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British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales left Portsmouth on Monday’s high tide to join a major Nato military exercise, a day after postponing its scheduled departure.
The carrier was originally due to sail on Sunday, replacing its sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth, which was withdrawn just over a week ago at the last minute from the Nato drills due to a malfunction with its starboard propeller shaft.
HMS Prince of Wales, the UK’s only other carrier, had been on standby at 30 days’ notice but was instead readied in just a week to become the naval centrepiece of Steadfast Defender, the western military alliance’s largest military exercise since the cold war.
“The ability to deploy hundreds of crew to make ready one of the world’s most complex aircraft carriers within a week is testament to the skill and ability of the Royal Navy,” said defence secretary Grant Shapps.
Captain Will Blackett, HMS Prince of Wales’ commanding officer, added that preparing the carrier for deployment within a week had been “a monumental effort”.
In all, around 90,000 Nato military personnel will participate in the exercise along with troops from Sweden, which is close to joining the military alliance after Nordic neighbour Finland became the 31st member last year.
The Royal Navy’s two carriers are relatively new, with HMS Prince of Wales only entering service in late 2019. The ship has yet to operate with a full complement of F-35 fighter jets aboard after it was laid up for almost a year until mid-2023 for repairs to fix a problem with its own propeller shaft.
The ship’s 780-strong crew will spend a week training in the North Sea along with its air group, made up of F-35s, Merlin and Wildcat helicopters and a further 600 personnel, before joining the Nato exercise off northern Norway.
One naval source said that the ostensible delay to the departure of the carrier was because the navy had to notify the port authorities in Portsmouth of a sailing window over the weekend just in case it could have sailed on Sunday’s high tide.
The size of the Nato exercise reflects growing concern among western defence officials about Russia’s increasing military assertiveness following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Last week, Denmark’s defence minister warned that Russia could attack a Nato country in as little as three years.
The UK’s military contribution to Steadfast Defender — which will include around 20,000 troops — along with the growing threat from Russia, has also increased scrutiny of the state of the British military.
HMS Prince of Wales will lead a carrier strike group of eight vessels but this will include just one Royal Navy escort ship — the frigate HMS Somerset — along with two British tankers. The other warships protecting the carrier will be US, Danish and Spanish.
A recent report by the House of Commons defence select committee, titled Ready for War? found all three of the UK’s armed services suffered from “capability shortfalls and stockpile shortages” and that they were “losing personnel faster than they can recruit them”.
A shortage of warships has added to concerns that the UK military is not equipped to deal with escalating tensions in the Red Sea and elsewhere.
