The ship to be sunk during a joint US-UK live-fire exercise off the Hebrides next month has been identified as the decommissioned American frigate USS Klakring, with the exercise now set for 17 to 21 September rather than the May window originally planned.
Navy Lookout reported the identification of the target and the revised dates, noting that the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate was decommissioned in 2013 and has been stored at the Philadelphia Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility since. She was towed down the Delaware River on 12 August in preparation for the Atlantic crossing, heading initially for Campbeltown.
As we reported last year, the Ministry of Defence issued a Request for Information in August 2025 inviting industry to take part in Atlantic Thunder 26 at the QinetiQ Hebrides range in north-west Scotland. That document described the exercise as “a US-UK multi-domain exercise designed to validate SUW kill chains, build resilient kill webs and deliver strategic messaging through kinetic demonstration that will take place off the coast of the Hebrides in Scotland from 11th-22nd May 2026.”
The centrepiece is a sinking exercise, in which British and American naval and air forces engage a decommissioned vessel with live munitions to test weapons and tactics against a real hull.
The exercise is as much about what happens after the sinking as the strike itself. Once struck, the hulk will settle at a depth of around 6,000 feet, where uncrewed underwater vehicles will conduct battle damage assessment and seabed surveys.
The RFI placed particular weight on that phase, seeking high-resolution scanning at depths down to 6,000 feet, autonomous and AI-driven mission tools, long-endurance and low-signature platforms, and new approaches to launch and recovery, alongside communication systems for bandwidth-constrained environments.
The department was explicit that this is not a showcase. The RFI stated: “Whilst AT26 presents opportunities to showcase technology, and for Industry contributions to be highlighted during the exercise to an appropriate audience, it must be understood that this is a development exercise. The focus will be on accelerating capability delivery by addressing the capability blockers listed.”
Its stated outcomes included accelerating national and bilateral maritime uncrewed systems development, driving interoperability and interchangeability, and promoting the operational exploitation of those capabilities to fill maritime capability gaps.
The precedent is Atlantic Thunder 22, held off the Hebrides in September 2022, which culminated in the sinking of the former USS Boone. That exercise brought together HMS Diamond, USS Arleigh Burke, RAF Typhoons and US Navy P-8 Poseidons, with the target struck by Harpoon, Martlet and SM-6 missiles along with bombs delivered from British and American aircraft. It was billed at the time as the most complex multinational sinking exercise staged in UK waters.
Let’s see, a ship left defenceless, static, all water tight doors open, no damage control … How long and how many munitions will it take to sink her? My guess is it will take lost of a day, need air power, surface power and a submarine or two. In all these exercises just show the inadequacy of current armaments