Navy Lookout – The UK Carrier Strike Group led by HMS Prince of Wales, has taken command of a major NATO maritime activity in the High North. Exercise Neptune Strike 26-3 marks the first time the Alliance’s recurring enhanced Vigilance Activity has expanded into the Arctic and North Atlantic, reflecting NATO’s growing focus on deterring Russian activity in one of its most strategically important regions.

Navy Lookout – The Queen Elizabeth-class carriers are the largest and potentially most powerful warships ever built for the Royal Navy. This guide examines the origins, design, systems, aircraft, operational role and future development of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Navy Lookout – Exercise Sea Breeze, the annual US-Ukraine-led maritime exercise, has returned to Portland for its 2026 mine countermeasures phase. This is the largest UK-hosted iteration to date and is building Ukrainian capability while sharpening the mine warfare skills of allied navies at a time when the discipline has regained wider strategic urgency.

Navy Lookout – The MoD has completed the acquisition of the strategically important Finnart Oil Terminal on Scotland’s west coast, expanding the RN’s sovereign fuel storage capacity as part of wider investment in infrastructure, one of the real positives of the Defence Investment Plan published at the end of June.

Naval News – The current deployment of the UK Royal Navy’s (RN’s) HMS Prince of Wales carrier strike group (CSG) across the North Atlantic and into the High North is building deterrence against regional threats – but is also demonstrating the navy’s quickening transition towards a ‘hybrid’ crewed/uncrewed operational force structure.

Navy Lookout – The long-delayed Defence Investment Plan finally landed on 30th June, promising £298 billion of defence spending over four years and a transformed Royal Navy. Here we look at the financial profile of the DIP in more detail and consider the implications of both the obvious and the more subtle flaws.

Navy Lookout – The RN’s experimental extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle, XV Excalibur, has entered a new phase of development. MSubs of Plymouth was recently awarded a £6.68 million contract to support the RN trials. We spoke with the company about the programme as the RN moves from learning how to operate XLUUVs to deploying functional payloads.

USNI News – The U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force will advance its integrated maritime enterprise and commit to a persistent maritime presence in the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic to counter Russia’s increasing activities in the region, the Royal Navy announced Thursday.

Royal Navy – ACUA Ocean has completed a five-day offshore demonstration of its Pioneer uncrewed surface vessel (USV), showcasing its ability to carry out persistent surveillance and hydrographic survey tasks simultaneously without requiring physical intervention. The trial highlights the growing potential of autonomous vessels to support future Royal Navy and maritime security operations.

Navy Lookout – British F-35Bs have conducted NATO air defence operations from the Royal Navy’s flagship while deployed off Iceland, marking the first time the alliance has flown such missions from a European aircraft carrier. The deployment also coincides with the UK assuming command of key elements of NATO’s high-readiness Allied Reaction Force (ARF).

Navy Lookout – With the Defence Investment Plan committing to Common Combat Vessels (CCV) and a family of uncrewed platforms, the Royal Navy’s hybrid navy has moved from ambition to funded programme. The question is no longer whether to build it, but how. In this guest article, Jake Rigby, Head of Innovation and Research at BMT, argues that industry’s ability to deliver will depend on how it navigates nine unresolved trade-offs.

Naval News – The UK’s new Defence Investment Plan (DIP) has detailed four platform types to be introduced into Royal Navy (RN) service, as central elements of the RN’s new ‘hybrid’ force structure and the spine of its ‘Atlantic Fleet’ operational concept series.

Defence Blog – A British laser weapon capable of destroying drones for roughly $13 a shot is on track to be installed aboard Royal Navy destroyers in 2027, making the UK the first European NATO member to field an operational shipborne directed-energy weapon.

(Thanks to Alain)

Navy Lookout – The Defence Investment Plan (DIP), published on 30th June, finally provides indicative funding and timescales to many of the ambitions set out in the Strategic Defence Review published more than 10 months ago. In this overview, we look at the key decisions impacting the RN.

Navy Lookout – The Defence Investment Plan (DIP) will confirm the RN’s most significant shift in surface warfare for decades. Rather than replacing the Type 45 destroyer with another generation of large air defence ships, the RN intends to build a distributed force of crewed and uncrewed vessels designed to fight as an integrated system.

Navy Lookout – The Defence Investment Plan (DIP) is expected to be published this week. In advance of publication, the MoD has already made some announcements about the shape of the future fleet. Here, we consider the issues surrounding the Commando Force.

Navy Lookout – The Royal Navy has been conducting back-to-back monitoring operations, tracking Russian warships in and around UK waters for almost three months, and that vigil continues today. Here we summarise recent efforts.

Navy Lookout – HMS Audacious is scheduled to come out of dry dock in Devonport today. This should be an unremarkable routine activity but its significance shows how much dock infrastructure has impacted the readiness of the submarine force. At the time of writing, none of the Royal Navy’s Astute-class SSNs are at sea, and here we summarise the status of the fleet.

Navy Lookout – A multinational mine countermeasures force led by the Royal Navy has reached the Middle East. RFA Lyme Bay and German warships, escorted by HMS Dragon, have passed safely through the Red Sea, though any clearance operation remains tied to political conditions.

Defence Blog – The UK Ministry of Defence published an RFI on May 27, 2026, seeking missile silo concepts capable of 30-day autonomous readiness aboard crewed and unmanned naval vessels.

(Thanks to Alain)

Navy Lookout – In 2019, the MoD set aside £35 million to develop a Littoral Strike Ship (LSS), a deliberately low-cost vessel built around commando raiding operations but the idea faded as amphibious thinking consolidated into a single large programme – the Multi-Role Strike Ship. With the Royal Navy now both RN financially constrained and more doctrinally inclined to consider smaller, more dispersed platforms, the LSS could be one solution to partially recover amphibious capability.

Navy Lookout – HMS Scott, the Royal Navy’s ocean survey vessel, sailed from Falmouth yesterday on completion of her Ship Life Extension Programme (SLEP), which will see her in service until 2033.

The Guardian – British armed forces intercepted and boarded a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the Channel in the early hours of Sunday.