The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group will leave the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where it was sent just after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, in the “coming days,” two U.S. officials tell ABC News.
A senior U.S. official and a U.S. official told ABC News that in the “coming days,” the carrier and other surface ships that make up the strike group will return to the carrier’s home port of Norfolk, Virginia, as originally scheduled so it could prepare for future deployments.
They’ve been on deployment since May. It’s answered in your own post.
The article didn’t mention that they had been deployed since May, and I had thought they were deployed directly from Norfolk in October. That makes a ton more sense.
Yeah your article doesn’t specify when they deployed but it does say that it’s returning on schedule.
So we should expect a replacement deployment?
Yes. Usually the carrier begins movement back as another begins movement in. The outgoing carrier will maintain the ability to reach 5th fleet AOR via fighter jet range until the oncoming carrier can do the same. Then the outgoing carrier officially packs up and leaves.
Yep. All these news articles just don’t point that out in a super obvious way. CSG rotation is completely normal and it has been that way since I was in the Navy. It’s fairly traditional for the carriers to meet up one or twice as well.