“Two-thirds of the world is our playground,” said the lieutenant commander. Ben Evans, commanding officer of HMS Spy, a 2,000-ton, 300-foot-long offshore patrol vessel that will team up with HMS Tamar for a mission they do not expect to return to their Portsmouth home port until 2026.
Patrols in the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the battleships will venture as far north as the Bering Sea and as far south as New Zealand and the Australian state of Tasmania.
At the heart of that region is China, with tensions rising with Britain’s top ally, the United States.
“They will act as the eyes and ears of the Navy – and the nation – in the region, working with UK allies to conduct security patrols to combat drug-running, smuggling, terrorism and other illegal activities, in exercise Other navies and armed forces, and will fly the flag for Global Britain,” the Defense Ministry statement said.
HMS Spy and HMS Tamar each have a crew of 46, whose members the Royal Navy say will be replaced every few weeks as the service tries to give its crews field experience while they are away. Won’t get burned till – Throw mission. The Navy said this would allow the ships to spend up to nine months at sea at a time.
‘2,000 Ton Swiss Army Knife’
There will be no permanent base for ships in the Pacific Ocean. Instead, they will call the bases and ports of allies and partners best suited for their missions, the Navy said.
Along with their usual crews, the ships will host 52 Royal Marines or other soldiers who can assist in specific missions, “a versatility that makes the ships a ‘2,000-ton Swiss Army knife’,” according to the Navy’s statement.
The ships headed west into the Atlantic from Portsmouth to begin their deployment on Tuesday. They will pass through the Panama Canal to make their way to their new Pacific patrol area.
Spy and Tamar acquire the “bright complexion” of the First World War era for their Pacific missions. The paint plan was to make battleships harder to track a hundred years ago, at a time when the British fleet was considered the best in the world.
“With our paint schemes, we look different – we look different. We will fly the White Ensign together in the Indo-Pacific. People will know the Royal Navy is back,” said Spy’s Commander Evans.
Britain’s allies and partners in the region have already got a taste of the modern Royal Navy this summer with the deployment of Britain’s largest warship, the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.
This was followed by the first exercise between US and British carrier strike groups as the carrier USS Carl Vinson and her escorts conducted joint exercises with Queen Elizabeth in the Pacific. The F-35 stealth fighter jets from both carriers conducted training missions during those exercises.
UK-Japan Defense Cooperation
Queen Elizabeth visited Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan this week, with senior Japanese defense officials and military officials visiting the carrier on Monday.
Yokosuka is also the homeport of the US carrier USS Ronald Reagan, the only one of the US Navy’s 11 aircraft carriers based outside the United States.
It is seen as a symbol of the strong US defense commitment to Japan, the kind of relationship Britain seeks to foster with Queen Elizabeth and her other warships in the Pacific.
“The visit to Japan by HMS Queen Elizabeth and other UK ships of the Carrier Strike Group is a reassuring embodiment of the close and deepening relationship between the UK and Japan,” British Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom said in a statement.
“UK-Japan relations have a long history. We believe this visit is a mark of taking our defense and security relationship to a new level,” he said.
All three partners, Japan, the UK and the US, have been vocal about the growing Chinese threat to security around the Asia-Pacific.
In its defense white paper, released this summer, Tokyo took a strong stand against China’s “unilateral efforts to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas”, and it cited Britain as a key partner in sharing its vision. mentioned. “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.”
For its part, China has ridiculed the presence of UK carriers and other warships in the region.
Writing in Chinese state media when Queen Elizabeth transited the South China Sea in late July, Wu Shikun, president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, described the UK carrier’s deployment as “reviving the glory days of the British Empire.” described as an attempt to live by. “
Wu wrote, “The South China Sea was a symbol of Britain’s glorious colonial past, through which the old-time empire, proud of its cosmopolitan colonies, repatriated the riches and treasures it had plundered in Asia.”
On Wednesday, Hu Zijin, editor of the state-run Global Times, pointed to the importance of Britain’s fleet pride in the Pacific Ocean.
“The British aircraft carrier’s visit to Japan was perceived by Chinese netizens as the embrace of two US hired thugs. In the eyes of Chinese netizens, the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier is useless as a dredger,” Hu said on Twitter.
.