Naval strategy for the 21st century focuses on the littorals and projecting power ashore, but unless they have the ability to clear mines from shallow-water assault lanes the Navy and Marine Corps could be stopped ten feet from their objective.
During Desert Storm two Marine expeditionary brigades with associated amphibious shipping operated in the waters off Iraq, playing on Saddam Hussein's fear of an amphibious assault on his flank. This deception helped to pull Saddam's attention away from his western desert, pinned down 7-11 Iraqi combat divisions, and facilitated General Norman Schwarzkopf's "Hail Mary Play" with VII Corps and XVII Airborne Corps. By all accounts it was a classic deception operation that worked extremely well.
But things could have gone differently.
As part of its coastal defense Iraq had conducted extensive mining of beaches and the seaways leading to them. While conducting an amphibious demonstration and heading to an amphibious raid, the guided-missile cruiser Princeton (CG-59) and the amphibious assault ship Tripoli (LPH-10) both sustained damage from Iraqi mines. This did not affect the strategic feint, but it certainly would have had an impact on a forced entry had it been tried. If Saddam had not been convinced that an amphibious attack would occur despite the mining, the Iraqis could have used their land forces to better shape the battlefield to their advantage. Resources and attention focused on a possible U.S. amphibious landing could have been diverted westward and the 72-hour ground offensive might have been rewritten.
In a modern conflict, relatively low-cost mining efforts have the potential to shape the battlefield and deny a U.S. expeditionary force the use of parts of a coastline. An adversary can use mines to deny sea space, to slow both operational tempo and momentum, and to direct assaults away from and into the beaches of his choice. The Marine Corps' "Operational Maneuver from the Sea" acknowledges these concerns: "Because of their relatively low cost and persuasiveness, mines have become a cheap means of limiting the mobility of ships and landing craft in the contested littoral regions. For that reason, we must develop and enhance our counter mine/obstacle reconnaissance, mine marking, and clearing capabilities, precision navigation, and in-stride breaching to support maneuver at sea, ashore, and during the transition from sea to land."
Mine countermeasures (MCM) operations to facilitate an amphibious assault can be divided into three waterspace regions that require clearance. The first, from the depth of 600 feet to 40 feet, is the responsibility of specialized forces made up of mine countermeasures ships, coastal mine hunters, and MH-53 Sea Dragon helicopters coupled with explosive ordnance disposal personnel. Since the Gulf War, the preponderance of MCM resources have gone into solving this part of the puzzle, largely because it encompasses the amphibious objective area and high-value shipping must operate in these waters. Today this force is stronger than at any time since World War II. This capability has been well exercised and great strides have been made in operational MCM/amphibious integration and command and control of forces. The time required to fully deploy these forces—upward of 45 days—remains the major difficulty. Future plans envision deployment of fully capable organic MCM systems, which will allow a carrier battle group or amphibious ready group to conduct in-stride mine countermeasures in this part of the littoral.
The second water-space region includes the depths from 40 feet to 10 feet. In the near to mid-term this area is the responsibility of the Very Shallow Water (VSW) MCM Detachment. Using a combination of human, machine, and marine mammal resources, VSW MCM forces conduct mine detection, classification, and clearance in this region. The VSW detachment, although still experimental, is a success story. Since its official establishment in October 1997 it has completed numerous MCM/amphibious exercises, most recently as part of RIMPAC East, where it was fully integrated into the MCM structure. In the long term, the Navy is working toward VSW MCM systems that will remove both man and mammals from the loop and provide operators with a clandestine mine clearance capability in this environment.
The third region of MCM effort is the surf zone, from water depths of ten feet to the beach. This area is the most accessible to mining and the easiest to reseed. Even a minimal mining effort in the surf zone can render a beach unsuitable for landing, force planners to use beaches of the adversary's choosing, and thereby channel forces into areas where an opponent can concentrate his defensive power. In its Mine Warfare Campaign Plan the Navy acknowledges surf zone mine countermeasures as the greatest challenge and notes that current systems are not much better than those available at D-Day in Normandy.
In the near term, surf zone breaching must rely on the Mk-58 line charge system deployed from an air-cushion landing craft (LCAC). Basically, the LCAC fires a series of line charges and then detonates them, destroying or disabling the mines. This creates 50-yard-wide boat lanes extending to the beach, so amphibious assault vehicles, landing craft, and LCACs can be inserted. The Mk-58 system does not have a capability to clear mines on the beach itself, which presents the dilemma of how to conduct rapid clearance from the surf line to beach exit points. In addition, this method requires a large percentage of assault-force LCACs to operate in the surf zone for extended periods to clear enough boat lanes.
In the mid-term, surf zone countermeasures were to be provided by the Shallow Water Assault Breaching System (SABRE) and Distributed Explosive Technology (DET). SABRE essentially is an improved line charge. DET is an explosive "net" fired into depths less than three feet to clear to the high-water mark and should provide some beach clearance capability. It was foreseen that this combined package would increase standoff range, decrease mission time and LCAC vulnerability, and increase system placement accuracy.
The far-term solution, hoped to be deployable by 2016 but still in the imagineering phase, is to substitute unmanned systems to perform the LCAC function.
The use of LCACs for assault lane breaching faces four challenges:
- The method of transporting ordnance and loading it on the LCAC has not been thoroughly addressed or tested and practiced. The Mk-58, SABRE, and DET systems are large and heavy. They cannot be loaded on assault shipping within current time-phased force and deployment planning and would not be part of the amphibious ready group load out. They are to be kept at naval magazines and sent into theater when needed. Their size precludes shipment by air and necessitates the use of surface shipping. Once in theater the ordnance would have to be transferred to assault shipping and set up on the LCAC. Because LCACs are pre-boated for assault when deployed and space is critical for the Marine assault element, their deck space is considered square and cube. To load breaching systems the entire assault load plan would have to be reconfigured and the pre-boat would have to be removed. With cargo space at a premium, this would cause significant and risky equipment movement. After breaching, the LCAC would have to be unloaded and reloaded for the assault, expanding the assault timeline by several hours. This method of lane breaching will never meet the concept of in-stride mine neutralization.
- LCACs have inherent design limitations that effect their ability to employ assault lane breaching systems in the surf zone. LCACs were not designed to operate in the surf zone but to travel through it. While they can perform in the surf zone as currently configured, the possibility of catastrophic damage and subsequent mission failure is high. One disabled LCAC in a 50-yard-wide boat lane is a significant obstacle. LCACs lack the installed systems needed to navigate in the surf zone to the degree of precision required to place current and mid-term countermeasures systems. Finally, LCACs essentially are without armor and are extremely vulnerable to enemy fire. Survivability depends on speed to the beach. Hovering in the surf zone makes the LCAC a tempting target.
There are fixes programmed to address some of these deficiencies. A deep skirt system has been installed on LCAC-90 that raises the height of the craft and provides the needed lift and stability to make sustained operations in the surf zone more feasible. The deep skirt will be installed on some craft as part of the LCAC Service Life Extension Program, but few will receive modifications before 2005. To solve the navigational accuracy problem a system called Skipper has been developed. It acts as an autopilot and allows the craft operator to position the LCAC precisely in the surf zone for the length of time required for breaching system employment. Skipper has been tested on craft with good results but it is not part of the Service Life Extension Program and as of this time no provisions have been made to install it on any craft. As for the LCACs' vulnerability to enemy fire in the surf zone, the only solution is to provide armed cover for the craft as they perform the mission.
- The developmental timeline for SABRE and DET continues to expand and neither system has reached operational evaluation. To say that the surf zone mine clearance program is in disarray is an understatement. The Defense Resources Board of 19 July 2000 decided not to support SABRE/DET in the Navy's six-year budget plan, which essentially terminates the program. The concepts were termed "duplicative and low performance." Speaking to a recent mine warfare conference, Brigadier General William Whitlow, Director of Naval Expeditionary Warfare (N-85), said an operational concept, not just a piece of equipment, was needed to address the mine threat in the surf zone. He stated, "Bottom line, we started with an end item before anyone with operational experience could raise their hand and say . . . `This does not make sense. "
- Pulling LCACs for mine countermeasures would expand the assault timeline, and the possible loss of LCACs could affect the assault and follow-on echelon unless additional units are available in theater.
Today, if a contingency arose that required a landing on a mined beach, LCACs would make the breach with untested systems on which their operators have not yet been trained. Long-range solutions are still in the technology demonstration phase. As Russian General Aleksei A. Brusilov, one of the most prominent generals of World War I, once said, "It is too late to learn the technique of warfare when military operations are already in progress."' Despite years of effort, the U.S. Navy appears headed that way in the surf zone.
Rapid, effective mine countermeasures operations are an a priori requirement of "Operational Maneuver from the Sea" and are essential to future amphibious assault. A move to pursue far-term solutions aggressively, a decision to provide adequate resources, and a commitment to developing near-term solutions are required. We are in grave danger of deploying our forces 7,000 miles to a hostile shore only to be stopped 10 vertical feet short of the beach.
Captain Rosenberg is commanding officer of Assault Craft Unit Five; Lieutenant Anderson is the training officer for the unit.