Large military exercises give the United States and its partners to practice coordinated drills, train in simulated battles, and in situations such as this year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise, blow up a few ships. And that’s just what the U.S. military did at RIMPAC last month.
The military released new footage of one such sinking exercise (or SINKEX as it’s called), where the Air Force used an AC-130J gunship to shred the Austin-class amphibious transport dock the USS Dubuque and help send it down to Davy Jones’ locker.
The decommissioned ship was sent to the bottom of the sea on July 11, but the military only released video of the sinking at the end of the month. The AC-130J, assigned to the 27th Special Operations Wing based out of Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, repeatedly struck the old transport vessel with cannon fire from above. The gunship targeted key parts of the vessel’s structure, including its superstructure and bow. The B-roll released by the U.S. military shows the ship burning after repeated hits. Each strike captured on the footage shows the ship shaking from impact, with plumes of dark smoke kicking up after each round.
Watch the footage here.
The Air Force wasn’t alone in lighting up the USS Dubuque. AH-64 Apache helicopters from the U.S. Army’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade fired at least one AGM-114 Hellfire missile at the ship, while Japan Ground Self Defense Force’s Western Army also fired on it. In all, the SINKEX took two days, according to the U.S. Army.
That’s the final end for the ship. Originally commissioned in 1967, the USS Dubuque was deployed overseas multiple times, including to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Desert Shield. It was decommissioned in 2011.
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The USS Dubuque is one of several ships the U.S. military intentionally sunk this summer as part of training. The amphibious transport dock the USS Cleveland was such as part of the Valiant Shield 2024 exercise. Eight days after the military smoked the USS Dubuque, the Navy and partners sunk the amphibious assault ship the USS Tarawa. That was one of the largest ships sunk at RIMPAC. It was hit by a combination of munitions, including the U.S. Navy’s Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM as well as the Royal Australian Navy’s Naval Strike Missile. So far the U.S. military has not released footage of that SINKEX.
For environmental reasons, the decommissioned ships — known as “hulks” by the Navy — are required to be sunk at minimum 6,000 feet beneath the surface and at least 50 nautical miles from any land.
The 2024 edition of RIMPAC saw 29 nations train together near the Hawaiian islands. The exercise involved 40 surface vessels, three submarines and more than 25,000 personnel.