Mine Warfare: Promise Deferred

This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected.  Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies.  Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue.  The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.

J98C

(j p^te the historic value of naval mines, the

n     ^^otential in mine warfare may never be

^aln_ea r l r                                         ....

c_0s{ ¹ ^ack of strong sponsorship, rising

t_ec^’ ^t^^>e perilous temptations of high

d₀ ⁿ^°&y> and bureaucratic impediments all

tyj ^{1 e} future. In the story of the problems of

j.. °an be read many of the nation’s

^etntn*s in defense.

R jS r .

It o ^a familiar and yet shallow truism that the

ects I ^aV^ P^ra*ses mines in concept even as it neg- a)ty_ays ^{m ln} practice. More realistically, mines have fafi_n^^{S ba}4 to compete for their share of resources, ^e5tP>e ' ^passably ^web when resources are abundant but ^hat ^nclnS ^very l^ean times when they are scarce. te_SOurc^{1S s}P^ecial about mines in this competition for M_atfo ^es’ course, is that they are weapons, not ⁽lo\_Vn^rrns' Once deployed, they simply sit hunkered to ^tbe mud or swaying at their tethers, waiting in<] °^rrn their deadly business. Unfortunately— ^Pr°Pon^S *^{S tbe} ^^ament and ^{tbe a}P°l°gy mines’ de_cj. ^ents—mines do not travel. There is no quarter- ho_rj₂ ^{t0 tf}ead, no bridge offering the zest of fine ^att ₀°^ns' offensive mining, the single dramatic

tL , ^c°nsequence in the naval professional’s life is del’           ^r

hve_r

m

M^_r ^lvery- Yet for all the hazard involved in <i(w y and often, in this forcing of the war right

th                                ’ ...........  —                   — —         °

the_re . ^{e e}nemy’s throat, it will be considerable—

'tp- ^ls no compensating satisfaction derived, no ^St'^act ^exPl°^slon to gratify the warrior’s in­Whatever happens will happen much (j °^ut °f sight, likely out of mind.

^lrPtisingly, submariners are seldom fond of ■W r ^r°l^es- Mines reduce the number of weapons

"ore f_a,

^v°red, detract from missions more glamorous.

Some of the latest U. S. submarines may enter the fleet without a minelaying capability. “Good rid­dance” may be the cheerful reaction of some, but the prideful submariner cannot be pleased at further evidence of those factors that keep working to restrict fullest expression of the submarine’s enormous poten­tial and versatility.

The naval strategist, however, who must witness the submarine’s minelaying capability possibly be­coming lost as an option, must regret it even more. Mine-laying by the submarine is important out of all proportion to the small numbers of mines carried. Only the submarine can take mining right to the front gates of a formidable enemy covertly or position her mines with such rare accuracy. The very existence of a submarine-laid field can remain unknown until the first devastating explosion on the hull of an enemy. The minefields laid by U-boats in 1943 off East Coast ports demonstrated the extraordinary re­sults achievable by a few submarines.

It may puzzle some that resource sponsorship for mine warfare resides within the province of surface warfare, the surface ship being that platform least suited to offensive mine warfare against a resisting enemy. Yet, like many organizational anomalies, the fact represents more a holdover of history than a reflec­tion of present realities. The history goes back more than 60 years, to the era of basic contact mines and the great North Sea Mine Barrage—56,000 of them, planted by surface ships to prevent egress of German U-boats to the open sea. Early mine development work was carried out at the Washington Navy Yard and eventually transferred to the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland, now itself a major component of the Naval Surface Weapons Cen­ter. In the field of mine countermeasures, the surface ship continues to be the primary sweep vehicle— though it may not always be the best—which ar-

are

latter are increasingly imperiled, however, as pressed ever harder to demonstrate direct ^al^_ron. mediate relevance to some platform. In this ^e _orJie ment even a weapon as valuable as the mine can ^ blurred in our perceptions. We lose sight of^c ^ j_s that the end objective of the nation’s naval P°

gues, of course, for that responsibility to remain under the sponsorship of surface warfare. But no comparable case, however, holds for its retention of responsibility for the development and acquisition of offensive mines.

This question of responsibility is not an idle one. The idea of sponsorship is seemingly as indestructible a feature of the Navy as its traditional organizational partitioning along platform lines. It goes deep, is etched in the Navy’s steel. Farseeing professionals, in touch with the future, may deplore this truth, but the pragmatic man who must get something done lives with it, makes use of it. Simply put, whatever in naval warfare will consume resources must at the same time have a pot of money from which it draws support, and the fundamental pots of money in the U. S. Navy are those of the three platform areas—surface, air, and submarines. Nothing can thrive outside of these com­munities except certain forms of research, and these

they d i"¹'

seapower and that a Navy, as usually thought °^‘ⁿ _Qne of traditional balanced mixes of forces, is _n|< means of its attainment. More Japanese ships by mines than by any other means of naval ^ ^_£j mines forged the final strangulating collar ^ _afe around the home islands. Yet for all that th^ese^^ j,is part of the naval professional’s knowledge, in heritage, they tend to float free, unroote , p. bright bubbles drifting enticingly through the *   ^

nation, and as strengthless. Despite what it ^can ₀til the nation, mine warfare will be denied its to ^ ₀f it finds itself a true home, some lodgefl^ passionate and enduring advocacy- In short, have champions.                                                               . f_t

In the modern world of naval warfare, air overwhelmingly the major deployers of ^mineSj_n th^e ing the long view, naval aviation’s interest^ ^ development and acquisition of mines ought t strong, even as the fundamental commitm^ent ^ ₀f surface community to the develop^¹

Ho ■ ^0S *^{n w}hose delivery its men-of-war can play _S0ni^Sl8niflcant part—is, understandably, likely to be t_Uai ^Wtlat ^^ess- For brighter hopes, then, of the even- pro ^rest0rat*°n of robust good health to mine warfare ^s°rsh^^am^’ ^wou^ appear that their resource spon-

be

*P should reside in the aviation community. To

sure

a_Vj_at- ' ^{011 n}e delivery roles have been a part of naval a_{ny s}*°ⁿ ^^or some time, and those who would oppose bar 1 *^C *^{n res}P°nsibility may validly point out the ty_arp^ detectable pulses of enthusiasm which mine a_tQrs^are ^^as heretofore stirred among most naval avi­on _e ^‘^nes have been regarded as nuisances, drains d_ev ^rS^les and training time that could otherwise be h_eart ^t0 primary missions closer to the airman’s st_ru /^ⁿd yet, witnessing the continuing difficult an<j ° ^e naval aviation in holding onto its roles bo n|^UStainin« '^ts f°rce levels, one suspects it would a_rea ^e?f^e<^ ^t0 make a closer alliance with a warfare ]<_eep . ^0se great potential could help naval aviation p_rej.^Its place in the sun. It is naive, of course, to to p₎^{1Ct t}^^lat marvelous things will happen overnight niines'⁰^ ^t^^{e a}*^r community’s faint romance with f_0r ^t0 full flower. Reassignment of responsibility mi_ne ⁶ development and acquisition of the family of it_Seip ^WeaPons is a mere transaction of paper that, in pt^pi’n^uld guarantee nothing. It would be left to eo_c ^quity and a natural commonality of interest to tv_arf ^a^^{e a} hoped-for deeper understanding of mine le_a(j^{are an<}f a consequent blooming of enthusiastic rr>_arr; History, after all, records many a forced

f .                                                                                               J f-------------------------------------------------------- ¹-----------------------

jj ^t^^lat ^^{as turnec}l to love!

the ^sP°ⁿsorship is not the only, nor the largest, of thir

ⁿgs that constrain mine warfare’s future. ^tar8ets *^S P^ers‘^stent political dilemma of its ⁽eui ^S ^hile many a naval platform or weapon sys- $r_P„ ^{111 a}y plausibly exist to serve a number of

ch_a ^{an0s a}ud

“atacte

A

e_re

a variety of potential enemies, the

'Pines

^eristics of those advanced and sophisticated

, ⁿ°^w currently under development, or being shed f_or

larly f ^{Q tor ma}i°^r procurement, mark them singu- th_e • °^{r Use} against the Soviet Union. These are not th_at P ^er hind of mines that can serve well against ^tehtie^^{reat ma})°^rity °f nations whose mine coun-

3m ^SUres capabilities are nil. Rather, these mines, the Vo_C!

\d^at.^SeaP°^wer-

^C0mc ^t0 the discomfort of this fact—dis-

tq_Uiv'“^v ‘nvestment sought in them, speak un­a _o^^0cally of plans for a mine campaign against

^mfort ,                                                             . .

bo\Ve_r ’ ^at ^^east> lor that segment of U. S. political

^hion ^t^^at Relieves that the ambitions of the Soviet

lef_t           b*^e appeased, or its potential for mischief

h^fo_Vo^Unaroused- by avoiding any imputation of

ac_hie°_v^Cati°ⁿ-—is the realization that the mine

^es Its greatest effectiveness through surprise.

And inseparable from the possible consequences of surprise is the significant nuclear strike capability of both the Soviet Union and the United States that exists in their submarines—a capability popularly thought, and generally expertly conceded, for practi­cal purposes to be essentially invulnerable when at sea. Virtually no one seriously believes that mines have much chance of destroying submarines already deployed, or that mines can be applied with such expertness and perfection of timing as to bottle up in port the remainder of either side’s fleet of ballistic missile submarines. Such a scenario is improbable in the extreme. Nevertheless, the conceivable threat by mines even to a few such submarines always brings into play that seemingly most dreaded word in the whole vocabulary of strategic warfare: destabilization. Inevitably then, prior to the approval of funding for major mine procurement, with all the attendant im­plications of the adoption by the United States of an apparently more aggressive policy of mine warfare, there would be protracted public debate and the air­ing of painful doubts lest some untoward signal be sent to the Soviet Union. Such doubts, still held by so many, themselves constitute a formidable barrier to mine warfare’s acceptance. That comparable sen­sitivity over the Soviet Union’s own hundreds of thousands of ready stockpiled mines causes any loss of sleep in the Kremlin is not evident.

Yet in spite of many problems, inadequate fund­ing, the lack of genuine champions in its cause, and deterring political sensitivities, mine warfare in the U. S. Navy fortunately endures. It is the fond prov­ince of a comparatively small number of enthusiasts, the preserve of a special breed of true believers. It has a fascination and complexity that the uninitiated cannot guess is there. Some of the nation’s most pres­tigious mathematicians have been stimulated to tramp about in the broad realms of minefield theory wherein the truths revealed are frequently counter­intuitive. The faith of its beleaguered supporters, and the stunning successes of mine warfare’s past that justify that faith, combine to keep alive the hopes of its future.

It is useful to recall briefly those attributes of mines which have long constituted their fundamental appeal. We have been accustomed to think of these weapons as cheap, reasonably simple, reliable, pro­ducible in great numbers, easily stockpiled, pos­sessing a devastating wallop, and demanding enemy countermeasures which require great investment in forces and technology to bring any chance of defeat­ing a major mine campaign. For those who must wage naval war, the foregoing are virtues to esteem.

During and since World War II, many mines,

missile, and the homing torpedo has become p^e

rhaP⁵

moored and bottomed, have come into being, em­ploying a variety of sensors—electromagnetic, acous­tic, pressure, and contact—operating singly or in combination. Those mines have incorporated sen­sitivity settings, ship counters, time delays, and clas­sification, anti-sweep, and sterilization features. Typically, the modern mine has proven to be an ex­ceedingly clever weapon, difficult to counter and yet inherently simple, possessing sensor, fusing, logic, actuation, and exploder mechanisms containable in small packages. In pounds of explosive per dollar it has been naval warfare’s great bargain.

Yet, looking at mine development today, and

harking back to that summary of traditiona ^vl ^ noted a few lines earlier, one can see that P^r ^ trends are going sharply in other direction*^ mighty—and, at best, ambivalent—metarnorp ^ is taking place in that more or less humble ^ have just described. Mines are becoming ^eXtre ^ complex, requiring much larger investm ^ technology, and their once-low price tag is ^a of yesteryear.                                                                      for-

In various stages of development, or con e _oeS mulation, are sophisticated rising, or seekinj in which the line between the mine, the un

o(

permanently blurred. Such mines are ^caP^a ^_en selecting, classifying, and verifying targets, a _()fle dispatching the weapon’s payload in pursuit- _£0{, familiar manifestation, the seeking payload ^lS pedo itself.

Such mines are attractive most notably * greatly increased radius of effectiveness, the ^_eep^e< volume their threat can encompass, and the _tj,e waters—and hence the wider ocean areas

30

Proceedings

/ Apr¹¹

^orltj •                                                          .

ab| ^{m w}^'ch they can be planted. Unquestion- s_Uci₁’ ^f^^ere is much that is tempting in the idea of ty ^nilries’ ^such ^as letting a comparatively few Cov °^{nS r}^^{e W0f}k °f many and making possible ^road fronts of ocean heretofore beyond P^^each of the naval strategist.

^an unalloyed blessing but, indeed, may carry

^a number of reasons, however, such mines are ^c an ,

With th .

. ^em their own formidable freight of disadvan- serious questioning. The greater complexity

^ta«^e and

i_ng ^ ^mines, the detection, classification, and hom- 5n_C(.^S^^{Stems nece}ssary for their sophisticated perform- a_Sp_e^^anc^ ^rhe added investment in their mechanical Wee ^{S t0 atta}‘ⁿ deep mooring all guarantee that the ^isk ^eaC^ rⁿdivicl^ua.l mine will be very high.

^are higher as well. In programs for the mines Up_Qn ⁶ ‘hiuding to, it is plain that we are embarking q_Ues .dually new kinds of mine warfare in which s_Usc ^Cl°^ns °f minefield effectiveness, reliability, and ans^h’-'hility to countermeasures can find no firm ^ers from the lessons of the past.

doubts

_n doubts are well-founded. Conventional fypjcajd rheory—which served reasonably well for ab_u ^ fields of short radius mines when planted in Uii_tles^ant uumbers—breaks down when it must treat V^s °f presumptively large radii of effectiveness. b_ei_a ^CaP^Sulate much mathematics, as well as certain Wh_et) / Wakening perceptions, large-radius mines,

pl_ari ’_f^and rhe thoughtful enemy (the only kind to

f'elcjc f^ad, also leave much larger gaps in their

°^r'^ ^more readily locates channels through in_Sta ^C *^{s c}hus facile and dangerous to assume, for ti_Ve ^e> ^that two mines possessing a radius of effec­ts ^Ss °f 500 yards can cover equally dependably taH: ^{01 c} firdd front as 20 mines having a 50-yard , ^Us of effectiveness.

Ca_Se ^not the intent here, however, to develop

th,

Against any particular program or form of ad- glj " ^mine development. Rather, the aim is to t)_0ssibJ^{e c}de road we are traveling and to assess the ^e meaning of our choices. And the essential

n.ng₎

opment programs and major procurement go hand in hand, both being essential components of a com­mitment to mine warfare. In practice, as things are turning out today, it is likely that the effort we allot to development programs will work to deny us num­bers. Observing present programs, it would take a rash optimist to forecast other than a continuation of protracted development, token annual production, minimal buys, and near-certainty that, should the United States ever seriously want to employ mines against a major adversary, the mines will not be there. In the foregoing there may seem to lurk the nostalgic view that for mines, uniquely among mod­ern families of weapons, we can safely stop the clock and satisfy our needs with designs frozen in the past. That is simply not true. The challenges of keeping abreast of technology, of being continually able to adapt and respond to new kinds of targets and chang­ing countermeasures, keep the business of mine de­velopment a formidably dynamic one. What is being pointed out here, however, is that in the runaway embracing of new concepts and technologies, with­out there being compelling need, we may pay a big price. And that price, when even the friends of mines start disbelieving that we shall ever have the prom­ised mines, could be mine warfare itself.

The continual dynamic trade-offs between the immediacy of strength now and the expectations of something better farther down the pike is a standard feature of the modern military world. The United States, however, in its persistent choice of the will o’ the wisp of the future over the present, may be re­flecting a pervasive national inability to accept the possibilities of war as genuine. That we see the Soviets, with their protean, if clanking, machinery of war, seemingly managing to have it both ways is not to offer them as a model of anything admirable. But it underlines again their own perception of reality.

We have thus far discussed, or at least touched upon, various of the factors which inhibit, or indeed forbid, the realization of a mine strategy for the United States and the creation of the stockpiles to make it credible. These have included an insuffi­cient commitment by the major platform spon­sors, chronically low levels of funding, and sharply rising costs of mines. The latter are compounded, as we have seen, by reaching out for the presumed bene­fits that high technology may bring. And in turn, high costs and complexity work to dissipate support for mines among that very constituency previously inclined to favor them more for their older virtues. We have noted, too, the political sensitivities of mines, the tiptoeing around the subject which pretty

given the high developmental costs of

diw-^Utllt costs of such mines when they enter pro- abj^ °ⁿ’ make it doubtful—recognizing the nation’s tb_e /'f' severe fiscal problems—that there will be of ,_L ^0rues available for procurement and stockpiling

^lsticated

mines, coupled with the inevitably

the

tat^j

ity .^Wl11 not possess a major mine warfare capabil- ^C^°0s'      ^{1 sense>} then, the Navy appears to be

^lr,g whether consciously or otherwise—a Vei₀ '^Varfare policy emphasizing technological de- ^ent over the creation of mines in being and ^0r war. In theory, of course, vigorous devel-

Sta-_^,<r ^^arge numbers without which the United

%

well assures their having even fewer friends outside the Navy than within.

To the foregoing difficulties we must also add such factors as the diminishing mine warfare ex­pertise in the Navy’s own technical facilities and lab­oratories, which heretofore have been primarily re­sponsible for mine development. It is to these or­ganizations that the Navy has long looked to take the lead in innovative solutions and creative responses to the challenges of this special world. Research and scientific exploration in many associated fields are necessary to guide the development and applications of mine technology. These nourish mine warfare’s roots, but that nourishment has grown thin. With­out a base from which to proceed, any sudden ad­vance to a new kind of mine becomes a leap into many unknowns. It is one of our threadbare, yet still consoling, myths that the United States has a great edge over the Soviet Union in science and the appli­cations of technology. Assuredly, that edge does not apply to mines. The U. S. Navy still hankers to build one kind of mine that the Soviets put into use ten years ago.

Present trends, in accordance with Defense De­partment policy (Circular A-109), are to shift a greater portion of the creative burden, formerly

ivil'

borne by the military establishment, onto t ian sector. But it remains highly doubtful     ^

vate industry, in such special and esoteric mine warfare, will find it profitable to -_on within itself the knowledge, research, and ^e

necessary to serve mine warfare’s needs over

the

term.

an a

One more barrier to mine warfare’s progress^ ^gt it could well be termed the universal barrier ^ _£0

strong and perhaps uniquely American ten

dency

¹                                  i»-““i« uin^uuj ---------------------------------------------------  , _t he^-

-intellectualize defense. Grown from nnt’              u.

laudable

-         -                            - -              . t af>otn^et

jectives, it is now a way of life, reflecting y ^ jj#

over-

ginnings several decades ago, and with

jrthy

American tendency, which is to take a wor. . and ride it beyond the boundaries or good _a$e& multitudinous procurement procedures, the _tems processes of reviews, our DSARCs (Defense ^ Acquisition Review Councils), all devised '^V1

that

n o

best of intentions—designed to ensure weapon systems rashly developed, ill-suite ’ ^leSS ful, or whatever, can proceed very far ^neve . _£Ugl often have the cumulative effect of inflicting ₀f paralysis. Lost sight of eventually in the sm

such exercise is defense itself.

Washington, as everyone knows,

IS qui<;

.                                                            He t¹¹^

tially the town of the bright young man. ^ _£very

■ At -

his mark by asking the hard questions. ledge along the tortuous upward paths jy- which ideas must climb from concept r:.th ms mate realization as hardware, he is there ^ ₎₅ probing demands for answers. For mines too no lack of hard questions—reasonable <3^ueS about the relationship of one mine to another our allies may be thinking, the availabib^ _the livery vehicles and what loss rates may be _£ver\^! plausibility of scenarios, and so forth. Yet ^vV^_or]< t)i good question there is also delay; a whole ne -₀„. them multiplies the delays exponentially- v ^ th^e ing and endless studying have only been P^art ^ _cpe cause, but we note that from the inception^ ^ CAPTOR (torpedo-armed mine) program ~^:in^ ting aside its pros and cons—nearly 20 y^ei' _£fy of passed. Twenty years. Yet, even today, the usable weapons is a pitiful trickle.     ^_£{i tb^e

Rationality must sometimes concede ^thatimP^erfeCt best of questions may yield only the most ^ j^ep of answers. Change comes too fast, ,^ani'eff<^!£; holding out for the most economical, ^coS,^t „ netf^eCt

reliable, risk-free weapon—in short, _tj_ie b^at' one—we will never have it. We can win a ¹ ties of good sense and prudence and ^so- -_s ment practices. All we lose is the war. War disorderly and wasteful, with loose en ^ everywhere, the unexpected popping up every^

32