On August 15, the U.S. Navy tested a variety of weapons on an isolated frigate using air and sea tactical weapons to completely destroy the ship. Now, the Navy has released footage of the sinking exercise, which gives us hints of torpedoes and missiles of destructive power.
In an explosive dispatch, the Navy conducted a SINKEX exercise in the Hawaiian Islands operating area as part of a large-scale exercise. Showing no mercy to the frigate, the USS Carl Vinson (a Nimitz-class supercarrier) launches the Super Hornet aircraft to attack the frigate with glide bombs, F-35C fighters use laser-guided weapons, the patrol aircraft tests the harpoon weapon system, the attack submarine struck the final blow with two advanced torpedoes.
As you can see in the video, the weapons were rather effective. SINKEX operations are carefully planned to minimize damage to the environment as much as possible, removing all hazardous materials before the ship sinks. The ship should quickly sink to the bottom of the ocean, which is at least 50 nautical miles from land and 1.8 km (6,000 feet) deep.
During the recent Large Scale Exercise 21 (LSE 21), U.S. Joint Forces conducted a multi-domain, multi-platform, long-range maritime strike on a retired frigate off the coast of Hawaii. A video released by the US Navy shows the ship being destroyed by an MK-48 torpedo powered by a fast-attacking submarine. With operations conducted in 17 time zones, LSE 21 was alive, a virtual and constructive scenario-driven, worldwide integrated exercise. It has given the U.S. joint forces the opportunity to test and evaluate developmental warfare concepts on how future navies and Marine Corps will compete, deal with crises, fight and win battlefields. During the exercise, forward-deployment forces at advanced operations bases responded by identifying ship-based enemies using joint command and control coordination with other U.S. forces.
In this case, the opponent was a retired ship called the former USS Ingram. The X-Ingram was a guided missile frigate that was scrapped in 2015. The clip begins with a display of deployed weapons. We have since been shown simultaneous impact from various platforms involved in the threat to U.S. services. The U.S. Marine Corps fired naval strike missiles from the Pacific, the AGM-84 harpoon from the FM-84-18C Hornets, and the F-35C fighters used laser-guided weapons.
