Summary and Key Points: The Royal Navy's HMS Prince of Wales is currently preparing for a deployment, having traveled to Scotland to load up on ammunition. While the deployment is officially described as a "routine logistics visit," speculation has arisen that the carrier could be combat-ready for a potential earlier mission.
-This could involve supporting an evacuation of UK nationals from Lebanon if conflict escalates between Hezbollah and Israel, or assisting U.S. Navy operations in the Middle East.
-The situation remains fluid, and the carrier's exact mission has not been officially disclosed.
Earlier this year, there was speculation that the Royal Navy would dispatch one of its two aircraft carriers to aid the United States Navy in the Middle East to help deter an escalation in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Those plans were scuttled after the flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth was forced to head to Rosyth Dockyard in Scotland after a mechanical fault was discovered during a pre-sailing check in February.
It was just last week the HMS Queen Elizabeth returned to the Portsmouth Naval Base in the south of England and will prepare for her next deployment, while her sister carrier HMS Prince of Wales is now heading to Scotland. Though the latter vessel also underwent even more significant repairs two years ago; this trip to Glenmallan to load up on ammunition for another yet-to-be announced-deployment.
It was in June that the 65,000-tonne HMS Prince of Wales returned to the naval base after serving as the NATO command ship in the largest exercise held by the international military alliance since the Cold War. Prince of Wales was forced to replace HMS Queen Elizabeth at the last moment due to the aforementioned mechanical fault. Following a brief maintenance period, the second of the Royal Navy's two carriers is now on the move, but it hasn't been announced where she will head next.
Gearing Up For War?
The deployment to Scotland has been described as a "routine logistics visit," and the carrier is indeed set to take part in a deployment to the Indo-Pacific next year, but Iain Ballantyne, editor of the Warships International Fleet Review told the UK's Daily Express newspaper that "perhaps the UK Government is taking the sensible contingency of having the Prince of Wales combat ready to deploy on an earlier mission? This might be to support an evacuation of UK nationals from Lebanon if a full-scale war erupts between Hezbollah and Israel."
Ballantyne added that the carrier could operate alongside the U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), which is now in the Red Sea and will be replaced by USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in the coming weeks.
It was last week that Iranian officials met with those of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Yemeni-base Houthi rebels in Tehran. There are now further fears that a wider regional war could break out between Iran and its proxies with Israel.
Since last fall, the Houthis have been conducting strikes on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, supposedly in support of Hamas, while the militant group has also launched missile strikes on Israel. The United States Navy has operated a carrier or other warships in the region since Hamas carried out its terrorist attack into southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Though the U.S. Navy twice extended the deployments of both USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and is now playing a game of "musical chairs" with its carriers, it would seem unlikely the Royal Navy could go it alone in the region. The Royal Navy would still likely need to be supported by U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers to screen HMS Prince of Wales.
Yet, it is possible that the Royal Navy carrier could help aid the U.S. Navy in its operations in the region, proving the naysayers wrong.
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.
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