The UK’s flagship aircraft carrier is ready for war after deploying across the world in a demonstration to Vladimir Putin of NATO’s “hard power”, the defence secretary has said.
John Healey said HMS Prince of Wales, armed with F-35 stealth jets and defended by a group of British and other allied warships, is on five to 10 days’ notice to mobilise in a crisis.
He also said that Britain was making the carrier available to be used in NATO operations.
However, defence sources pointed out that the UK can only operate the £3.1bn vessel – the Royal Navy’s largest and most expensive class of ship – with help from allies because it lacks enough British warships, support vessels, stores and sailors to be able to operate solo.
One source put it to Sky News, in other words, that the strike group “can only support NATO if NATO provides escorts!”
“It doesn’t come as a complete organic UK-only package – like the US could – not without turning off other UK commitments,” they added.
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In a demonstration of its capabilities, the defence secretary said F-35B warplanes conducted 36 sorties from the deck of the 65,000-tonne carrier within a 24-hour period on Friday in the Mediterranean.
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He said this was the highest rate of sorties by a British aircraft carrier since the Falklands War in 1982.
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Aircraft carrier ‘sends a message to Putin’
Mr Healey was speaking as he visited the warship off the coast of Naples on Monday, where he declared that the carrier was fully operational.
“This today sends a message to Putin and any would-be adversaries,” he said.
“The UK and the 20 nations that have been part of the carrier strike group over the last eight months, we are ready together to stand up and reinforce global security and global deterrence.”
HMS Prince of Wales joins HMS Queen Elizabeth, the navy’s other carrier, as being declared ready for operations.
It means, provided there are no problems with maintenance or repairs, one of them can be on standby to deploy on an operation while the other is being serviced.
With a crew of 800, the Prince of Wales carrier left Portsmouth in April on a deployment to the other side of the world that tested three of the UK’s main threats. It also had hundreds of additional personnel on board to support the airwing of jets and helicopters.
The warship, accompanied by a Royal Navy destroyer and a frigate as well as a Norwegian vessel, initially travelled through the Red Sea – a moment of high tension because of the threat from Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.
It also passed about 200 miles from the coast of Russia during a visit to Japan.
In addition, the carrier strike group passed through the South China Sea, along with HMS Richmond, the Royal Navy frigate, transiting the Taiwan Strait – a move that can be seen as provocative by China.
China, Russia and Iran will doubtless have tracked the movement of the carrier, though it did not encounter any direct challenges.
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Commander: Carrier group ‘absolutely’ ready for war
A total of 20 ships from 10 nations operated with HMS Prince of Wales during nearly eight months at sea. The F-35 jets carried out more than 1,000 sorties during this time.
Commodore James Blackmore, commander of the carrier strike group, said that his ships and jets were “absolutely” ready for war.
“We have returned to the Mediterranean and the Euro-Atlantic stronger than we departed for NATO, having declared full operating capability,” the commander told Sky News.
“We have two aircraft carriers so that we always have one available. I am really, really confident on everything I’ve seen from the last eight months that this carrier strike group is ready.”
The programme to procure two carriers was first agreed in 1998, but delays in the delivery are why they are both only finally operational now.
