A target ship is a vessel — typically an obsolete or captured warship — used for naval gunnery practice or for weapons testing.
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Sinking redundant warships is an effective way of testing new weapons and warships in as realistic a manner as possible. Whilst practice torpedoes are fired fairly frequently, they behave differently from warshots. Apart from other things, the practice torpedoes are designed to turn away from the target so they can be recovered, rather than hit it. In the wake of the Brent Spar incident (when Greenpeace protested over the sinking of a PB platform in the North Sea), it seemed that environmental concerns would prevent future sinkings. However the sinking of Leander class frigate HMS Sirius in 1998, appears to suggest otherwise.
In order to meet Environmental and Health & Safety Standards, ships have to be thoroughly cleaned so that all dangerous material and potential contaminants (such as asbestos, refrigerants etc.) are removed. In the event of the vessel becoming an artificial reef, escape exits also have to be created in the vessel, should divers encounter problems. It is now also common practice to remove pennant numbers and sink the warships anonymously, as a mark of respect to those who sailed in them.
After World War 1 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, the USS Iowa was converted into a radio-controlled target ship, the first in US Naval History. A well known radio engineer, John Hays Hammond, Jr. developed the radio control gear for the Iowa. While under radio control the Iowa later was sunk in 1923 of Pacific coast of Panama during fleet exercises, with members of Congress and the press attending, by the battleship Mississippi.[1] In the early 1930s the US Navy got serious about remote control ships and fitted the destroyer Stoddert with an improved radio controls developed by Leut. 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 Boggs and Kilty were converted to remote radio control.[2]
A familiar sight for more than fifty years in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts was the SS James Longstreet. This World War II Liberty Ship was towed to a sandbar 3.5 miles (5.6 km) off shore in 1944 and was used for bombing practice through the Vietnam War.
The German Deutschland class cruiser, Lützow was refloated by the Soviet navy after her scuttling in 1945 and used as a target in the Baltic Sea in 1949.
Operation Crossroads was a 1946 series of US nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll that used 95 target ships. Some were obselete US ships, such as the USS Nevada , others were ships surrendered by the Axis powers at the end of World War 2, such as the famous, German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.
Operation Deadlight was the destruction of 116 surrendered, German U-Boats that was carried out between November 1945 and February 1946 by the Royal Navy. The submarines were sunk in deep water to the north west of Ireland. Some were scuttled with explosive charges and others sank accidentally in bad weather while under tow. The remainder were sunk by ships and aircraft, using rockets, bombs, depth charges and gunfire.
The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) sunk HMAS Torrens on June 14, 1999 with a single Mk48 wire guided torpedo fired from the Collins class submarine HMAS Farncomb. Torrens was the last of six Australian River class destroyers, 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) 90 kilometres (56 mi) out to sea, west of Perth. The submarine fired the torpedo at the stationary target from a submerged position over the horizon.
The sinking of Torrens had been a display of firepower and 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".[3]
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