capable allies including Japan and Australia, have treaty obligations in the Far East and it will give our people some good runs ashore, which is a great experience and undoubtedly why many joined. It will also demonstrate to the US that Europe can indeed offer support on the global stage with PoW following deployments of Italian and French carriers.
I am sure when in the Eastern Mediterranean we will also be able to remind Mr Putin that any of his assets in the area are just guests visiting a NATO pond.
So you think a CSG has “no air cover”? 🤦🏻♂️
Maybe this is why the Royal Navy should also have LHD’s as lightening carriers and back ups. That way their two carriers can sail on overseas deployments but keep the LHD’s closer to home
We can’t even put jets on our 2 carriers
much chat about keeping closer to home in european waters but thinking the f35b’s can fly home anytime with inflight refueling. the carrier is a nice bit of mobile uk airfield possibly safer than land based airfields
Flying them home is not that easy given the distance and If we did that, the Carrier would be almost redundant. We should never have this situation of too few F35’s to adequately be in two places at once, it is 9 years since the first Carrier began service and still we don’t have enough for a full load let alone land based ops. I strongly believe Tornado was axed way to soon.
Funny how Oz has all 77 of her Fat Amy’s. Yet speshil Teir 1 supa-dupa F35 partner the UK has hardly half of that number.
Blame the RAF as they are the budget holder.
Need to restore the F35B to FAA only as they eventually did for the pre ww2 planes
Indo-Pacific or closer to home, the difference is about logistic support.
The next question is: What type of operations and against whom with the CSG?
Willy-waving exercise to Hamburg is not on the same scale as a mobile strike force at the South China Sea.
Personally I think this time we do need the CBG to go to the pacific, mainly because we told the Japanese we would and I understand they are quite excited about possibly having our F35Bs fly off JS KAGA and having a bit of a play around with a CBG. The Japanese sort of take promises seriously and we are in a very important project with then..
But I think the time in the pacific should be short and just focused on Japan.. before heading to Australia.
But after this I think the UK should adopt a policy of no military engagement east of Malacca and north of the equator in regards to the pacific. So make it clear our core area of military interest begins and ends and with supporting Australia and New Zealand in the pacific.
Set piece carrier trips to the Pacific seem to be the only way we can gear up our carrier force at all. We haven’t had more than eight fighters on the carriers since CSG ’21. I don’t see why you’d have a downer on visiting Japan in the future, an increasingly important ally over the next decade. We shouldn’t cut off our nose to spite our face.
Hi Jon
Visiting Japan is fine, but not necessary with a full carrier group. The world has changed and the reality is our geostrategic aims are probably now not best filled by directly confronting China. China is geopolitical apposed to the US because is challenging US dominance in the western pacific and it’s driving need to become one nation again.. as the US has now effectively downgraded its alliance with Europe and is trying to rebuild a relationship Russia which is our key geostrategic enemy, we are best to follow the same policy with China and the western pacific.. we as in Western Europe could afford to two mutual enemies when we were in lockstep with the US.. now we need to focus on our own core threat and enemy and develop a more neural approach to China. In the end Japan is a great trade and development partner, but it’s never ever going to support Europe in its security against Russia.. so we need to be a bit more selfish and follow our core geostrategic needs which is the Northern European seas, North Atlantic, south Atlantic, Mediterranean, Middle East, India ocean to Australia, Africa, artic and Antarctic…. In reality the western pacific is essentially (with the US realignment ) irrelevant to European geostrategic goals apart from as trade and development partners… we want to therefore militarily stay well away from a region that is very very likely to turn into a bloodbath the like of which has not been seen since WW2 as two superpowers rip the crap out of each other until one suffers strategic or political collapse. With a war that may happen in a few years ( because the MAGA world view is pretty much guaranteed to mean China will inevitably initiate a Sino US war.. because china has simply been looking for the reason and reassurance to do what it really wants to do.. and the US splitting with Europe and focusing on the pacific is every validation for war china has been looking for).
As others have pointed out, Russia is a big country and all Japan needs to do to help Europe with Russia is to blockade the southern Kuril Islands, which they claim. The game that Russia, China and Iran play of stretching the West in multiple places, can be played against Russia as well.
I’m crossing my fingers about the bloodbath, but paradoxically perhaps, I think it’s less likely to happen under Trump.
WW2 on repeat — demographics go against it.
Two blocs squaring up to each other — not like the Cold War.
The globe is a much more complex place now than 40 or 80 years ago.
The US and China do not have the dominance that the US and the USSR had in 1945.
Then it was two powers on the up.
Two powers on the slide.
One power in transition after 100 years of decline / stagnation.
Apart from a long forgotten Dreadnought race the Global South had nothing to offer. That is not the case any more and it will play a part in any future link ups / stand offs.
Donny John and his big stick approach is living in the past.
He / they haven’t worked out how much this change will cost in the long run.
Donny Joh as a peacemaker has a terrible lettuce vibe to it.
China vs US deathmatch has a horrible WW1 feel about it.
Two bald men fighting over a comb that will hurt both.
Future will be down to manpower as well as tech / kit.
Those countries with a rising population will have plenty of suitors.
All in all — I would keep in with Japan / South Korea.
We need friends wherever we can find them.
The US will either fall or it will be a friend we all could live without.
MAGA nonsense will have a short shelf life.
Europe at one time was running out of shirt colours.
Fascism has a fairly short shelf life.
Eventually it will eat itself.
China vs US — not a fair fight in the long run.
5 times the population / 10 times the history / 20 times the class.
Donny John and Russia — I think the plan is to get them out of the Chinese orbit / influence. We are expendable in this exercise.
Japan is a lot closer to Russia than we are.
Jon Russia is a very big place, but lots of it is very very empty, Russia is strategic focused on Eastern Europe and western Asia more than anything at present..it’s also a few miles from the US but they are simply not rubbing against each other..conflict happens because of fault lines, not just proximity.
Japan is not ever going to actively support the European democracies in a war with Russia, it’s not even a discussion that is happening in that part of the world..the reality is Japan, the US and other pacific democracies are doing their level best deescalate tension with Russia, because they don’t want it on team china..that is why president trump is doing what he’s doing, he and the pacific want Russia as a neutral player in the pacific…simple as because a worst cause for those powers is Russia and china fully Geostrategically aligned in the pacific.
By this time last year, Japan had (according to some sources) committed to $12bn to Ukraine. That’s not pretzels. Of course you can’t spend a commitment, and like with the US, the commitment leads the actual donations. The Reuters link below shows that discrepancy rather well.
www. csis.org/analysis/japans-leadership-role-ukraine
www. kyivpost.com/post/38037
me. gov.ua/News/Detail/ee3d008e-12eb-42a8-926b-6da505ebf8a4
www. reuters.com/world/how-much-aid-have-ukraines-western-allies-provided-2025-03-04/
I don’t know what you mean by active support. I can’t agree that it’s not an active discussion there. Where did you get that idea? Can you read those links and not change your mind? I think Japan are doing their bit and S. Korea aren’t silent either. I agree that Japan aren’t going to annex the South Kuril Islands to draw Russia’s troops away any time soon. Nevertheless they are actively on “our” side and we need to acknowledge that fact.
I think in this debate we’re in danger of limiting the utility of Carrier Strike to it being here or being in the Far East.
It’s a bigger capability than that. A blue water navy can go anywhere you want it to go as long as the place you want it to go to is near something wet.
We would probably like to have the national capability of being able to go to somewhere in the world and be able to punch someone who is annoying us. We would also probably like to have the capability of being able to defend a British Overseas territory like the Falklands from irascible neighbours. We would probably also like to occasionally impress the Americans with a sovereign and useful capability which they could value. Having something of value is the first step to being valued.
If even only some of these reasons are true then in order to achieve this capability we need to hone and practice the navy. CSG25 is as good an opportunity as any to accomplish this and if you want to throw in a few diplomatic objectives as well whilst your deploying to the far side of the globe then why not…
The carriers are genuinely good things and we should appreciate them.
Well said.
Jon and DJB
Somebody above has mentioned demographics: which is always a key clue to the balance of regional economics – and thus to assessing the overall balance of military / naval power.
Thus if one draws a three-thousand-mile radius circle centred upon the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi = today fully HALF of the world’s TOTAL population lives within that quite-small circle.
So China, India, Korea’s (both the top half and the bottom half), Japan, Pakistan Indonesia etc – plus many smaller nations – all lie within that quite-small space
So there are, today, five nuclear armed super-sized nation states within a relatively small area of East Asia
and then, additionally, if one then adds in the USA’s overseas military nuclear commitments:
And none of them really like their neighbours!
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Ever since the end of WW2 Japan has had a very long standing reluctance, enshrined in its country’s constitution, not to commit its militray resources anywhere overseas.
Hence the offical term of “Japanese Self-Defence Forces”
That relucantance all stems from having been on the receiving end of Curtis Lee Mays saturation bombing and then, as an encore, the “live” testing of two atomic bombs (notes 1 & 2)
However, since 1945 Japan has often financed overseas operations by its allies – so for example in Gulf War 1 Japan sent a single cheque for three quarters of a million bucks ($750) to pay Saudi for their host nation support of all of the US miliary forces in that country (i.e. those Yanks eat a lot of super-sized burgers and chips….and they only drink Coke – the real thing – when lying out in the desert sun)
And, eighty years after WW2 ended – Russia still occupies several Japanese islands lying just to the north of their main island chain – those which Stalin (i.e Putin’s hero) invaded in the summer of 1945.
Those islands control the sea access into the Sea of Okhostsk (i.e. Russia’s Far Eastern backyard)
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Also very interesting that in all of the above posts here on NL, that almost nobody has mentioned South Korea.
South Korea now has a very well armed military and it is, for example, now supplying huge amounts of newly manufactured arms to Poland (ie better quality and and cheaper than those now made by the Germans)..
Also let us not forget that the shadow of WW2 still looms very large in Korea.
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
“South Korea now has a very well armed military and it is, for example, now supplying huge amounts of newly manufactured arms to Poland (ie better quality and cheaper than those now made by the Germans)..” = SPOT ON!
An opportunity missed with Poland getting both the equipment promptly, the workshare, and the spinoffs to go with it.
I’ve mentioned this many times in the past, only to be shot down faster than a Russian aircraft.
Thankfully, we have Rachael from accounts and Oh Dear Kier to strip the poor and most vulnerable even further to increase defence spending!
As for future investment here in the UK???
The main railway station was 2 km from the hypocentre of the bomb explosion.
There was no ‘reopening the next day’.
There were multiple stations around Hiroshima that were operable , once the tracks cleared. Wooden railway carriages were very suspectable to the heat and blast wave , the steel rails away from the blast not so much
Cancel CSG25 and stop the boats. I mean stop the BIG boats. The 15 or so that come through the English Channel every day, each and every one adding $50 million to Putin’s gargantuan war chest.
We are within our rights to deny innocent passage to ships that present a clear and present danger to our marine environment and fisheries, being old and uninsured and run without giving a damn about efl’n’safety. Keeping the CSG at home would give us the means to board the tankers and turn them away.
Oh’ and we may be able to do something about the small boats while we are at it.
Moving airbases (carriers) are a good idea as opposed to fixed ones (land). However if they only have 34 planes, they aren’t a great force to reckon with.
It’s time we added ’cats and traps’ and filled them up with planes!
Unfortunately the only non-US plane is the French Rafale. However that would link us together more and might help us share in EU aims to build Europe defence.
Paul
As myself and Nigel C have just pointed out (directly above) the EU “block” – currently led by Ms Useless Von Der Leyen – is nowdays “well behind the curve” when it now comes to defence spending.
Indeed, nowdays, most of the EU could very easily be said to be “well behind the curve” when it now comes to even thinking about increasing its own defence capabilities – let alone actually increasing its actual spending.
All of the noise in the past two weeks – so ever since Zenelksey failed to take the very big hint (note 1)………….
……… and so the Ukranian PM did not wear a suit and tie in the Oval office (also note 1) –
…is only because the EU (especially Germany) has not been listening to the USA, over a long period of many decades.
Trump is only now saying to the EU (today) what every US president has said ever since LBJ in the 1960’s said about the defence of Europe……please spend more…..
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So, to expand on the example I gave here on NL just a few days ago:
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The one and only big problem with your proposal -.i.e to fit cats and traps and also buy Rafeles to fly off the QE carriers – is that we would be spending billions of pounds (on claptrap)
…………and then – after spending all of that very-scarce money – at the end of the day the UK’s Royal Navy would only be getting a far worse aviation capability than today’s current carrier specfication of “QE plus F-35“.
By buying Rafele for “political reasons” – i.e. buying last generation jets to keep the EU sweet = the UK / RN / RAF would be going back to well before the pre 2000 era
The key issue with the UK carriers today is – as I and many many others have been pointing out here on NL over many years – is that the F35 multi-national programme development team now needs to, collectively, “pull its middle digit out from very far up its own posterior”
…..
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Back in the day, a zillion years ago, a CTOL carrier with Rafale-M (and E2) would have been the optimum solution with the option of Charlie coming online later.
Carrier aviation has two ‘estates’. Number one Bravo will fly from more decks, but it is one system and there are no decent support systems in place. That is no E2 equivalent only lacklustre options like Crowsnest mainly because the USMC don’t need it. You would think the RAF/FAA would understand the need for their stealth jets to pass on control of their BVR missile to an outboard controller or they do and know there is no money. There are no fast VTOL drones in the pipeline. Or number two your carrier is CTOL with at least 3 Western aircraft and E2, but fewer decks to fly from. Two may be one and one may be none etc. but France with a full flight deck of fast jets with a complete package of integrated weapons, E2, and nuclear propulsion is streets ahead of the RAF/FAA’s 35 Bravo’s with hardly any weapons, no E2, and propulsion dependent on allied navies having tankers and escorts available. Off on a tangent I notice that there is no STOVL version of the Tempest thingy which says a lot to me.
Childishly ranting about Trump and Europe going it alone are completely delusional. Europe’s Political Class wanting to continue you on with Obama’s CIA instigated artificial war in the Ukrainian is utterly astounding. I never thought Blinken would push the Russians into invading the Donbas oblasts I though that was too much. But for Europe then want to continue on that war that has cost the continent nearly everything is just too much. When this war is over Russia is going to shutter out Western Europe. And it appears now the US’s pivot from Europe will included the dismantling of Cold War structures. The EU will have to make a choice if there still is an EU as to what they do. Europe will need access to US resources and tech. But I think the UK and Eire will have no choice just as Canada and Australia will have no choice; the Anglosphere is about to become a ‘thing’ but with capital in the US not London.
Europe does have an immediate security threat that will soon be existential. But it isn’t Russia and it isn’t China.
“But I think the UK and Eire will have no choice just as Canada and Australia will have no choice; the Anglosphere is about to become a ‘thing’ but with capital in the US not London.”
They very much do have choices as they are sovereign nations.
Canada can become European centric, Eire is already totally European centric and the UK is quite frankly big enough to do exactly as it pleases.
As for Australia it’s essentially entirely focused on the western pacific not the eastern pacific and US.
You just don’t understand how IR works do you? Not the faintest clue.
Yes I do, I just don’t agree with your conclusions.
Say’s the chap who famously and condescendingly stated that Putin
“Would not invade Ukraine”
Still the expert, Still the same condescending attitude to others.
Some people do struggle with the concept of grey and that there are many possible correct choices.
Mistake was made thinking no invasion because correctly called Putin and his army couldn’t conquer Ukraine. It was worse, they didnt even take Kiev, which is close to the border.
Looking from the far side of the globe: The strategic situation can change dramatically in Europe at very short notice.
All available UK forces might be needed soon in the “Eastern Front”. Being the UK a maritime nation and the main pilar of the JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force), both carriers and their air complements (and an Army Division) could be badly needed to support the Baltic states in an all out crisis with Russia. This is especially true after disposing of the Albion Class LPDs.
Not at all. The Russia adjacent central/Eastern Europe countries have their own armies. Britain and France are the ‘rese rve’ to those nations forces . The only area that is UK commitment is Northern Norwaywhich if you have a map is both a russian front line and closer to Britain
This is where the carriers come in..
Baltics are indefensible as a strategic reality
im sure the batlic states and poland would argue they are not indefensible, plus sweden and finland would be piling in hard too….stop being a Putin parrot
let them, those Baltic bordering nations, do it . Not Britain’s area of Interest, which is Norway and the North Atlantic.
Trying to do everything means nothing succeeds
I can bet Sweden and Finland dont have expeditionary forces plan to rush them to the Baltic states
Look at a map for goodness sake, thats if your United Front masters allow such things
America’s next-generation fighter has just been announced, the Boeing F-47. Will this impact production of the F-35?
Why would it? The F35’s role is to provide the bulk of US fighter aircraft not the high end.
The high end was what the F-35 was designed for from its inception, the first day of the war. Now surpassed by the F-47.
Think about the Indo-Pacific region, = greater range, increased payload, and stealth.
Next on the list for the USN?
Rubbish. F35 was to replace the F16 and the F18.
What would you choose to use on day one of any future conflicts? Ones designed to penetrate an enemy’s defences, or ones likely to be shot down?
Future wars will be fought very differently than they are now with mother ships, drones, and the use of AI
LINK
As I stated above, think about the Indo-Pacific region, you build next-generation aircraft for a very good reason.
“Compared to the F-22, the F-47 will cost less and be more adaptable to future threats – and we will have more of the F-47s in our inventory. The F-47 will have a significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, and supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters. This platform is designed with a “built to adapt” mindset and will take significantly less manpower and infrastructure to deploy.”
“The B-21 Raider stealth bomber is designed to potentially act as a “mothership” for unmanned drone fighters, leveraging its stealth and long-range capabilities to control and coordinate Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones in a system of systems approach.”
Just like the F-47!
Perhaps a better option would be using the carrier to keep the Red Sea open. It would be easier for your allies to help you deploy it. The Pacific thing is fantasy.
When Penny Mordaunt attended the Shangrila Dialogue the French Armed Forces Minister beliitled her. “I came not alone but with an entire Aircraft Carrier Sirke Group . What do you have Penny?” You can find the Transcript on IISS website.
https://www.iiss.org/events/shangri-la-dialogue/shangri-la-dialogue-2019/
Its a PR excerise and will lack punch (the B has no stand off weapons and no long range legs ), US oversight will likely be very imposing and we will be constrained by our own reliance on the US support. Accept we are not usable and stay in europe where you can flex in the high north or eastern med. Asia isnt the ball game and we are not equipped to meaningfully contribute in that high end theatre anymore.
Cue the political Cdrs
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the RAF plans to remove all the F-35B’s from the POW when she’s passing through dangerous waters such as the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The aircraft are considered by the RAF to be too scare and too expensive to risk losing. Of course an aircraft carrier with no air group to defend her is an inherent contradiction! The RAF is also able to point out that since 2021 the two carriers have had F-35B’s embarked only 5% of the time – and never more than 8, despite being designed to operate 30. The carriers are thus clearly a waste of money. The RN top brass must be tearing their hair out at their lack of control over the Lightening Force.
Aviation Week reported yesterday (4 April) that POW will sail two with F-35B’s squadrons initially embarked, each of 8 a/c – so 16 in total (two less than in 2021). But one squadron will return to the UK, supported by 5 Voyager’s for inflight refueling, before the ship transits the Suez Canal.
That the PLAN has added 55 warships in the last four years says it all. The UK hasn’t built 55 warships in the past four decades. It’s folly to send the CSG halfway round the world pretending that we are “near peer” with china when they can generate so much offensive capability in such a short time. Arguably their sailors aren’t as well trained as ours or as experienced but they are rapidly closing that gap. The Chinese are not fools and we treat them as such at our peril.