However, due to refit and repair, the number of deployable vessels at any one time is about 66 percent of the total-give or take twelve vessels available. The RN only has six destroyers, thirteen frigates, and six fast-attack submarines.
#Aircraft carrier battle group full
In the long term, the RN cannot continue to deploy a full CSG without negatively impacting other commitments.
#Aircraft carrier battle group plus
For her 2021 deployment, the RN plans to deploy HMS Queen Elizabeth with additional escorts: two Type 45 destroyers, two Type 23 frigates, a nuclear submarine, plus a tanker and fleet supply ship. The RN’s Westlant 19 exercise in 2019 consisted of HMS Queen Elizabeth, flanked by the air defense destroyer HMS Dragon, the anti-submarine frigate HMS Northumberland, and the fleet tanker RFA Tideforce. Beyond a lack of combat aircraft, the RN also doesn’t really have the ships, billets, or personnel to complement a full-scale CSG on near continuous deployment. When HMS Queen Elizabeth goes on her first deployment to Asia in 2021, her twelve British F-35Bs will be joined by a squadron of US Marine Corps F-35Bs flown by US pilots, giving the carrier a more robust complement of combat aircraft.
In 2018, after completing her sea trials, HMS Queen Elizabeth promptly steamed westward to the United States and also took part in exercises in the United States in 2019 in order to advance true integration. Such plans would build on cooperation stretching back a century, including on naval nuclear issues that are a critical feature of the US-UK “special relationship.” A report from an RN-US Navy study group, Combined Seapower: A Shared Vision for Royal Navy-US Navy Cooperation, highlighted shared strategic goals and outlined future avenues of cooperation. It has long been rumored that the UK plans for the carriers to serve as part of a combined CSG with the United States. Furthermore, it will not be possible for the UK to operate both vessels simultaneously due to staffing shortfalls.Īn F-35 during flight trials aboard the HMS Queen Elizabeth. One immediate challenge for the RN is that the UK buy rate for the F-35Bs is such that it will take until 2024 to get to just twenty-four British F-35Bs on the decks of the carriers. These ships are highly automated and extremely advanced, needing a core crew of only 800 due to automation, and capable of deploying up to thirty-six F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters. Her sister ship, the HMS Prince of Wales, is now in sea trials. For the first time since the decommissioning of the HMS Ark Royal in 2011, the RN once again has an aircraft carrier back in service-the 65,000-ton HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08). Today, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence estimates only thirty ships are fit for service. A NATO CSG would be a powerful symbol of Alliance unity and would bolster the Alliance’s force posture and interoperability.įor the better part of the last two centuries, the Royal Navy (RN) was the world’s most potent fighting force with a peak power of 332 warships. In fact, now is the perfect time for European militaries to work together and no better opportunity exists than to use HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales as hubs for a NATO carrier strike group (CSG). Financial calamity does not mean that European cooperation within NATO should take a step back. China has shown an increasing willingness to intimidate democracies, while Russia remains a spoiler in Europe and the Middle East. Even as budgets shrink, security challenges will remain. This will have serious implications for transatlantic security. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic straining government budgets, defense spending is likely to be on the chopping block. Long before the coronavirus battered European economies, NATO’s European allies were finding it difficult to produce the cash or the political will to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense.
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