UK carrier strike group deployment resets British Norwegian playbook in the North Atlantic.

A Royal Navy Wildcat HMA2 from 815 Naval Air Squadron finished a multi-month embarked detachment on the Norwegian frigate HNoMS Roald Amundsen as part of the UK Carrier Strike Group’s Operation Highmast, confirmed by Royal Navy communications. The deployment linked the Mediterranean, Indo-Pacific, and the homeward North Atlantic phase around HMS Prince of Wales, tightening UK-Norway naval interoperability for future North Atlantic and Arctic tasks.

On 4 November 2025, the UK and Norway capped a practical test of allied maritime integration, with a Royal Navy Wildcat flight completing months embarked on HNoMS Roald Amundsen inside the UK-led Carrier Strike Group. Royal Navy updates and allied reporting throughout the eight-month Highmast mission show the Norwegian frigate sailing with HMS Prince of Wales from the Mediterranean into the Indo-Pacific, including Japan and Australia, then turning back toward the Suez and North Atlantic, all while operating with a British helicopter and engineering team. The same Wildcat featured in September imagery is carrying the Sea Venom anti-ship missile while operating around the carrier, underscoring real tactical integration rather than symbolism.
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British Royal Navy Wildcat personnel and KNM Roald Amundsen conduct helicopter operations as part of an aircraft carrier strike group during Operation Highmast 25. (Picture source: Norwegian/UK MoD)

The core of the partnership plays out on HNoMS Amundsen’s flight deck. A Wildcat HMA2 from 815 Naval Air Squadron is embarked and flies daily sorties with the Norwegian crew, contrary to usual patterns that place Wildcats on British Type 23 or Type 45 hulls. The arrangement is not cosmetic. Over the summer and early autumn, Royal Navy reports show the Wildcat integrated into the CSG’s tempo, including Sea Venom weapon sequences conducted from the carrier and coordinated with escorts. The setup exposes each side to the other’s deck procedures, EMCON habits, and battle rhythm, compressing the time needed to converge on common TTPs.

The Wildcat HMA2 is the Royal Navy’s embarked multirole helicopter, operated from frigates and destroyers for surface warfare, force protection, and maritime security tasks. Replacing the Lynx Mk8, it fields a glass cockpit with four multifunction displays and a nose-mounted MX-15 electro-optical turret, improving situational awareness, navigation, and target identification by day and night in rough seas. With more powerful engines than its predecessor, it is designed to fly in severe weather, lift up to 1 tonne, reach 160 kt, and operate out to 250 nm. The typical crew is a pilot and an observer, with armored, crashworthy seating plus six places for troops, enabling vertical insertion, evacuation, and search-and-rescue or humanitarian support as required.

On effects, the Wildcat provides a modular set to cover the near-sea spectrum. It can carry Sting Ray torpedoes for littoral ASW, a 12.7 mm M3M cabin gun for self-protection and close defense, and Martlet and Sea Venom missiles for beyond-horizon engagements against fast craft or combatants. Its sensor suite and links allow it to designate, fire, or transmit a clean track to the host ship’s combat system, in EMCON if required to feed the group’s RMP/COP. In practice, the Wildcat offers the commander a flexible attack option from the sea, with enough endurance, payload, and survivability to shift within minutes from armed watch to extraction or comms relay. In concrete terms, the helicopter seeds the RMP, classifies small or fast craft, and pushes clean tracks to a frigate’s combat system without saturating voice nets. These are modest gains in isolation, but they compound over a long BITD evolution.

HNoMS Roald Amundsen (F311), a Fridtjof Nansen-class frigate, uses a CODAG architecture (two BAZAN BRAVO 12V diesels at 4.5 MW and one GE LM2500 at 21.5 MW via MAAG gearboxes, two controllable-pitch shafts) for 27 knots and 4,500 nm endurance. It normally embarks an NH90 for ASW/ASuW. Principal armament consists of an eight-cell Mk 41 VLS able to carry 32 ESSM for short-range area air defense, eight Naval Strike Missiles, four torpedo tubes for Sting Ray, and depth charges. The gun battery is a 76 mm OTO Melara Super Rapid, supplemented by four 12.7 mm M2HB, four Sea PROTECTOR RWS, and two LRAD. The ship is wired for but not fitted with growth options (127 mm gun, CIWS, additional VLS).

Protection and combat management rely on the Aegis AN/SPY-1F 3D radar, the Reutech RSR-210N air/sea radar, two Mk 82 fire-control radars, and the Sagem Vigy 20 EO director. The ASW fit combines the MRS 2000 hull sonar and the Captas Mk II V1 towed system (active/passive), together with the NH90, to maintain the RMP and engage at range. Electronic warfare and self-protection include the Terma DL-12T decoy launcher, Loki anti-torpedo countermeasures, and an “active off-board decoy” ECM concept. Together, these sensors/effects provide local air defense, group ASW, and beyond-horizon engagement. This architecture allows the embarked British Wildcat to plug into a known NATO baseline, transferring tracks to a sensor-rich ship able to contribute to layered air defense or, under the right conditions, prosecute a submarine contact.

Pursuing this interoperability, Oslo has selected the British Type 26 for its next-generation frigates, with deliveries expected from 2030 under a strategic partnership linking British and Norwegian ASW fleets in the North Atlantic. Type 26 brings a quiet hull, the Type 2087 towed array, and strike-length Mk 41 cells, attributes aligned with P-8A employment and task-group ASW doctrine. When Norwegian crews transition to T26 derivatives, the learning curve will shorten further since they will already have flown and operated within a UK-led CSG.

As the deployment refocuses on the Atlantic, the strategic frame becomes clearer. A UK carrier group able to integrate a Norwegian frigate, fly a British helicopter from a Norwegian deck, and pass a clean COP to P-8A crews patrolling the GIUK gap constitutes an operational offset. It adds ASW mass, hardens the protection of undersea infrastructure, and supports graduated response options. The forthcoming Type 26 alignment makes the trajectory explicit: a pooled Anglo-Norwegian ASW capability with shared sensors, common weapon interfaces, and compatible doctrine, backed by industrial cooperation. For NATO and partners attentive to North Atlantic stability, the requirement is practical: enough quiet hulls and trained crews to hold the picture when weather degrades and tracks matter.

London and Oslo align procurement and operations to secure sea lines of communication and seabed nodes amid naval competition and sustained undersea activity. The chosen method, long missions under a carrier flag, regular integration of air and surface sensors, and a planned shift to a common ASW frigate, offers a reference point for other European navies operating in the same waters. It also underwrites a transatlantic arrangement: European navies generating credible, ready ASW capacity create options elsewhere. The Atlantic does not stay quiet by itself; this type of work, repeated and refined, contributes directly.