With a big boxing match in the news today, how about the biggest Boxer we care about here on the blog, recently seen at play in the historically significant Tsushima Strait. We’re talking about the 29-year-old Ingalls-built Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4), seen conducting flight ops on 18 September 2024 while on her, um, abbreviated Westpac deployment.
All are U.S. Navy photos by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James Finney.
It looks like “America’s Golden Gator” has a good mix of 15th MEU aviation assets aboard including five F-35B Lightning IIs of VMFA-225, and nine MV-22 Ospreys of VMM-165 along with a mix of eight AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms of HMLA-369. Sadly, no CH-53s are embarked it would seem.
How about this great shot of Boxer’s stern, showing a good mix of her self-defense suite to include an MK 38 Mod 2 25mm gun mount (one of four installed) centerline above her dock door, with an eight-cell Sea Sparrow launcher (one of two) above it. There is a 21-cell RAM launcher (1 of 2) to port and a CIWS (1 of 3) to starboard. Note the unmanned M2 .50 cal mounts as well.
The great bow-on flightline shot also shows off Boxer’s 2nd RAM and CIWS installation, just ahead of the island, as well as her SLQ-32 EW suite and commo array on the roof, with the big AN/SPS-48 air search radar on top. Also, it gives some appreciation of the size of the Osprey, which sports a 45-foot wingspan and 30-ton max TO weight. For reference, the big A-5 Vigilante of the Cold War only had a 53-foot span with roughly the same TO weight.
The modified Queen Elizabeth-class carrier HMS Prince of Wales— the largest British warship ever completed, has been busy off the U.S. East Coast for the past month conducting DT-3 (Development Test, phase three– with phases one and two conducted already aboard HMSQE) to spin up the class ready to work the F-35B.
Her embarked airwing was small– just two Merlins and a Wildcat– with the F-35Bs being from Pax River, the home to the F-35 Integrated Test Force, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t get a lot of work in.
She conducted some F-35B “Beast Mode” tests with 500-pound Paveway IVs on four stations and four 1,000-pounders in the weapons bay while still having spots available for a pair of AMRAAMs and a pair of Sidewinders
The ability to be a bomb truck is important for the F-35B concept, as detailed by the RN:
Fully loaded, the F-35B can deliver 22,000lb of destructive and defensive power: air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles and conventional and laser-guided bombs. If you’re struggling to imagine a 22,000lb payload… it’s the equivalent of the heaviest bomb carried by a WW2 Lancaster bomber (the Grand Slam or ‘earthquake’ bomb). And it’s nearly three times more than the UK’s last carrier-borne strike aircraft, the Harrier GR9, over a decade ago.
In all 60 shipborne rolling vertical landings’ (SVRL) were conducted, including ten by night. Other trials successfully completed include: 20 backwards landings (facing towards the stern), ten at night; nearly 150 take-offs by day and night in various weather conditions/sea states.
U.S. Marine Corps test pilot Maj. Paul Gucwa performs a vertical landing (VL) in an F-35B Lightning II short takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) variant strike fighter during a mission to expand the flight envelope for the technique aboard the U.K. aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales (R09) Oct. 29, 2023. Gucwa also performed the first night shipborne rolling VL (SRVL) during the evening’s flight period. Gucwa is one of three test pilots from embarked with a broader team from the Patuxent River F-35 Integrated Test Force (PAX ITF) to conduct flight test during the ongoing developmental test phase 3 (DT-3) flight trials. HMS Prince of Wales, the U.K.’s newest aircraft carrier and biggest warship, is deployed to the Western Atlantic for WESTLANT 23. 231029-O-PF253-1439
She also hosted fly-ins from USMC MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotors, CH53 Super Stallions, and Viper gunships as well as supply drone trials, totaling a dozen different aircraft types during the testing.
There was also lots of underway maneuvering at sea, producing some great images, like these doing a RAS from the Supply-class fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE-8). To starboard of Arctic is the endangered but still beautiful Tico-class cruiser USS Leyte Gulf.
HMSPWS also linked up with Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington and France’s brand-new fleet tanker/support ship Jacques Chevallier. (Pictures: LPhot Unaisi Luke, HMS Prince of Wales, and PO Nicholas Russell, USS George Washington)
Of interest, HMSPWS embarked a group of visiting Japanese carrier experts to gain some first-hand knowledge and prepare for their own Izumo-class helicopter carriers being converted for the F-35B.
“The delegation from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force joined HMS Prince of Wales for a fortnight of stealth fighter trials off the USA – helping to pave the way for their own trials in the same waters in 12 months’ time,” says the RN.
The prospect of Japanese F-35s cross-decking from British and American carriers shortly surely would have the ghosts of Yamamoto, Genda, and Kusaka watching with curiosity
