Tag Archives: QuickSink

Warship Comings and Goings

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The past week has been a very busy one when it comes to new warships coming online and old ones getting the (sometimes hard) goodbye.

Comings

The future Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Ted Stevens (DDG 128), equipped with the new-to-the-fleet AN/SPY-6 (V)1 radar and Aegis Baseline 10 Combat System, recently completed her builder’s sea trials. 

Stevens will be commissioned in Alaska in May or June 2026 as she honors the former senator from that state.

Ingalls delivered the first Flight III, USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125), in June 2023 and has five others under construction. In all seriousness, these should probably be re-classified as Lucas-class cruisers (CG) as they are stepping into the AAW boss role in carrier battle groups left vacant by the retirement of the Ticonderogas.

Speaking of Flight III Burkes, the future USS Louis H. Wilson Jr (DDG 126) was christened on Bath Iron Works’ drydock over the weekend.

She was sponsored and christened by the daughter of Mississippi-born General Louis H. Wilson Jr., USMC, who served as the Twenty-Sixth Commandant of the Marine Corps during its immediate post-Vietnam rebuilding process. Wilson was no slouch when it came to valor, having earned a MoH while leading a rifle company of the Ninth Marines on Guam in 1944 at the ripe old age of 24.

When it comes to another storied WWII vet, the 82-year-old Gato-class fleet boat USS Cobia (SS-245) is looking great after a dry docking at Fincantieri shipyard. Among other things, she has blasted, primed, and coated with 1,945 gallons of paint, and her sea chests have been cleared of mussels and blanked off with metal plates. A leak was also found in main ballast tank 2, which was drained, cleaned, and repaired.

Her $1.5 million refresh is scheduled to take six weeks and keep her ship-shape for another 25 years, after which she will go back on display at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc around mid-October.

Cobia was last dry-docked in the fall of 1996, which tracks.

Goings

The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) was officially decommissioned during a ceremony onboard Naval Station Norfolk on Sept. 25, 2025. Commissioned in 1989, she has given 36 years of hard service and is the second U.S. Navy warship to carry the name.

Now, only seven of the 27 Ticos are still in active service, with another 15, all decommissioned since 2022, nominally in the Reserve Fleet. Five earlier non-VLS Ticos have all been disposed of.

Finally, the retired Norwegian Olso-class (modified Dealy class DEs) frigate KNM Bergen (F301) was disposed of in a sinkex off the coast of her homeland last month.

There is some confusion over whether she was sunk by a torpedo from the Ula-class submarine KNM Uthaug (S 304) or a Quickstrike delivered by a visiting USAF B-2. As some of the photos released by the Norwegian Navy are clearly taken via periscope, it may be a combination of the two.

It is known that a visiting B-2A “Spirit of Indiana” (82-1069), accompanied by a Royal Norwegian Air Force F-35A Lightning II and P-8A Poseidon aircraft, did use a 2,000-pound class GBU-31 JDAM (Quicksink variant) against “a maritime target” off Andøya in the Norwegian Sea, on 3 September, so this may have been against ex-Bergen.

Either way, it was a dramatic end to the 2,000-ton frigate, which served faithfully on the front lines of the Cold War from 1967 to 2005.

Quicksink anti-ship munition, now in 500-pound format (B-2 can carry 80)

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“Rapidus Obruo” = I am overwhelmed by the rapidity

The Air Force Research Laboratory recently vetted a 500-pound variant of the Quicksink system in live-fire tests conducted via a B-2 from the Air Combat Command’s 53rd Wing out of Eglin AFB.

We’ve talked about Quicksink before, which takes a “dumb” bomb and adds a guidance kit to it to make a ship-hungry LGB, essentially a “Maritime JDAM.” The Air Force has been stacking up wrecks off the Florida coast at a steady pace.

Why the big deal about a 500-pound Quicksink? Capacity, baby.

A single B-52, in theory, could carry as many as 24 such munitions internally in its post-IWBU carriage, while a B-2 could tote a staggering 80. Speaking of Naval Air, a P-8 Poseidon could carry at least five internally, while an F-18E/F could carry a dozen, albeit with a much shorter range, while the F-35 could carry a six-pack in its weapons bay.

“Quicksink offers an affordable, game-changing solution to rapidly and efficiently sink maritime targets,” said Col. Dan Lehoski, 53rd Wing commander. “AFRL’s 500-pound Quicksink variant adds options for the warfighter and enhances operational flexibility.”

USAF Keeps Making Reefs

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“Rapidus Obruo” = I am overwhelmed by the rapidity

Since debuting its low-cost, air-delivered QuickSink system in late 2021, the Air Force has put it to good use in a series of destructive live ordnance tests.

While the guidance kit is modular and can fit anything from 500 to 2,000-pound bombs, it has been showcased from F-15Es using big GBU-31/B JADAMs, which hit the 2,120-pound mark.

Now JDAMs have been used a lot in SINKEXs over the past couple of decades but never had the same sort of dramatic effect as QuickSink– ex-USS Schenectady (LST-1185) took no less than seven 2,000-pound JDAMs during Resultant Fury in November 2004 and remained defiantly afloat.

The key is that QuickSink seems to aim for below-the-waterline hull hits akin to the old “Diving Shells” of WWII. After testing with B-52s in 2020 and then verifying the “Maritime JDAM” by F-15Es in August 2021, the Air Force started planning bigger exercises.

The first widely published QuickSink strike experiment was in April 2022 when an F-15E out of Eglin splashed the old 189-foot coaster M/V Courageous (ex-M/V Homborsund) off Destin, cracking it neatly in half with a single well-placed piece of ordnance.

Granted, Billy Mitchell probably could have done the same thing with his Martin MB-2 biplanes in 1921, but he didn’t have Go-Pros.

Then, in January 2023, BAE Systems got the $12 million Phase 2 contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to further develop a low-cost, all-weather, multi-mode (radar/infrared) open architecture seeker for the program.

The second big QuickSink test was on the ex-USS Tarawa during RIMPAC ’24– of which no footage has been released. The aircraft involved was reportedly a B-2, again dropping a 2,000-pound QuickSink-enabled GBU-31/B.

It would be neat to know if the RIMPAC QuickSink test took place under the cover of darkness from 40,000 feet, allowing a seriously decent reach. Keep in mind that, while JDAM has a “published range” of 15nm, the JDAM-ER program looks to double that to 72km or more.

Now this week, the Air Force Research Lab has disclosed that it has used QuickSink to break the impounded 360-foot 5726 GRT Ro-Ro M/V Monarch Countess off Destin, sending it to join the Okaloosa County Artificial Reef Program alongside QuickSink alum MV Courageous.

It is not clear what aircraft/ordnance combo was used in the daylight sinking but it was likely another F-15E from Eglin’s 85th Test & Evaluation Squadron.

While Deep Six-ing smallish commercial freighters may look dramatic, the world wonders what QuickSink could do against a good-sized warship built to naval standards, which is likely why no images have been released on Tarawa’s brush with the maritime JDAM.

Billy Mitchell would surely be curious to see that footage.