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Jane's Defence Weekly
Thinking big
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The arrival of the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers will require a mindset change in the Royal Navy.
Richard Scott reports
Four years is a long time in defence. Back in October 2010, when the UK's austerity-driven Strategic
Defence and Security Review (SDSR) was unveiled by the then new Conservative-led coalition government,
it axed the Royal Navy's (RN's) fleet flagship and high-readiness strike carrier HMS Ark Royal and at the
same time put a red line through plans to bring two new 65,000-tonne Queen Elizabeth-class (QEC) carriers
into front-line service.
Instead, the SDSR determined that, while both ships would be completed, only a single QEC carrier would
enter service, with the other ship relegated to deep reserve or perhaps even sold. This would limit
availability to around 200 days per annum.
Attendant to this move was the decision to re-engineer the QEC design to incorporate catapults and
arrestor gear so as to be able to operate the F-35C carrier variant (CV) of the Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter
(JSF). Hitherto, it had been planned that the F-35B short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the JSF
- selected to meet the UK's Joint Combat Aircraft [JCA] requirement back in 2002 - would operate from the
QEC ships.
As a result of these decisions, the planned in-service date for the recapitalised carrier strike capability was
pushed back to 2020. The planning assumption was that second-of-class HMS Prince of Wales would be
fitted with catapults and arrestor gear during build, leaving HMS Queen Elizabeth to run for just three years
to prove the platform and conduct initial rotary-wing clearances.
Four years on, a number of policies and planning assumptions laid out in the SDSR with regard to carrier
strike have been unpicked. This process began in May 2012, when the JSF variant change justified in the
SDSR was itself reversed: significant cost growth and schedule delays associated with the CV carrier
conversion programme drove the government to re-embrace the F-35B STOVL variant.
As a result of this turnaround, Queen Elizabeth will now commission in 2017 and, following first-of-class
flying trials starting in late 2018, achieve an initial operating capability with the F-35B in 2020.
The move back to STOVL also brought the prospect that the United Kingdom could ultimately operate both
QEC ships, enabling one to be available at high readiness at all times. Philip Hammond, defence secretary
until July this year, indicated his support for both carriers to come into service, but he was clear that a final
decision would pivot on the outcome of the next SDSR, expected to report in 2016.
Speaking to IHS Jane's at Rosyth on 4 July this year, shortly after the naming of Queen Elizabeth , he said
the government "really should pull all the stops out to try and operate both of them", adding: "The
relatively small [additional] amount that it will cost us annually to operate the two carriers will be a very
good use of defence budget money, but that is a decision for the [next] SDSR."
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Queen Elizabeth, the first of the two QEC ships, was named at Rosyth on 4 July. (Richard Scott/NAVYPIX)
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Milestone
The official naming of Queen Elizabeth by Queen Elizabeth II on 4 July was used by the professional head of
the RN to remind politicians and public alike of what the two new QEC ships and their embarked air groups
offer to UK defence when they enter service from the turn of the decade. Addressing the audience at
Rosyth, Chief of Naval Staff and First Sea Lord Admiral Sir George Zambellas said the naming represented
"an expression of our national ambition".
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He continued: "The prime minister has described us as 'the small island with the big footprint in the world';
that we want to be a nation that is influential in the world, to compete strongly in the global race in a
world that is increasingly globalised and inter-connected, and where almost all UK trade - by volume - is
still carried by sea".
Adm Zambellas was at pains to stress that the QEC ships should not be seen as like-for-like replacements
for the Invincible-class carriers. Rather, he said, they should be seen as a strategic capability that would
mark a return to the "scale, complexity and ambition of the carrier strike capability last achieved by the RN
and the RAF in the 1960s and 70s".
The first sea lord also sought to characterise Queen Elizabeth as a joint defence asset and very much a
"national instrument of power" at the heart of the UK's Joint Expeditionary Force.
This same theme was picked up by Commodore Jerry Kyd, currently Commander UK Task Group, who will,
in the rank of captain, assume command of Queen Elizabeth in December 2015 ahead of first sea trials
planned for September 2016. He believes that the introduction to service of the QEC ships will require both
the RN and government to think fundamentally differently. "We have had 10 years where defence has
focused on heavy, deliberate land-locked interventions and I think there is going to be a cultural challenge
in just shaping people up to this new era of British defence," he told IHS Jane's , "not just in the Royal Navy
but I think across the political spectrum as well, because this capability brings you so much military
flexibility but also great political choice.

The future HMS Queen Elizabeth is now outfitting alongside at Rosyth. Sea trials are due to start in the
second half of 2016. (BAE Systems)
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"I think the mistake is to see [ Queen Elizabeth ] as a ship - because she's not. She's a moving military base
[and] a symbol of British intent. I think that is going to have to be the cultural shift to get our heads around
in the next couple of years as we bring her into service."
According to Cdre Kyd, who previously commanded both HMS Illustrious and Ark Royal, the risks and
challenges attendant to Queen Elizabeth's introduction to service are well understood. "I hear and read a
lot of nervousness, but we should not be nervous. We are not new to the aircraft carrier business.
"I've served in carriers all through my career and, whilst this is a different size of platform, the
fundamentals of operating aircraft at sea are enduring - and the Royal Navy has been doing this for 100
years. Indeed, we are doing it today in far more challenging situations: operating a Merlin off the back of a
frigate mid-Atlantic is about as challenging as it gets.
"And why should we not be nervous? Because we genuinely have a large number of experienced and
qualified personnel supported by the long lead skills programme in the United States and France that will
provide the gravity required to bring the ship into service."
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Planning and policy
Rear Admiral Russ Harding, Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (Aviation and Carriers) and Rear Admiral Fleet
Air Arm, holds responsibility for both carrier and expeditionary (amphibious) strike capability development
within Navy Command Headquarters. He is also responsible for co-ordination and delivery of the QEC
programme as part of the wider CEPP portfolio.
"The priority is to recover carrier strike first," he said. "But having spent circa GBP6 billion on these ships ...
we are going to have to make them useable for more than just that. CEPP reflects this intent.

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Artist's rendering of HMS Queen Elizabeth at sea with an F-35B JCA air group embarked. The RN has not
operated 'big-deck' carriers since the late 1970s. (BAE Systems)
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"These are ships with capacity for about 40 aircraft each," he added. "Part of that journey back towards
big-deck carrier aviation is to look at the balance of the air group.
"On one side, it is full-up carrier strike with up to 36 jets and four Crowsnest [Airborne Surveillance and
Control] helicopters, with the rest of the rotary-wing package embarked on support shipping. All the way
over on the other side, in the pure LPH role, you end up with over 40 helicopters - a mix of Chinook, Merlin,
Crowsnest, Apache and Wildcat - without any room to put fixed-wing [aircraft] on.
"It's probably the bit in the middle that's the most complex - how you get balanced air groups that mix
both jets and helicopters."
Work is now progressing within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on a so-called Headline Operating Model
that will establish the top-level headmarks for the carrier force. In essence, according to Rear Adm Harding,
it will determine how the UK will maintain high-readiness availability from the two-carrier force, how policy
objectives are delivered, and how the balance is struck between fast-jet-heavy carrier strike at one
extreme and rotary-wing-enabled littoral manoeuvre on the other.
"It is a programming examination of what in policy terms do we think we need out of the carrier force.
How often should they be deployed? Where to? And how often can they be deployed against the support
assumptions that we are going through?

A rendering of Queen Elizabeth with Chinook heavylift helicopters embarked. The QEC class will be able to
embark around 40 helicopters in the LPH role. (UK MoD)
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"If you want 100% availability, can you do it by running one carrier for so many years between refits with
the other one at lower readiness? Do you just bring [the second ship] up every so often or do you need two
of them to run continuously? If you don't run both of them, then how many ships' company do you need
on the one that is at lower readiness? That's the bit that takes a little bit of careful work," said Rear Adm
Harding.
"The mindset at the moment is focused on making sure that there is an understanding of what Navy
Command advice is on these matters, what the running pattern would be, how long it would take to
change over between a carrier that was at high readiness and a carrier that was at low readiness."
[Continued in full version]


RN Merlin HM.2 helicopters on the flight deck of HMS Illustrious during Exercise 'Deep Blue' in June 2014.
The ship embarked a Merlin Carrier Air Group consisting of nine HM.2 aircraft. (UK MoD)
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UK TURNS TO US, FRANCE TO RE-GROW CARRIER SKILLS

Following the SDSR decision to retire Ark Royal early, the RN recognised there would be a need to rebuild
the core skills and expertise necessary to operate a big-deck carrier. Work undertaken in Navy Command
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Headquarters during 2011 identified the long-lead skill sets required to underpin the re-generation of a
carrier strike capability by the end of the decade. The RN also engaged closely with both the USN and the
French Navy to identify opportunities for exchanges so as to 'grow' carrier expertise in different ship and
aviation departments.

In the former case a high-level US/UK agreement was signed in January 2012 that formalised the
arrangements under which the USN will assist the RN in regenerating a carrier capability, while at the same
time establishing the basis for increased co-operation and interoperability on aircraft carrier employment
over the longer term. This statement of intent (SoI) on Carrier Cooperation and Maritime Power Projection
is seen as fundamental to the UK's aspiration to re-join the carrier club.

[Continued in full version]



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