US destroys missile frigate, showing off how its forces could sink enemy ships in a war
- The US military attacked, destroyed, and sank an old guided-missile frigate on Sunday
- Exercise aimed to prepare US military to ‘decisively apply force in the maritime battlespace’
The US armed forces destroyed and sank a warship this weekend amid a massive military exercise, demonstrating how the joint force could destroy enemy ships in a high-end fight.
The ex-USS Ingraham, a US Navy guided-missile frigate that was decommissioned in 2015 after over 25 years of service, was blown apart during a sinking exercise (SINKEX) in the Hawaiian Islands Operating Area on Sunday, Pacific Fleet said on Tuesday.
The Ingraham was the last Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate the US ever built and the fourth ship to bear the name. Its predecessor, an Allen M. Summer-class destroyer, was sold to Greece and sunk as a target during a military exercise in 2001.
“Lethal combat power was effectively applied to a variety of maritime threats over the last two weeks in a simulated environment as part of the US Navy’s Large-Scale Exercise and expertly demonstrated Sunday with live ordnance,” Vice-Admiral Steve Koehler, the 3rd fleet commander, said of the latest sinking exercise.
He said that “the precise and coordinated strikes from the Navy and our joint teammates resulted in the rapid destruction and sinking of the target ship,” adding that the strikes “exemplify our ability to decisively apply force in the maritime battlespace”.
SINKEXs are not uncommon for the US military, which sees them as valuable training should the US need to engage an adversary with a naval force, such as the Chinese military and its growing fleet, which is already the largest in the world.
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Pacific Fleet did not provide a lot of details on the exercise in its press release, but photos from the SINKEX offer some insight into the weapons that were brought to bear on the warship.
The exercise involved the US Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), which uses a ground-based vehicle equipped with Naval Strike Missile launchers to fire on enemy naval assets. The missile in the photo was fired from a position over 185km (100 nautical miles) from the warship.
F/A-18 Super Hornets from the USS Carl Vinson, which recently became the first US aircraft carrier to deploy with F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, participated in the exercise. The US Navy released photos of its personnel arming the aircraft with weapons for the exercise.
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The attack on the ex-USS Ingraham also involved at least one P-8A Poseidon, a anti-submarine and maritime patrol aircraft and the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Chicago, which helped coordinate the launch of a UGM-84 anti-ship Harpoon missile during the exercise.
Pacific Fleet said in its statement on the SINKEX that the ship used in the sinking exercise was prepared in accordance with relevant environmental regulations. It was sunk in an area located at least 92km offshore and where the water was at least 1,800 metres (6,000 feet) deep.
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