You gotta love RIMPAC just for the sheer quantity of exotic vessels on display. This year’s exercise draws from 26 nations contributing 38 ships, four submarines, more than 170 aircraft, and 25,000 personnel from June 29 to Aug 4 in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.
How about this shot of a Zumwalt with two Canadian Halifax-class ASW frigates and an old British Type 23, now in Chilean service.
U.S. Navy Zumwalt-class destroyer USS Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001), Armada de Chile frigate Almirante Lynch (FF 07)– ex-HMS Grafton (F80)– along with the Royal Canadian Navy frigates HMCS Winnipeg (FFH 338) and HMCS Vancouver (FFH 331), transits the Pacific Ocean to attend RIMPAC 2022. MC3 Megan Alexander
One of the neater aspects is the fact that four different USV platforms will be at work for this RIMPAC, highlighted in this image of three of them traveling in formation:
USV Nomad, Sea Hunter, and Ranger in formation RIMPAC 2022
USV Nomad
USV Sea Hunter
USV Ranger
Let’s look at some of the other interesting units showing up at Pearl this week.
HMAS Warramunga (FFH 152) of Australia. A German MEKO 200 design built in the late 1990s and much-modified with an Anti-Ship Missile Defence (ASMD) upgrade in 2014, as noted by her CEAFAR active electronically scanned array radars fitted.
French Floréal-class surveillance frigate, FS Prairial (F731).
JS Izumo (DDH-183) Japan’s new F-35 carrier
Martadinata-class frigate KRI I Gusti Ngurah Rai (332) of Indonesia, built to a Dutch design.
Patrulla Oceánica de Largo Alcance ARM Benito Juárez (F101) of Mexico. Built by ASTIMAR to a SIGMA 10514 design by Damen– much like the Indonesian frigate above– she is the first of the Reformador-class and carries U.S.-supplied weapons including Harpoons, an eight-cell MK56 VLS launcher for ESSMs, MK 54 Mod 0 lightweight torpedoes with two MK 32 SVTT triple tube launchers, a Block II RAM, and a 57mm Bofors Mk 110. Keep in mind this is a 350-foot, 2,500-ton vessel. Why can’t the U.S. Navy have 30 of these instead of the LCS classes (and the Coast Guard use the same design for its 25 new Offhore Patrol Cutters?) What could have been, right?
ARM Usumacinta (A-412), of the Armada de México. If the LST looks familiar, she is the former American Newport-class tank landing ship USS Frederick (LST-1184), transferred in 2002. Looking pretty clean for a 54-year-old ‘phib.
ROKN Marado (LPH-6112) RIMPAC 2022
ROK South Korean submarine Sohn Won-yil, ROKS Shin Dol-seok (SS-082), complete with welcome lae