INTEROPERABILITY WITH THE US As HMS Prince of Wales makes her entrance into the historic Portsmouth naval base, HMS Queen Elizabeth continues to work up to full operational capability in order to restore the UK’s ability to operate fast jets at sea. Alan Dron explains why she, followed closely by HMS Prince of Wales, will not only be developing a UK capability, but also vital interoperability with the US Navy and Marine Corps.
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lose co-operation with the US is, of course, hardly a new concept. It dates back to World War II, notably in protecting the North Atlantic convoys. The US, Canadian and UK navies (and air forces) shared the defence of merchantmen as they made the hazardous 3,000-mile trip. In a relatively recent example of this critical co-operation the Type 42 destroyer HMS Gloucester, acting as ‘goalkeeper’ to the US battleship USS Missouri during the First Gulf War in 1991, brought down an Iraqi Silkworm anti-ship missile with a salvo of Sea Darts as the Chinesebuilt anti-ship missile homed in on the US capital ship – the first successful missile versus missile engagement by any navy in combat. And RN minehunters cleared the way for US units to approach the Kuwaiti coast as the Iraqis retreated. From the early 1980s, carrier co-operation between the USN and the RN was undertaken by the Invincible-class carriers in NATO and coalition operations. However, the abilities of the Invincible class in being able to operate only helicopters and Harriers was a limiting factor in that co-operation, although US Marine Corps (USMC) Harriers did operate from HMS Illustrious at one point. The ‘true’ carrier capabilities of the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) make them much more compatible with the US Navy’s massive Nimitz and Gerald R Ford-class flat-tops. The Invincible-class carriers, of course, were always only a halfway house toward full carrier capability. Following the retirement
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HMS Prince of Wales
of the RN’s last major carriers Victorious and Ark Royal, and the cancellation of their planned ‘CVA01’ replacement, the political sensitivities over the costs of an aircraft carrier meant that, for several years during their development, the Invincible class were officially referred to as ‘through-deck cruisers’. Despite the limitations brought about by their relatively small size, in the end, the capabilities of the Invincibles and embarked Harriers were ‘beyond our wildest expectations’, says Commodore Mike Utley, the current commander, UK Carrier Strike Group. However, with the QEC about to come on-stream, ‘What we get now, is a massive step forward to fifth-generation levels of interoperability between us and the US. That is nowhere more evident than by the fact that the US Marine Corps is going to put a squadron of F-35s on board Queen Elizabeth for CSG21 – the 2021 Carrier Strike Group operational deployment’. That year will see the Carrier Strike Group reach full operational capability, after the interim milestone of initial operational capability at the end of 2020. ‘In order to demonstrate the close partnership between the US and UK, it was decided that we would offer them – and they offered us – a squadron of F-35Bs, the same version as we will use, to come on the CSG21 deployment’, explains Cdre Utley. Together, the two squadrons will embark around 24 F-35Bs on HMS Queen Elizabeth, and the USMC is believed to be planning to permanently designate one of its F-35B squadrons to provide aircraft for deployment on the UK’s new carriers.
