A spectacular video of the destruction of the US Navy frigate was published online.
The US Navy has released a video of the recent SINKEX exercises off the coast of Hawaii. As The Drive portal explains, they were aimed at demonstrating various capabilities of a long-range naval strike.
The footage shows how the ship Ingraham, the last of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates ever built, is shot. The demonstrative destruction of the ship involved P-8A Poseidon aircraft; F/A-18C/D Hornet Marine Corps fighters armed with AGM-84D Harpoon anti-ship missiles and AGM-154 Joint Stand-Off Weapon high-precision aircraft bombs; the Chicago submarine, with UGM-84D Harpoon missiles and Mk 48 torpedoes on board, the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship unmanned ground-based system Interdiction System (NMESIS) armed with a low-visibility cruise missile Naval Strike Missile (NSM).
It is also known that the exercises involved Navy F-35C Joint Strike Fighter fighters, which dropped laser-guided bombs of the Paveway series. But they are not included in the video.
Each of the missiles hit the target, but it remained afloat. And only the Mk 48 torpedo finally sank the frigate, literally breaking it in half.
"This is an impressive demonstration of the naval firepower and various naval strike capabilities that the Navy and the Marine Corps consider important components of their new concepts of operations," notes The Drive . "However, in the end, the exercises showed that torpedoes such as the Mk 48 are still the best when it comes to sinking warships."
Oleg Koryakin
