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U.S. military sinks own ship as part of exercise
Last week the United States military held an exercise called Operation Resultant Fury and B-52s launched from Guam played a major role. The Operation was a three-day, $10 million demonstration put on by the military. As such, one of the ships destroyed for weapons testing purposes was a decommissioned 522-foot tank landing ship, the U.S.S. Schenectady, which was one of the targets used in the exercise off of the Hawaiian Islands.
U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Ed Donaldson is the commanding officer of the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron stationed at Andersen Air Force Base. Lt. Colonel Donaldson's B-52s helped send the Schenectady to the bottom of the Pacific. "We were effectively demonstrating our ability in a joint environment both Air Force and Navy to effectively coordinate command and control on a moving targets on the ocean and basically killing them," he told KUAM News.
The B-52s that launched from Andersen Air Force Base here on Guam made history, as what they did has never been accomplished before. In simple terms, they launched a bomb far from the target and a surveillance aircraft using radar then guided it into a moving target. Captain Bryan Roundtree was one of the mission planners and he says the demonstration proved that in spite of multiple targets being in the same area. The military can zero-in on only the targets they are interested in and no matter what the weather conditions or how the targets dodge, weave, speed up or slow down they cannot evade the incoming bomb.
"Shows that a terrorist now, you think your doing just fine in a vehicle driving along or in a boat cruising along and next thing you're not there anymore, didn't even know what's happening," explained Donaldson.
Both Cpt. Roundtree and Lt. Col. Donaldson say Operation Resultant Fury was 100% successful and is a demonstration to friend and foe alike of the United States' military capabilities.
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