Out at sea, the Royal Navy's Carrier Strike Group is forging itself into a potent weapon

Telegraph

24-04-2025

The day before yesterday, Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales and many of her Strike Group's ships left their respective bases to form up for the start of a global deployment called Operation Highmast.
I remember what a day like that is like. In the flagship, the ship's second in command will have entered the bridge, stood to attention and saluted the Captain:
'HMS Prince of Wales singled up on all lines, ready in all respects for sea, Sir.'
'Very good XO, I have the ship… let go all lines'.
And that's it. Thousands of hours of preparation, training at sea and in simulators, storing ship, safety checks, inducting new joiners, planning and maintenance, all culminating in this moment. As the last berthing line leaves the jetty, the Union Jack is struck at the bow of the ship, tugs and engines are engaged, and it's time to go and do the job.
This is what deploying feels like. As you pass the families gathered to wave you off, the sadness you felt when you said your personal goodbyes creeps up on you. In command, this will probably be the tenth time you've done it and it doesn't get any easier, but you remind yourself that for a large percentage onboard, it will be their first. Most are in their early twenties. For some, it will be their first lengthy time away from home. A few will be looking at their new, slightly sweary shipboard family and wondering what on Earth they have done. Most will be wondering what adventures this deployment will bring. The veterans know only one thing for sure – what the ships have planned will not be what they end up doing.
But no time for that. First, you have to get the ship clear of the wall and through the harbour entrance. That's a piece of cake in a frigate, not at all simple in an aircraft carrier. Then you dispense with the tugs, pick up speed and tick off the various landmarks, sea forts and fixing points on the way out to sea until eventually the last piece of land disappears from sight. At this point, the quicker you can consign the departure to memory and get into a seagoing mindset, the better. A tried and tested way to do this is to throw a full-size, full weight orange man figure – traditionally called 'Fred' into the water and conduct a man overboard exercise, timing how long it takes to get him back onboard. Then you run a basic fire exercise to test the Standing Sea Emergency Party. This small team will have seen videos and the statistics on what happens if a small fire isn't put out in the first few minutes, and will have been trained to within an inch of their lives to make sure they can.
These drills are a basic, everyday part of life at sea and have saved countless lives over the years. Doing them on sailing helps with the process of normalisation, but is also a good test to see if anyone is mentally still alongside.
In the carrier itself the scale and complexity of what you are asked to do and coordinate every day rarely allows you to settle into anything approaching a routine. There is always something happening and 'Daily Orders', the ship's programme, can run to pages long. For both the ship's own command team and the embarked Commodore and his battle staff, in charge of the whole group, it is relentless.
As the carrier heads along the south coast over the next couple of days, her escorting warships and support tankers will converge on her, and her helicopters will fly aboard. For them, the mixture of sadness and excitement will be the same but at least life is comparatively simple: go where ordered and have your weapons, machinery and stores at immediate notice. Manage your ship's company to assure that. Most importantly, don't on any account do anything to annoy the carrier. There's a reason escorts refer to the carrier as the 'Death Star'. Careers are made or broken by the impression the carrier gets of other units on these trips.
At some point the submarine will join. They won't tell anyone, and most won't know (or care) but this will be an extraordinary opportunity for the selected boat. Interesting visits and runs ashore are rare for the 'Silent Service' these days and they are struggling to recruit and retain as a result. The submariners have a vital role protecting the carrier, and the sub also carries much of the Group's striking power, but there is also a vital diplomatic role in making the Aukus alliance a real thing of steel and weapons for a while, rather than just plans. If there's any action – in the Red Sea, the Taiwan Strait, or somewhere nobody anticipated, the more important the submariners become. The only bit they will not like is being told what to do occasionally by the Death Star – nothing more than a particularly large target, to their way of thinking.
At some point during this forming-up phase some of the UK's 30 available F-35B fighter jets will embark. Initially there will be 18, probably increasing to 24 later in the trip, maybe even more if the US Marines put some of their F-35Bs aboard at some stage. The MOD is keeping this number close to its chest, and rightly so. Parts of the deployment at least may see the largest gathering of stealth aircraft on one ship yet seen anywhere – the US Navy's huge carriers are still mostly full of fourth-gen F-18 Hornets, with just an occasional stealth squadron at sea for now. I think the Royal Navy will probably set that record: to all but the most rabid of F-35 haters, that's impressive.
In all truth the British Carrier Strike Group has its problems, and Chinese vessels now at sea and building will soon surpass and then dwarf its combat power: but this year, Britain will have the largest fifth-generation air wing on the face of the oceans.
By the time they cross the Bay of Biscay, most of the maritime elements will have converged and will be ordered to close up for the ubiquitous formation photo. Doing this is an important part of getting the message out, but it's an unfortunately inaccurate message in terms of how task groups operate. Carrier Task Group 2025 (CTG25) is a much bigger animal than just the carrier, and its ability to disperse ships, aircraft and troops to many countries as it goes will create a much larger footprint than that suggested by the formation photo.
If constantly flying fast jets, replenishing ships and getting beaten up in exercises by your own submarine can get a task group sharp, then by the time they reach the Mediterranean, the Strike Group will be ready for anything. The wrinkles inherent in operating across multiple nations and ship-types will have been ironed out. Nato work awaits them once in the Med but by then, much focus will be on the Suez Canal transit into the hottest missile environment in recent maritime history. I have written before on what the options are for dealing with this part of the deployment and won't repeat myself here. But I do know this, by the time the Group gets into the Red Sea, it will be ready to defend itself – and to strike offensively if ordered to do so.
In sum, yesterday saw a remarkable collection of sovereign and allied firepower, deterrence and influence leave various harbour walls and airfields and start to assemble itself into a fairly mighty weapon and tool of statecraft after years of planning. The Carrier Strike Group will punch above its considerable weight, exerting British influence backed by Royal Navy sea power wherever it goes, as the French and Italian carrier groups have just done. Op Highmast will occupy the news both here and abroad in a way no other military deployment outside of war can. Europe is a priority just now, naturally, but a four-yearly deployment to the Indo-Pacific doesn't mean anyone has forgotten that. There are much more powerful enemies in the world than Vladimir Putin's rickety petro-state, and Britain has many other friends than our allies on the continent of Europe.
This deployment means that we haven't forgotten that the UK is dependent on the sea for its survival and that the world's shipping and trade routes are all linked. This isn't a vanity trip, it's a complex piece of 3D statecraft-at-sea in an environment where both deterrence and defence are often best done at distance: not always, but often.
Meanwhile, thousands of young men and women are settling down tonight in their strange seagoing environment wondering how much fun, how dangerous and how rewarding this trip will be – just as the ship's companies of the Royal Navy have been doing for so many centuries. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone being grateful for their service and wishing them the best of luck.