International By Design - The Royal Navy and USMC F35 Embarkation

The Daily Mail has reported that the Royal Navy is looking at plans to deploy HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH to sea carrying more US than British F35 jets. This is reportedly due to the speed of planned procurement, and could see 20 US jets embarked to a smaller number of UK ones. This has led to criticism from MPs that the Royal Navy must not make the ship an multi-national one.

Is this reasonable, and is this something that people should be concerned about?

The plan for the carriers since their inception has been to build over a long period of time two aircraft carriers, supported by an F35 force, able to put to sea with supporting elements and deliver the Carrier Strike Group concept.

This idea forms the centrepiece for the future operational vision for the Royal Navy, which sees itself as having two CSG’s able to deploy at high readiness around the world to support British and international missions as required.

This is a slow project though, as the NAO has pointed out, the full CSG concept is unlikely to achieve ‘Full Operational Capability’ until the late 2020s, some 30 years after the carrier project began.

A central part of the design philosophy for the carrier has been that they are ‘international by design’. The UK was never going to have the need, nor likely ability to surge extremely large airwings of fighters to sea except in the most desperate of crises.

A routine planned embarkation for UK purposes has for many years been seen as being as around 12 F35 aircraft, plus supporting helicopters, for a total of some 24  airframes making up a force that represents the most capable carrier airgroup deployed by the Royal Navy in over 40 years.

The F35 programme has been intended to ramp up deliveries up until the mid 2020s, with orders for 48 aircraft placed. There has never been any planning or suggestion that the UK would deploy with 36 F35 aircraft embarked on a QE class carrier for their first deployment. It is somewhat unfair to suggest that the UK is somehow failing for not putting 36 jets on a carrier in 2021 when there has never been any plan to do so.

The F35 programme remains subject to a lot of work on how many numbers will actually be ordered. On paper 138 are planned, although few commentators expect this many to be ordered. In reality a lower number is more likely, although how many remains to be seen.

Right now the force remains relatively small and still building up its capability. After many years of not having fixed wing carrier operations, the UK has retained a cadre of carrier capable aircrew, but needs to regrow and enlarge it over the next few years – this takes time and people.

The F35 force therefore is on a slow growth path, intended to deliver increasing numbers of aircraft, and pilots over the next few years. Right now the force is relatively small with one full squadron in service, with others standing up as it expands.

How this aligns with UK planning is simple – the intent over the last couple of years has been a series of incremental trials with the carrier to check that the QE design works as planned, that it can do all the technical requirements set of it, and that the airwing is capable of working as intended.

It has then gone onto bigger operations, embarking jets to both test multiple jet handling and operations, and help rebuild carrier currency for pilots to increase the number of carrier aviators out there.

The next step is to help fuse all of this and turn the ships into a coherent weapons system. The QE’s next deployment will be to test larger numbers of embarked aircraft, operating a very substantial airwing (potentially 20 -3o aircraft and helicopters) in the forthcoming Joint Warrior exercise to see how the ship can integrate, operate and deliver strike capability as designed.

The final step will be in 2021 when the ship deploys out to the Far East on her first operational tour, intended to deploy globally and show that the UK is capable of truly global carrier operations.

So why are the US Marine Corps embarking their F35s onboard then? Is it a case of good old Uncle Sam helping out ‘the borrowers’ or is there something more to it?

Since the beginning of the F35 project and the CVF design, it was clear that here was a platform that could take a lot of aircraft onboard – probably more than the UK could use. It was also clear that a ship like QE offers huge potential as a flagship, a command platform for international operations and as a means of providing air support.

The UK and US armed forces enjoy an unparalleled operational link and relationship, and are able to work in a truly integrated manner. From an operational perspective the QE had the potential to offer up a platform that would be of value not just to the UK, but to the US as well.

Embarking foreign aircraft is not easy, in fact it is really difficult to do properly. Many people cite ‘cross decking’ as a good reason to have gone for the so-called ‘conventional take off’ variant of the QE. But this ignores the fact that cross decking is rarely more than a ‘touch and go’ – a land on, quick stop and then off again.

By contrast integrated operations for a sustained period are hard. You need to be able to put an airwing, its support staff, its mission planning software, spare parts, munitions and the myriad of things needed to keep an advanced fighter jet operational onboard a ship.

You then need to be able to freely and openly share and work with your host partners to ensure that the aircraft can operate as an integrated airwing, and that all the training is done properly together.

Finally, and this is the bit that gets really complex – you need to be certain that you can operate both nations aircraft to the full extent of their capabilities, and that you are very comfortable with the rules of engagement issues, permissions challenges and problems that this is likely to bring.

For example, how do you set up the rules of engagement to permit a UK carrier to provide intelligence updates to a USMC F35 to provide close air support on the ground in a third party country without breaking both nations sets of ROE?

How do you do this in a way that doesn’t ensure that the UK is brought into a conflict by accident? How do you set up the kill chain – who has the approval to plan and approve the missions, which may involve multi-national aircraft operating on the same mission, and who can ‘red card’ a mission if not content? Are we comfortable with the idea that an airwing that forms an integral part of the ships defences may not be able to be used if there isn’t complete integration of rules of engagement, permissions and so on?

 if something goes wrong and someone is killed by accident, what is the liability involved and how does this work if a US jet, operating off a UK carrier, carrying US munitions but using UK fuel on a mission declared as part of a multi-national operation makes a mistake. Is it a US issue, a UK issue and who is liable for this?

These are complex questions that keep lawyers up late at night looking for answers. The simple fact is that there is a lot of deep integration involved to make this work properly – its not just a case of ‘fly on and fly away’, it requires methodical complex planning and preparation to succeed, and this isn’t always easy.

So, rather than be depressed that the US is embarking these jets, we should instead be very pleased with ourselves. To get to the point where both countries feel comfortable working so closely in each others company, and that the USMC feels it can embark a not insignificant chunk of its available F35 force in this way is a real testament to the strength of the UK/US relationship. No other nation on earth can do this.

Ultimately we have to remember that ‘international by design’ is the ethos at the very heart of UK defence planning. The chances of another Falkland Islands war are vanishingly small, and while some may want to get emotional about a carrier at sea and going to war with a purely British airwing, those days are not going happen.

The QE will sail in an international battlegroup, there will be foreign escorts on all her deployments and she will embark a variety of international aircraft and personnel. She is a UK asset intended to work in a coalition way, and provide real value to international operations.

Yes in theory the UK could embark aircraft, and yes in theory its terrible that the UK can ‘only’ embark 12 or so F35s right now from our own force, but why does this matter? Every aircraft force has a build up time as it comes up to full strength and operational capability.

To those who bemoan this, the question is simple – what credible scenario exists now that is likely to require the UK to deploy a QE carrier in the next 5 years with 36 F35 embarked and why would there not be a USMC element embarked too?

Whether we like it or not, the future is one of coalition operations, its one of working with our American friends and we will see the QE class used over their lives as truly international ships. If the worst we can do is complain that a nation with a military significantly larger than ours, and with a far bigger budget than ours, is putting more aircraft than us onboard for a deployment, then frankly we have nothing to worry about.

The news that QE is embarking the USMC in significant number is a real success story. It demonstrates that the UK can do something that no other nation can do – namely embark a foreign countries airwing on an operational (not training) mission on our aircraft carriers and work as a truly integrated team. That’s pretty bloody impressive frankly.