The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan.
This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release.
The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike group against live forces, it said.
Photo: AFP / US Navy / Dylan M. Kinee
The capstone event of the drills is the sink exercise, which is to utilize different classes of ships throughout the years, the War Zone said in a report on June 10.
This year’s target, the USS Tarawa, an amphibious assault ship, was the lead warship of its class and was designed to transport marines and support them with its complement of strike aircraft, the outlet said.
Although another Tarawa-class vessel was destroyed for target practice before, the ship’s impending demise is still important, as few opportunities exist for navies to test their weapons against a large and heavily protected target, it said.
“It [has] been a very long time since the navy used an amphibious assault ship of any kind for the RIMPAC [sink exercise], but [it] is the largest ship of any kind to be used in more than a decade,” the report said.
“Amphibious assault ships are high-value assets ... designed to be well-protected right down to their core structures and otherwise resilient to damage thanks to redundant features,” it said, adding that the USS Tarawa was more modern than the Iwo Jima-class types sunk in past drills.
The planned destruction of the USS Tarawa in the war games coincided with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s efforts to expand its amphibious assault ship fleets, which would be “top target for US forces,” it said.
The ongoing RIMPAC exercise is meant to send China “a strong message,” analyst Richard Fisher Jr told Voice of America Cantonese.
The destruction of the USS Tarawa, the equivalent in size to China’s largest landing helicopter docks, would show the Chinese that the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, he was cited as saying.
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