HMCS Victoria to headline RIMPAC

RIMPAC 2014, a major international naval exercise, will kick off on June 26th this year and run through August 1st. Once again the RCN will be represented by HMCS Victoria and surface ships. Two years ago, during RIMPAC 2012, Victoria sank a decommissioned American ship with a live and highly successful torpedo firing.

Increased tensions at sea are current challenges for western navies. In the far east, the Peoples Liberation Army Navy is only one part of Chinese aggression toward her neighbours in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, in the Black Sea, Russia has increased its naval grip on the area with its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Submarines were a major part of intelligence-gathering during the Cold War. Details of those activities are slowly surfacing, with books (eg Hunter Killers, by Iain Ballantyne) and a recent newspaper article in The Australian about the Royal Australian Navy's "secret submarines".There is no reason to think that submarine intelligence-gathering is no longer taking place.

Here is a look at an earlier post about Victoria's torpedo firing in 2012. Video footage of the target vessel sinking is here.