American destroyer opens fire in the Mediterranean

Imagery released by the US Navy shows the guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke firing its MK 45 five-inch gun during a live-fire exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, while conducting operations in the US 6th Fleet area of responsibility in support of American national security interests in Europe, the US Navy has said.

The photograph captures the ship’s forward gun in the moment of firing, the muzzle blast rolling out across the water, during the kind of gunnery serial that warships run regularly to keep their crews and weapons sharp.

The MK 45 is the standard medium-calibre gun across the US Navy’s surface fleet, used against surface targets, for naval gunfire support of forces ashore and against aircraft and other threats at closer ranges.

USS Arleigh Burke is the lead ship of the Arleigh Burke class, the most numerous class of large surface combatant in the world and the backbone of the US Navy’s destroyer force. Displacing around 9,000 tonnes at full load and stretching 505 feet, the ships are driven by four General Electric gas turbines to speeds in excess of 30 knots, and carry a crew of roughly 280 officers and sailors.

Beyond the five-inch gun, the class carries a heavy and flexible armament built around the Mk 41 vertical launching system, with up to 90 cells able to fire a mix of weapons including the Standard family of surface-to-air and anti-ballistic missiles, the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile and the vertical-launch ASROC anti-submarine rocket. The ships also field the Aegis combat system paired with the SPY-1D radar, or the newer SPY-6 active array on the latest Flight III vessels, alongside Harpoon anti-ship missiles, the Phalanx close-in weapon system, torpedoes and an embarked MH-60R maritime helicopter.

That air and missile defence capability has been put to the test in recent years. In April 2024, Arleigh Burke and the destroyer USS Carney shot down at least six Iranian ballistic missiles during Iran’s strikes against Israel.

The US 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, is the formation responsible for American naval operations across Europe and Africa, and its destroyers spend much of their time forward-deployed in the Mediterranean and adjoining waters, working alongside NATO allies and running the exercises, patrols and standing tasks that keep a presence across one of the most strategically crowded maritime regions in the world.