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Tuesday, June 20, 2000
Last of 4 scuttled warships blasted to bottom in RIMPAC
Navy studies sinking to assist design of battle-ready
vessels
By Donovan Brooks
Stars and Stripes
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii - They don't go down easy, those warships.
Crippled and gutted, with all flood doors open, the last of four U.S.
Navy gray ghosts sank in deep water near Hawaii on Saturday as part of a
military exercise.
Sunk were the former USS Buchanon, Ramsey, Gen. Hugh J. Gaffey and, lastly,
the Worden.
For the Worden, a maverick missile was the fatal shot, fired by a fighter
from the USS Abraham Lincoln's air wing. The ship sank 90 minutes later,
said Ralph Conway of the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. Conway
supervised the weeklong exercise, which was part of the Rim of the Pacific,
military exercises going on in and around Hawaii.
While the plane's air-to-surface missile was the final blow, it certainly
wasn't the first. The assault on the old guided missile cruiser was first
hit by the Australian HMAS Adelaide's arsenal. Then, the attack submarine
USS Tucson hit the ship with a torpedo. But the missile damage was fatal,
Conway said.
"The ships are designed well," he said. "They take a lot
of damage."
The Buchanon proved to be the toughest of the old ships, frustrating
American, Canadian and Australian forces who tried to sink her for more
than 24 hours.
On June 13, the Buchanon took three hellfire missile hits, three harpoon
missile hits and had a 2,400-poun d laser-guided bomb dropped on it. Still,
it stayed atop the water. The next day, a Pearl Harbor explosives team returned
and placed 200 pounds of explosive in the ship, set it off, and the ship
sank in six minutes.
The Ramsey and Gaffey took on a barrage of missiles and bombs Thursday
from a multinational flotilla. The Ramsey sank in about 90 minutes. But
the Gaffey stayed afloat for eight hours, even after seven direct hits,
Navy officials said.
Conway said the Navy would analyze what firepower was needed to sink
the ships to understand how the vessel designs can stand up in combat situations.
RIMPAC spokesman Lt. Jeff Madsen said the ships were not subject to sometimes
devastating secondary explosions from fuel or stored ammunition that might
occur to a fully operational ship.
All the ships had been cleaned to standards agreed to by the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Chief of Naval Operations, Conway said.
The ships all sank in water more than 14,000 feet deep, at least 50
miles from land, he said.
RIMPAC is a biennial military exercise taking place through July in and
around Hawaii. About 22,000 military members from seven nations are taking
part.
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