US, Partner Nations Conduct Live-Fire Sinking During RIMPAC 26

Canadian submarine torpedoes retired U.S. warship in multinational exercise

A Canadian submarine last week fired the decisive shot that sent a once-fearsome U.S. Navy warship to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, marking the undersea force’s dramatic return to the world’s largest naval exercise after a 12-year absence.

US, Partner Nations Conduct Live-Fire Sinking During RIMPAC 26

Ships and aircraft participating in exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2026 conducted a planned, live-fire sinking exercise (SINKEX) and sank decommissioned USS Mobile Bay (CG 53), July 12, 2026, and decommissioned USS Peleliu (LHA 5), July 17.

U.S. and allied navies sink two retired warships in live-fire SINKEX during RIMPAC 2026

The value of the exercise, according to the U.S. officer overseeing it, lay less in the ships themselves than in what firing on them together revealed about the coalition doing the firing. Vice Adm. Jeff Jablon, who commands the RIMPAC 2026 Combined Task Force, said the exercise crystallized why the alliance-building underpinning RIMPAC matters in the first place. “Watching our Sailors work side-by-side with partners from around the world, execu…

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Four tugboats escort the hulk of decommissioned Tarawa-class amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu (LHA 5) through Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in preparation for a combined sinking exercise as part of Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2026, July 15, 2026. Over 35 years of naval service, Peleliu, with a displacement of nearly 40,000 tons, launched a variety of aircraft from its formidable flight deck while conducting combat operations and humanitarian missions…