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It’s not every day you get to see a ship torn to shreds by some of the most advanced weaponry out there. During RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific Exercise), however, this is something that happens quite a bit.
This exercise is “the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise.” Its purpose is to promote cooperativity between all allied nations in the Pacific to maximize effectiveness in case of a global war.
Although the number of participating countries varies from year to year, this year the following countries took part in the exercise: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tongan, United Kingdom and of course the organizing party, the United States.
This vessel is a Newport Class Landing Ship, Tank, (LST). It was launched in 1970 as a supply ship for assault amphibious vehicles and other equipment to war zones. She was deployed to Vietnam several times.
In 1993, USS Racine was decommissioned and after two and a half decades, finally made her way to RIMPAC as a target vessel. On July 12th, 2018, she was sunk by a Harpoon missile from an aircraft and a torpedo from a submarine.
She sank to 15,000 feet off the coast of Hawaii.