BACK IN THE GAME As HMS Prince of Wales joins her sister ship at Portsmouth, Norman Friedman highlights the unique value carriers offer and why so many major navies have also decided to become members of this exclusive club.
carrier is mobile air power. That air power can protect a fleet or a convoy at sea, and it can be used against an enemy ashore. Nothing other than a carrier offers the same capacity. The British government of the day learned as much during the strikes against Serbia in 1997. Various NATO countries had contributed large numbers of aircraft based ashore in Italy. Britain made a similar contribution, but in addition, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was operating in the Adriatic. During the strike campaign, bad weather often closed the Italian air bases down. However, Ark Royal was able to seek out areas of acceptable weather. She was also much closer to the targets than the airfields ashore. Even though she carried only a few aircraft, on many days she contributed more attack sorties – more of the point of the NATO air effort – than the entire land-based air force. This experience had a direct effect on UK government planning. The Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which was being conducted at the same time, recommended that the United Kingdom (UK) build two large carriers, of which HMS Prince of Wales is the second. During the Libyan Revolution a few years later in 2011, the consequences of not having a carrier on the scene became evident. This time, NATO was supporting Libyan rebels fighting Col Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. Without a carrier, the main British air contribution consisted of UK-based strike aircraft. On paper, this seemed like a reasonable option as they could certainly fly to Libya, attack, and then return. However, a long flight from the UK would only have been acceptable if the war in Libya had involved attacks on pre-selected targets. The reality of supporting the Libyan rebels was the need for short-notice attacks on targets that suddenly popped up out of nowhere. The only way of being able to engage them would have been by loitering in the skies above, but to do this, they would have needed to be based quite close by. A fast-jet carrier in the Mediterranean would have solved this
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HMS Prince of Wales
UK F-35 Lightning jets aboard Britain’s next-generation aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, for the first time. Flown by Royal Navy and Royal Air Force pilots, the Lightning jets embarked aboard the 65,000-tonne carrier to conduct operational trials off the east coast of the USA.
ROYAL NAVY PHOTO BY LPHOT DANIEL SHEPHERD, CROWN COPYRIGHT
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