HMS Prince of Wales sails for key NATO exercise in Norway - Royal Navy
HMS Prince of Wales will lead a carrier strike group of eight ships – four of them British, including frigate HMS Somerset and two Tide-class tankers from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary – supported by US, Spanish and Danish vessels.
They form one of the most potent naval forces of the exercise – an allied fleet of 40 vessels, drawn from more than two dozen nations, committed to the seagoing element of Steadfast Defender, which will take place off Norway’s Arctic coast from late February into March.
The carrier brings the capability of her F-35B Lightning stealth fighters from 617 ‘Dambusters’ Squadron at RAF Marham, submarine hunting and airborne early warning Merlin Mk2 helicopters from RNAS Culdrose, and battlefield Wildcat helicopters of 847 Naval Air Squadron from RNAS Yeovilton.
Before heading for Norwegian waters, HMS Prince of Wales is conducting a week’s training in the North Sea with her air group to hone the skills of the 780-strong ship’s company – plus nearly 600 men and women embarked with the F-35s and helicopters...
On a not entirely unrelated note, I saw something interesting on the BBC News site:
The fighter pilots hunting Houthi drones over the Red Sea
"We took a Harrier jet and modified it for air defence," Ehrhart tells me. "We loaded it up with missiles and that way were able to respond to their drone attacks."
An experienced fighter pilot, Ehrhart says he has shot down seven Houthi drones. But when flying so close to these explosive devices, he says, every interception carries great risk.
"They are shooting at us all the time, so we need to be even more focused. Our systems need to be primed so we can stay safe."
Like the Super Hornets from the USS
Eisenhower, the AV-8B+ can fired Sidewinder or AMRAAM. Both weapons are considerably cheaper than the SM-2 or SM-6 missiles. Some analytical but mischievous person could probably show mathematically that it is more cost effective to use shipborne aircraft to engage UAVs and anti ship missiles than it is to use expensive missiles and then have to transit to a port to reload the VLS cells.
Then they can use some simpler calculations to show that having your air defence aircraft based aboard a carrier tasked with protecting ships carrying reinforcements is better than relying on ones based hundreds of miles away (think of the Norwegian Sea for a NATO example) and the value of defence in depth - after all nothing has one hundred percent reliability.