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Crowds of hundreds gathering to watch the grand departure of £3billion warship HMS Prince of Wales, ahead of the biggest NATO exercise since the Cold War, have been left bitterly disappointed after it failed to make it out of the harbour. The 65,000-tonne Royal Navy aircraft carrier was primed and ready today to make the journey from Portsmouth Naval Base to Norway to take part in Exercise Steadfast Defender which is set to involve more than 40 ships. This comes exactly a week on from the failed departure of the vessel's sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth last weekend when an...

A Chinese salvage ship has been caught looting British World War II shipwrecks near the Malaysian coast. The vessel, a dredger named Chuan Hong 68, was seen lurking near the shipwrecks of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and cruiser HMS Repulse, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail. Imperial Japanese forces destroyed both ships in December 1941, resulting in the loss of 842 British sailors — a significant setback for the Royal Navy in the Far East. The sites of the shipwrecks are officially designated war graves, according to a statement from the Royal Navy National Museum. Chuan...

London (UK) August 29 (ANI): The British HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, the United Kingdom's largest warship, broke down soon after leaving the Portsmouth port in southern England, UK media reports said. The aircraft carrier which was first launched in 2017, broke down shortly after setting sail from Portsmouth on Saturday afternoon. "HMS Prince of Wales remains in the South Coast Exercise Area while conducting investigations into an emerging mechanical issue," a Royal Navy spokesperson told UK Defense Journal, which was the first to report the breakdown...

Cost of refitting Royal Navy aircraft carrier trebles The costs of refitting a Royal Navy aircraft carrier so it can be used by a new generation of fighter jets have more than trebled, defence sources have told The Daily Telegraph. Estimates for adapting HMS Prince of Wales so that it can be used by the Joint Strike Fighter are understood have risen from £500 million to £1.8 billion. Millions have already been spent on studies to look at how to convert the ship after ministers decided to scrap the jump-jet variant of the plane in favour of a conventional take-off and landing...

Navy will not get fleet of US joint strike fighters until 2023, three years after carrier due to enter service. The Ministry of Defence has still not decided how many planes should be assigned to the navy's long-delayed and increasingly expensive aircraft carrier programme, but whatever the number they will not be available for more than a decade, it has emerged. Confusion over the carrier project was compounded on Friday when the MoD said in its "business plan" that the navy will not get its fleet of US joint strike fighters (JSFs) until 2023, three years after HMS Prince of...

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