Target Ship
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A target ship is a vessel — typically an obsolete or captured
warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster a ...
— used as a
seaborne target Seaborne targets are vessels or floating structures that are shot at for practice by naval or air forces. They may be remotely controlled and mobile, or towed behind other craft, or just set adrift in the sea. Target ships Target ships are vesse ...
for naval gunnery practice or for weapons testing. Targets may be used with the intention of testing effectiveness of specific types of ammunition; or the target ship may be used for an extended period of routine target practice with specialized non-explosive ammunition. The potential consequences of a drifting wreck require careful preparation of the target ship to prevent pollution, or a floating or submerged collision risk for maritime navigation.


Rationale

Sinking redundant warships is an effective way of testing new weapons and warships in as realistic a manner as possible.


Preparation

In order to meet environmental, health, and safety standards, ships now have to be thoroughly cleaned so that all dangerous material and potential contaminants (such as
asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...
, refrigerants etc.) are removed. In the event of the vessel becoming an
artificial reef An artificial reef is a human-created underwater structure, typically built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, to control erosion, block ship passage, block the use of trawling nets, or improve surfing. Many re ...
, escape exits also have to be created in it, should divers encounter problems.


Notable examples

;''Pacificateur'' In September 1819, the French engineer and Army artillery officer
Henri-Joseph Paixhans Henri-Joseph Paixhans (; January 22, 1783, Metz – August 22, 1854, Jouy-aux-Arches) was a French artillery officer of the beginning of the 19th century. Henri-Joseph Paixhans graduated from the École Polytechnique. He fought in the Napoleonic ...
wrote to the Ministry of the Navy to propose a fusing system to fire explosive shells at wooden warships, instead of the usual, solid round shots that were then in general naval use.Such systems had been advocated earlier already by
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
himself, but the state of the technology of the 19th century made it an ineffective and dangerous practice.
''Artillery'' Jeff Kinard, Spencer C. (INT) Tucker p.235-236
/ref> A commission studied the matter, and decided to build two Paixhans howitzers for trial purposes in 1822. In 1824, the 80-gun
ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...
, made redundant by the Bourbon Restoration, was condemned. She was a two-decker of the same type as the French
flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...
of the
Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (180 ...
. The two prototypes were fired at her with devastating effect. This led to the adoption of the Paixhans gun in 1827. They were used to great effect at the Battle of San Juan de Ulua, to the interest of British and US observers, who announced the demise of wooden warships and the era of the ironclad. ;''Baden'' In 1921 former German
battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...
was used by the Royal Navy to test new types of shells. The tests indicated that medium-strength armour could not stop the latest armour-piercing shells, causing the British switch to an all or nothing armour scheme for their new battleships. ''Baden'' was then scuttled in Hurd Deep. ;''Agamemnon'' and ''Centurion'' The British
pre-dreadnought Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, prote ...
battleship was converted to radio-control in 1920–1921 and used for assessments of the damage that could be caused by aircraft and various calibres of guns. She was replaced in the role by the battleship in 1926. This followed the work by the secret Distantly Controlled Boat (D.C.B.) Section of the Royal Navy's Signals School, Portsmouth started in 1917. UK National Archives ADM 1/8539/253 Capabilities of distantly controlled boats. Reports of trials at Dover 28 - 31 May 1918 ;''Iowa'' (BB-4) After World War I ended, the US Navy and Army did live fire testing of attacking warships from the air. To get the testing as close to wartime conditions as possible, a well known radio engineer, John Hays Hammond Jr., developed the radio control gear to convert the into a remote-controlled target ship, a U.S. naval first. She was sunk off the Pacific coast of Panama during fleet exercises by the battleship , with members of the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
and the press attending. In the early 1930s the US Navy put considerable effort into the development of remote control ships and fitted the destroyer with improved radio controls developed by Lieutenant Commander Boyd R. Alexander, a radio design officer, and the Naval Research Laboratory in Bellevue D.C. for further testing and evaluation. The evaluation proved so successful that the US Navy moved up their plans for radio controlled warships and in 1932 the obsolete battleship USS ''Utah'' and the destroyers and were converted. ;''James Longstreet'' A familiar sight for more than fifty years in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, was . This World War II
Liberty ship Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass ...
was towed to a sandbar off shore in 1944 and was used for bombing practice through the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. ;Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the ...
was a 1946 series of US nuclear tests at
Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese: , , meaning "coconut place"), sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. After the Second ...
that used 95 target ships. Some were obsolete US ships, such as , others were ships surrendered by the
Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
at the end of World War II, such as the German
heavy cruiser The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in caliber, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval Tr ...
and the Japanese battleship . ;''Torrens'' The
Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister of ...
(RAN) sank on June 14, 1999 with a Mk48 wire guided torpedo fired from the . ''Torrens'' was the last of six Australian s, the others (''Derwent'', ''Parramatta'', ''Stuart'', ''Swan'' and ''Yarra'') having been disposed of previously. Before the sinking ''Torrens'' had been thoroughly cleaned of all fuels, oils and potentially environmentally harmful substances. Her gun turret was donated to the South Western City of Albany. ''Torrens'' was then towed from Fleet Base West (HMAS ''Stirling'') out to sea, west of
Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
. The submarine fired the torpedo at the stationary target from a submerged position over the horizon. The sinking of ''Torrens'' was a display of firepower that provided some much needed positive publicity for the ''Collins''-class submarines, plagued by numerous technical problems and criticised over troubles with the combat system and noise reduction. Ric Shalders, commander of the Submarine Squadron said "the requirement of new submarine trials, the new need to test war-stock and the availability of the Torrens all came together to produce a very satisfactory result".


As exercises

The US military term Sink Exercise (SINKEX) is used for the test of a weapons system usually involving a
torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...
or
missile In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket i ...
attack of an unmanned target ship. The US Navy uses SINKEXs to train its sailors on the usage of modern-day weapons. This technique is used to dispose of decommissioned warships. The US Navy performs SINKEXs north of
Kauai, Hawaii Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...
, in the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
off the coast of California, and near
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
.


See also

*
Sinking ships for wreck diving sites Sinking ships for wreck diving sites is the practice of scuttling old ships to produce artificial reefs suitable for wreck diving, to benefit from commercial revenues from recreational diving of the shipwreck, or to produce a diver training site. ...


Notes


References


External links


"Robot Warships" ''Popular Mechanics'', July 1934, pp. 72–75
conversion of the Boggs to a radio controlled target ship {{shiplife Ship types Ship disposal