A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P-8A Poseidon dropped four torpedoes on a US Navy nuclear submarine in a maritime patrol exercise that was conducted as part of the world’s largest multi-national maritime drills, ‘Rim of the Pacific.’

Squadron Leader Tristan Hull, the tactical coordinator and commander of No. 11 Squadron, said this was the first time an Australian P-8A dropped the Mark 54 Lightweight Exercise Torpedo (LET).

“It is not very often that we get to drop exercise torpedoes,” the Commander said. “It’s almost certainly the highlight of a Tactical Coordinator’s career being able to do this, and on a live target is rare. So, it’s pretty special for us to be here at RIMPAC this year.”

Early on July 10, Australia’s P-8A Poseidon joined a US Navy P-8A and entered the live firing zone north of the Hawaiian Islands.

While an MQ-9A unmanned aerial vehicle hovered over the P-8As to record the training exercise, the two Poseidon aircraft carried out range surveillance. This involved flying a grid search pattern at low altitudes to pinpoint the precise location of the submarine. The submarine being hunted as part of these drills was the US Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Topeka SSN 754.

Though the crew of the Poseidon aircraft was given the coordinates of the submarine, it was left to the P-8A’s discretion to establish organic tracking and determine the attack criteria.

The Commander said, “We dropped sonobuoys to determine the submarine’s track. Once we were able to establish position, course, and speed of the submarine we were able to derive a solution that met our attack criteria and appropriate weapon placement to ensure maximum success.”

“The process of dropping a Mark 54 exercise torpedo on top of a submarine is a collaborative effort between the crew. The tactical coordinator needs to position sonobuoys appropriately in the water,” the Commander said, “the acoustics operator needs to interpret that information, and the pilots need to fly the aircraft efficiently before an attack solution can be derived to position the weapon to acquire the target.”

Each of the four RAAF P-8A’s tactical coordinators detonated a Mark 54 exercise torpedo. A conventional 12.75-inch (324 mm) anti-submarine warfare (ASW) torpedo, the Mark 54 Lightweight Torpedo is used by the US Navy and several other operators of the P-8 Poseidon, including Australia.

The torpedoes are capable of tracking, classifying, and attacking underwater targets. Exercise torpedoes do not explode and do not make contact with the target. The torpedoes rise to the surface after a set amount of time and are recovered for inspection, modification, and reuse. “A helicopter retrieves the exercise torpedoes after each drop. Further analysis of the weapon and its data will ultimately determine if the torpedo was successful in chasing down that target,” said the Commander.

According to Squadron Leader Hull, an operation of this magnitude allowed the squadron to attain training objectives they might not have been able to in Australia.

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Several participants have deployed their sub-hunting aircraft, the P-8 Poseidon, in the RIMPAC drills. With squadrons from the US Navy, Indian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, and Republic of Korea Air Force participating, RIMPAC is the biggest gathering of Poseidon aircraft.

The use of P-8 Poseidon aircraft to hunt down a submarine is significant and symbolic as it comes weeks after a US P-8 shadowed a Russian submarine that popped up near Florida in June 2024.

P-8 Poseidons Against Enemy Subs

Last month, a flotilla of Russian warships, including the nuclear submarine Kazan and Admiral Gorshkov’s vessel, sailed to Cuba. During its journey to the Caribbean, the submarine surfaced in Florida, just a few miles from the US border.

Although the US Navy dismissed the possibility of the flotilla posing any supposed threat; nonetheless, a P-8 aircraft was dispatched to keep a vigil. These anti-submarine warfare and maritime reconnaissance aircraft shadowed the Russian Yasen-class submarine armed with long-range missiles.

Earlier, in the days leading up to the flotilla setting on sail, the Russian Navy published a high-quality video on May 23 that showed a P-8 aircraft tracking the flotilla. Steffan Watkins, a Canada-based OSINT specialist, said: “In the 23 May published video, you can see a P-8 Poseidon, which confirms the Russian Navy flotilla will be tracked from Norway to Cuba by multinational NATO forces, including aircraft and ships from US Navy, RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force), RCN (Royal Canadian Navy), and others.”

As the submarine headed to Cuba, US Navy P-8A Posiedon and Royal Canadian CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft played a key role in monitoring the vessel.

At that time, Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists, said it was an excellent opportunity to watch and learn more about Russian submarines. “The inclusion of the Kazan nuclear-powered attack submarine in the Caribbean voyage offers the US Navy a unique opportunity to monitor and record the new Yasen (Severodvinsk) class sub in waters off the US East coast,” he wrote.

Searching large areas of the open ocean for potential dangers is a difficult part of tracking submarines, and this is where the P-8 aircraft plays a crucial role. The airplane seldom catalyzes escalation. The main roles of the Poseidon are to observe and prevent incidents. It shows the navy’s ability to detect and be aware of danger from the enemy.

Tom Shugart, retired US Navy submarine officer and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, explained that gathering acoustic information helps distinguish the submarine against its larger, noisier surroundings, like a “proverbial needle (a quiet submarine)” in “a haystack (the big, loud ocean).”

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