The Carrier Strike Group (CSG25) spearheaded by the Royal Navy's HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier is the UK's largest fleet of Royal Navy warships to deploy internationally since CSG21. From April to December 2025, the group will travel 30,000 nautical miles, conducting a series of exercises and operations with air, sea and land forces of a dozen allies in the Mediterranean, Middle East, South-east Asia, Japan and Australia.
The UK Royal Navy Carrier Strike Group (CSG) – comprising 4 ships, 16 helicopters, up to 24 jet aircraft, and some 2,500 sailors, aviators and marines – set sail from Portsmouth on 22 April 2025.
Leonardo is proud to support the CSG through its role as strategic partner to the UK MOD and one of the UK's leading equipment suppliers to the UK armed forces.
Leonardo’s AW159 Wildcat and AW101 Merlin Mk2 helicopters keep watch over the carrier group and the surrounding seas, ensuring the ships and their crews are well protected from enemy submarines, surface ships, aircraft and missiles. The AW101 Merlin Mk4s also provide Royal Marine Commandos on-board intra-theatre lift and amphibious air manoeuvre for littoral operations.
The Wildcat and Merlin are designed and built to operate in hostile and extreme conditions, providing class-leading defensive and offensive capability at sea, utilising state-of-the-art mission systems for long-range detection such as Leonardo’s radars and Electronic Warfare equipment.
Furthermore, the UK’s carrier strike capability is backed by Leonardo's secure communications and thermal imaging sensors for flight approach monitoring and high-fidelity situational awareness.
The aircraft and equipment developed by Leonardo and which support the CSG on its journey across the world, represent the best of UK engineering ingenuity and defence capability – capability that is helping secure the UK’s status as a science and technology superpower, and enabling our armed forces to take a leading role in global defence and security, tackling climate change and health risks, conflict resolution and poverty reduction.
