By the end of RIMPAC, the U.S. and Indian planes were sharing high-end missions, an Australian P-8A squadron joined in as a major step towards the Royal Australian Navy declaring final operational capability on their new planes, and the U.S. and Australian P-8s not only prosecuted submarines but also dropped Harpoon missiles on a decommissioned U.S. ship during a sinking exercise(SINKEX).
Commander of Submarine Force for U.S. Pacific Fleet Rear Adm. Daryl Caudle told USNI News during a July 25 interview at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam that the aircraft play an important role in managing the entire theater anti-submarine warfare picture.
“One of my main objectives is building a more lethal anti-submarine enterprise. So lethality is a theme that stems down from our secretary of defense and the National Defense Strategy, down through the Pacific Fleet commander, all the way down to me as the submarine force commander.
“And to build lethality, you have to have capabilities, you gotta have highly trained people, and speed is important. Submarines move around at a certain speed, but airplanes move around at a much faster speed,” he said.
“So when we detect adversary submarines, to be able to employ aircraft onto that contact information just greatly enhances the legs, the speed and the lethality that we can employ against that. So the P-8 adds an entirely new dimension for us to be able to do that mission and is just an incredible capable aircraft. The mission space greatly enhanced over the P-3. … The information system’s greatly enhanced….”
The above was taken from an article by Megan Eckstein published by USNI news on August 10, 2018.
The rest of the article can be read here:
Recently, Second Line of Defense visited RAAF Edinbourgh and talked with Commander of the P-8/Triton force in the RAAF.
That interview will appear soon.
