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He also highlighted a goal for Mexican naval forces participating in the exercise. Though RIMPAC doesn\u2019t typically involve ships or aircraft conducting maneuvers they aren\u2019t certified to do, he said Mexico wanted to learn how to do a refueling at sea with the support of RIMPAC partner nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe just take it for granted that a ship pulls up next to an oiler and there\u2019s a refueling at sea,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing it forever, and it\u2019s just like chewing gum for us. But they don\u2019t have that capability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boyle said he spoke to the captain of Mexican Navy frigate Benito Juarez, and \u201che was adamant that if they\u2019re going to be a navy that can operate at the high end \u2014 because they\u2019ve got great capability, they bought a nice ship \u2026 that they have to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boyle said he wasn\u2019t sure whether Juarez will conduct a full refueling at sea by the end of the exercise, which runs through early August. But he said a plan is in place to work on the building blocks of that at-sea maneuver, which asks two ships to come uncomfortably close together and then sail at the same speed and direction in close proximity until the refueling is complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The admiral said he wants the Juarez crew to at least get to do some approaches with an oiler, if not an actual refueling at sea, because \u201cI want them to go home proud that they accomplished something and take that, leverage that to their navy to say, we can do this, we need to be able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lethality<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Boyle said the exercise also included several conversations and demonstrations related to increasing the lethality of the combined naval force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He pointed to littoral combat ship Tulsa as the beneficiary of past RIMPAC experimentation and a ship that can now share those benefits with other RIMPAC players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The LCS ships were originally built without an anti-ship missile launcher. The Naval Strike Missile was demonstrated at RIMPAC 2014, and an LCS shot a different anti-ship missile \u2014 the Harpoon \u2014 from a containerized launcher at RIMPAC 2016. In the end, the Navy settled on a containerized version of the Naval Strike Missile for all LCSs to boost their lethality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs I talked to other countries, they say, we really need an organic surface-to-surface missile system, we just don\u2019t have one. And I said, guess what, we didn\u2019t have one on LCS either. But now we do,\u201d Boyle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He mentioned the Peruvian Navy as one example of a country looking to up-arm its ships, and he suggested their RIMPAC participants visit Tulsa and chat with the crew about how easy it was to bolt the missile launcher onto the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t export that capability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Referencing the surface navy\u2019s 2015 push for \u201cdistributed lethality\u201d in the force, Boyle said \u201cit makes sense, because if you have to target everything, then how do you choose? And by targeting everything, you just make our high-end platforms like the aircraft carrier more survivable,\u201d he said, noting Tulsa\u2019s presence at RIMPAC could be inspiration for other navies to look to similar solutions to bolster their ships\u2019 lethality on a tighter budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To that point, Boyle said there are a lot of ways to sink an enemy ship, some more sophisticated than others \u2014 but the sinking exercises at RIMPAC 2022 were meant to promote them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s new is a lot of unique ways that we\u2019re targeting those ships, and that we\u2019re doing both high-end and low-end kill chains simultaneously,\u201d he said of this year\u2019s iteration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malaysian Navy corvette Lekir fired an Exocet missile at decommissioned U.S. Navy frigate Rodney M. Davis, in the same SINKEX as U.S. Navy P-8s fired Harpoon missiles at the target \u2014 a new and more high-end mission for the maritime patrol aircraft that was built to drop sonobuoys, not anti-ship missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIntegrating high-end and low-end kill chains, I think, is something that is new,\u201d Boyle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting to that high-end kill chain relies on good networks and integrating unmanned systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boyle highlighted the Chilean Navy\u2019s move to Link 22, a NATO-developed secure radio system, as an example of the benefit of RIMPAC. Boyle said getting the network set-up right isn\u2019t just about the initial software installation, but getting the permissions and configurations right on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were parked across from France and Canada on the pier. France and Canada are founding members of Link 22, and so the [subject matter experts] from France and Canada were across the pier from Chile, walking them through Link 22 and how it works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about tactics, it\u2019s about helping to solve those types of problems as you go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the proper networks are in place, unmanned systems \u2014 with their remote sensing and targeting capabilities \u2014 can be integrated. Boyle said this year\u2019s RIMPAC was among the first demonstrations ever of a manned-unmanned hybrid fleet conducting operations ranging from humanitarian assistance to live-fire drills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s how we complete kill chains pushing the data. It\u2019s how we maintain survivability by not using onboard sensors. Those are experiments that we are running within the U.S. force [at RIMPAC] as we work through this to ultimately make us more lethal and to make us more survivable,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you never have to turn on a radar, but you can complete the kill chain, you\u2019ve got a lot better chance of surviving in a high-end fight with a near-peer competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RIMPAC 2022 is trying out new gear and operations to create a more lethal force that can sustain itself in a high-end fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":58896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,16,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3354],"class_list":["post-26716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-naval","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"LT4OT7HEDVBSXHZJIPZAU6XNSQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2022\/07\/28\/at-rimpac-2022-new-efforts-to-boost-sustainability-lethality-of-combined-force-in-the-pacific\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/7319125.jpg.jpg\")
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