In other words, this is a small sample of what is to come both in terms of how the U.S. But multi-domain warfare is here to stay, as is the need to drastically increase anti-ship capabilities across all four of the services and the push for greater interoperability of those capabilities with America's regional allies. Historically speaking, RIMPAC has been used as a testing ground for new technologies and tactics, many of which are transient in nature. Having an Apache-Gray Eagle team pass off targeting data on a maritime contact-not a traditional use of those platforms by the way-to multi-national 'shooters' on land is a nearly ideal display of this concept. This becomes even more important when there is a requirement to fight across a huge area. Part of this grand plan that evolved from previous buzzword-worthy concepts is to work seamlessly with allies, especially when it comes to sharing targeting data and situational awareness enhancing intelligence. Marine Corps are looking to rapidly acquire various anti-ship capabilities to provide organic maritime defenses capable of denying the enemy vessels access to strategic littoral waterways as well as remote operating areas and forward staging bases. Also, building up the ability to repulse enemy naval advanced in multiple ways is also seen as a key requirement for fighting potential future peer-state battles, especially ones in the vast reaches of the Pacific.ДЄmerica's long-neglected anti-ship capability is now migrating away from being the domain of strictly sea and air forces and into the hands of land forces as well. Of course, all this fits perfectly into the Pentagon's emerging multi-domain battle strategy that aims to closely integrate distributed capabilities at sea, in the air, in space and cyberspace, and on land by quickly and securely sharing intelligence and targeting data. A Gray Eagle drone and AH-64E Apache Guardian team then targeted the ship and sent that information via data-link back to the shore-based missile and artillery sites where it was loaded into the weapons before they were sent on their way. The ship was originally targeted by a Japanese P-3 Orion, but it's ability to track the target and pass that info to 'shooters' was jammed as part of the realistic drill.

But the impacts we do see would likely result in at least a mission kill. Additionally, much of the video from the exercise isn't released due to the sensitive nature of some weapons' capabilities. The location of the impacts and detonations and how the ship was prepped for SINKEX are also important factors. It's hard for us to accurately evaluate the comparative effects of all the weapons fired as we don't know which ones were loaded with live warheads and which ones we were shown hitting the ship in the video. SINKEXs are largely designed to give very high-quality experience to all those involved and to evaluate the effectiveness of weapons and tactics.

Long war covering fire