Target ship

A target ship is a vessel — typically an obsolete or captured warship — used for naval gunnery practice or for weapons testing.

Rationale

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. Apart from other things, the practice torpedoes are designed to turn away from the target so they can be recovered, rather than hit it.Fact|date=February 2008 In the wake of the Brent Spar incident (when Greenpeace protested over the sinking of a PB platform in the North Sea), it seemed environmental concerns would prevent future sinkings. However the sinking of Leander class frigate HMS "Sirius" in 1998, seems to suggest otherwise.

Preparation

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.

Notable examples

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.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) sunk HMAS Torrens on June 14th 1999 with a single Mk48 wire guided torpedo fired from the Collins class submarine "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") Convert|90|km|nmi out to sea, west of Perth. The submarine HMAS "Farncomb" fired the torpedo at the stationary target from a submerged position over the horizon .

The sinking of the "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".citequote

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 off shore in 1944 and was used for bombing practice through the Viet Nam war.