With the first new carrier working up, F-35Bs preparing to come home and Merlins being modified, 2018 is set to be a busy year for the UK’s maritime air power capabilities, as Alan Warnes explains.
Intel Report
’In association with ….’Airforces Intelligence
The last 12 months have seen the UK’s armed forces going through another period of consolidation. With Iraq and Afghanistan deployments no longer the focus of military commanders, planning is shifting towards contingency operations.
The armed forces define these as politically sensitive military activities normally characterised by short-term, rapid projection or employment of forces in conditions short of war. It is no surprise that the re-establishment of maritime power is at the heart of this strategy, with two brandnew 65,000-ton Queen Elizabethclass aircraft carriers serving as its backbone. The warships are arriving at a time when Russia is reinforcing its status as a military power and tensions are increasing in Asia Pacific. Both aircraft carriers received widespread media attention in December 2017.
HMS Queen Elizabeth was commissioned into service at Portsmouth Naval Base on December 7, followed by the floatin…
