During the RIMPAC 2024 exercise, a U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber conducted maritime operations to sink a surface vessel using low-cost GPS-guided bombs. Specialists have highlighted this activity, which took place north of the Hawaiian island of Kauai on July 19, as unusual but significant.
In recent days, RIMPAC 2024 has seen the participation of various naval and air assets from multiple nations, conducting one of the largest military deployments of the year off the coast of Hawaii. In this context, known as SINKEX exercises, the USS Dubuque (LPD 8), decommissioned on July 11, 2024, and the USS Tarawa (LHA 1), decommissioned on July 19, 2024, were sunk near Hawaii with the involvement of naval units from Australia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the U.S. Navy, Army, and Air Force.
As previously noted, SINKEX exercises are training drills where retired warships are used as targets. In this edition of RIMPAC, and specifically in the case of the USS Tarawa, the LRASM (Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile) was used, launched from a U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet.
However, the official statement mentions that a B-2 Spirit bomber utilized a “low-cost method” to sink the USS Tarawa using new ammunition developed under the QUICKSINK program, according to a statement from the U.S. Third Fleet, which is responsible for U.S. Navy operations in the Pacific, issued on July 22.
The statement also notes, “This capability is a response to the urgent need to rapidly neutralize maritime threats across large expanses of ocean worldwide at minimal cost.” But more than that, various analysts point out the message conveyed by the testing of QUICKSINK and the LRASM by the U.S.
QUICKSINK is a system now integrated with JDAMs, the nearly ubiquitous GPS-guided air-to-surface bomb kit. It features additional guidance to convert these weapons into “ship killers,” providing more value for the money and offering commanders more options, according to the Navy and Air Force.
The system has been in development for a long time. In 2004, Pacific Air Forces practiced using JDAMs against the former USS Schenectady in an exercise known as Resultant Fury about 20 years ago.
Given China’s advancements in the Indo-Pacific region and the demonstration of capabilities that U.S. forces are evaluating for future use, some explain that a QUICKSINK munition could be especially valuable for disrupting vulnerable enemy logistic ships, such as cargo ships and tankers, which often lack advanced air defense systems.
Finally, Mark Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said, “Both long-range and penetrating maritime strikes are needed to create the volume necessary to deny the PLA Navy’s first attempt to invade a friend like Taiwan or elsewhere in the South China Sea.”
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