Britain’s flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, is officially ready for war and on standby to deploy within as little as five to ten days, but defence insiders warn the Royal Navy cannot send her into action alone.
Defence Secretary John Healey made the announcement during a visit to the carrier off the coast of Naples, praising the ship’s global deployment as a clear demonstration of NATO’s “hard power” and a pointed message to Vladimir Putin. Armed with F-35B stealth jets and supported by a small multinational escort group, the 65,000-tonne warship has completed an eight-month mission designed to prove Britain’s ability to project power across the world.
But behind the scenes, sources told Sky News a more uncomfortable truth: the UK doesn’t have enough destroyers, frigates, supply ships or sailors to generate a full carrier strike group without allied help.
One senior figure put it bluntly: “The strike group can only support NATO if NATO provides escorts.” The UK, they added, cannot field the £3.1bn vessel as a fully self-sufficient task force “without turning off other UK commitments”.
Record-breaking sorties, and a message to Moscow
During the deployment, F-35B jets launched 36 sorties in just 24 hours while operating in the Mediterranean, the highest tempo of British carrier air operations since the Falklands War. Healey said the performance underlined the carrier’s combat readiness.
“This sends a message to Putin and any would-be adversaries,” he said. “The UK and the 20 nations who have been part of this strike group over the last eight months, we are ready together to reinforce global security and deterrence.”
With HMS Queen Elizabeth also now fully operational, the Royal Navy can, in theory, keep one carrier available for operations while the other undergoes maintenance.
A global deployment under real-world threat
HMS Prince of Wales and its crew of 800 left Portsmouth in April, joined by hundreds more personnel to support the ship’s jets and helicopters. The deployment took the carrier through several of the world’s most contested regions:
- The Red Sea, where Iranian-backed Houthi militants continue to pose a serious threat.
- Near Russian territory, passing around 200 miles from the coastline during a visit to Japan.
- The South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, navigated alongside HMS Richmond, a move likely to have been closely tracked by Beijing.
Despite constant observation from China, Russia and Iran, the carrier group faced no direct confrontation.
‘Absolutely ready for war’
Over the course of the mission, 20 ships from 10 nations operated alongside the Royal Navy’s carrier. More than 1,000 sorties were flown by F-35 jets, and Commodore James Blackmore, commander of the strike group, said the task force is fully combat-capable.
“We have returned to the Mediterranean and the Euro-Atlantic stronger than when we departed,” he said. “I am absolutely confident this carrier strike group is ready.”
The two-carrier programme, conceived back in 1998, has been plagued by delays. Now, both vessels are finally judged fully operational, though Britain’s ability to sustain them independently remains in question.
