INTEROPERABILITY WITH THE US

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.

Close 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 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.

US Marine Corps F-35B jets are due to take part in HMS Queen Elizabeth’s first operational deployment in 2021, highlighting the depth of the levels of interoperability between the UK and US.

U.S. Navy Photo Courtesy of Lockheed Martin

Currently, the USMC F-35Bs operate off both the full-size US Navy carriers and the smaller Wasp-class amphibious assault ships. The greater size of the Queen Elizabeth class will give the US pilots considerably more deck space in which to operate. As the USMC is the air arm with the most experience of the highly sophisticated ‘B’ variant of the Lockheed Martin aircraft, the UK will be able to take advantage of that expertise to build up its own body of knowledge of the type’s abilities during the initial joint deployment – and beyond.

The US squadron will operate alongside a UK one, but as well as practising onboard interoperability, HMS Queen Elizabeth will be working alongside US missile destroyers, frigates and nuclear hunter-killer submarines as part of CSG21. First, however, the UK’s own F-35Bs will start to work up on the carrier. ‘Last year was massively successful from the point of view of being able to launch and recover F-35Bs from the deck’, Utley confirms.

This year, HMS Queen Elizabeth will spend more than three months in the Western Atlantic working up in the Westlant19 deployment: ‘This will be the first time that we have front-line jets embarked and learning to operate them from the ship in an operational context, moving towards a warfighting capability’. To help co-ordinate UK and US carrier operations, since 2014 the Strategic Effects and Forces Alignment Board has existed to align deployments of the ‘very capable but scarce assets’, reveals Utley. ‘We’re extremely closely linked in how we work those together, so we don’t duplicate our efforts’.

RN vessels are regularly deployed as part of USN Carrier Strike Groups, underlining the concept of US/UK naval interoperability

U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kenneth Abbate

As well as this bilateral co-operation, the UK will also be practising interoperability with the wider NATO Alliance and expeditionary forces: From the end of 2020, the carrier will be declared to the NATO Readiness Initiative, particularly in the Atlantic theatre of operations. As part of that multilateral interoperability, 2021 will also see a Dutch warship deploying alongside a UK carrier. This will involve a liaison officer from each ship cross-decking to the other and ‘a certain degree of cross-pollination will happen. With the Netherlands, we train them at Flag Officer Sea Training off Portland, so they are very aware of the way British units operate and we speak the same language on radio circuits and on tactics’.

Most, if not all, of HMS Prince of Wales’ deployments will be with warships from partner nations, especially those from NATO.

Royal Navy Photo LPHOT Alex Ceolin, Crown Copyright

In addition to the close NATO partnership, the UK and US will also be prepared to operate together in a coalition operation that does not involve the Alliance. Additionally, interoperability with other nations will be an ongoing feature of the QEC. ‘Every time those ships go to sea, they will work with other nations’. Importantly, however, ‘We will always be interoperable with the US, but with the carrier capability we have a UK core strike capability meaning that, we will always have the choice to use it as a national asset’.