Excerpts from UK Defence Journal.
BTW UK gov officially dumped the 'no east of Suez' doctrine about six weeks ago.
British supercarrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to deploy to the Pacific
December 28, 2016
It has emerged that the UK plans to sail HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Pacific in 2021 amid concerns regarding freedom of navigation in the region.
HMS Queen Elizabeth will sail to the Pacific on her maiden deployment in 2021 according to an ambassador.
Sir Kim Darroch, Britain’s ambassador to the US said at a think-tank event in Washington:
“As we bring our two new aircraft carriers on-stream in 2020, and as we renew and update our defence forces, they will be seen in the Pacific.
And we absolutely share the objective of this US administration, and the next one, to protect freedom of navigation and to keep sea routes and air routes open.”
Currently in the final stages of completion, HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to go sea for contractor trials in March. She’ll return to the Forth once those are done for a final period of fitting out and testing.
In addition to the joint force of Royal Air Force and Royal Navy F-35Bs and their pilots, the air wing is expected to be composed of a ‘Maritime Force Protection’ package of nine anti-submarine Merlin HM2 and four or five Merlin for airborne early warning; alternatively a ‘Littoral Manoeuvre’ package could include a mix of RAF Chinooks, Army Apaches, Merlin HC4 and Wildcat HM2. We understand that vessel would still carry at least one F-35 flight aboard in such circumstances to offer air defence as well as support to the helicopter assault activities.
The Crowsnest AEW&C aircraft will come from a number of the embarked Merlins (any of which can be fitted with the sensor package), the number being determined by requirements.
We understand that the composition of the CVW is a balance between ship capacity and squadron availability. Squadrons assigned or ‘programmed’ to sail on deployment will mostly in the case of the aircraft carrier be unique to it, for example the airborne early warning helicopters that have no other purpose but to serve the carrier force.
In addition, we have also been told that we will shortly see decisions like this for the F-35B and maybe a utility helicopter (or tilt-rotor in future) type.
The vessels are capable of deploying a variety of aircraft in large numbers, up to a maximum in the upper fifties in surge conditions.
The expectation that the vessels will sail with around 24 F-35Bs is, according to an insider source we spoke to, because “It is not that they can’t do land based operations, just that there is a need to get the return on investment for the well found forward deployed bases that these aircraft carriers that form the centre of the CSG are” and that “the capacity of the F-35B force in the near years in particular is very limited and it is unwise to do other deployments”.
The impression is that they’re going all out to get as many on the deck as possible and that the earlier figure of 12 was “RAF ambition to maintain flexibility to conduct land based operations” and not the policy position that is developing.
The Queen Elizabeth class mark a change from expressing carrier power in terms of number of aircraft carried, to the number of sortie’s that can be generated from the deck. The class are not the largest class of carrier in the world but they are most likely the smallest and least expensive carrier the Royal Navy could build which still have the advantages that large carriers offer.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to start sea trials in March, followed by sister ship HMS Prince of Wales in the coming years.
Whole article via link, here - https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-supercarrier-hms-queen-elizabeth-deploy-pacific/?utm_source=TW&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=social
