HMAS Sydney flaunts combat power at Exercise Pacific Dragon

The guided-missile destroyer has demonstrated its advanced strike capability alongside key regional partners.

Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Hobart Class destroyer HMAS Sydney has taken part in Exercise Pacific Dragon 2022 — a multinational maritime warfighting activity held at the Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands (PMRF) off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii.

HMAS Sydney engaged in key exercises alongside the Royal Canadian Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Republic of Korea Navy, the US Missile Defense Agency and the US Navy.

The destroyer’s contribution included leveraging its Aegis Combat System and phased array AN/SPY 1D(V) radar to track high-speed targets before launching an Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile to intercept an airborne target drone.

HMAS Sydney was among a host of platforms to take part, including the RAN’s HMAS Supply, Canada’s HMCS Vancouver, Japan’s JS Haguro, South Korea’s ROKS Sejong the Great, and the United States’ USS Fitzgerald and USS William P. Lawrence.

The exercise, conducted between 5-15 August, formed part of HMAS Sydney’s broader regional presence deployment, among a total of five RAN ships across two task groups conducting regional presence deployments throughout the Indo-Pacific over recent months.

Exercise Pacific Dragon 2022 was the first iteration of the exercise, which included a live-fire intercept of a short-range ballistic missile using a Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IA.