From the earliest years of the Republic, the U.S. Navy has had a love-hate relationship with mines, long known as the “weapons that wait.” The Navy used mines offensively on only two occasions in strictly naval operations during the 45 years of the Cold War—the belated 1972 mining of North Vietnamese ports, and the mining of the northern Persian Gulf in 1991 to prevent Iraqi naval craft from leaving their bases. (Strangely enough, mines were also dropped by naval aircraft on jungle trails in Vietnam and on Iraqi airfields and bridges in 1991.)
During the Cold War, the Navy maintained a large stock of offensive mines: aerial bombs fitted with mine fuzes (Destructor), plus the highly innovative Mark 67 submarine-launched mobile mine (SLMM, adapted from the Mk 37 torpedo), and the Mk 60 CAPTOR (enCAPsulated TORpedo), a guided antisubmarine mine.
But with the end of the Cold War the Navy’s mine capabilities have atrophied. Few conventional mines remain, the CAPTORs are gone, and the SLMMs will be phased out by 2012. At that point, the Navy will have no mines capable of being launched from submarines or surface ships.
Today the United States lacks modern mines; it has only the Quickstrike mines, which have limited effectiveness in deeper waters. And there are only a few trained mine specialists and no robust technological/industrial base in this field.
The Quickstrike weapons are 500- and 1,000-pound bombs fitted with multiple-influence target-detection devices (TDDs), plus the 2,000-pound “thin-wall” Mark 65 dedicated Quickstrike mine. All are bottom mines and are air-dropped, meaning that there is no submarine or surface-ship mining capability.
There were a few half-hearted efforts after the Cold War ended in 1991 to develop new mines: An improved submarine-launched mobile mine based on the Mk 48 torpedo was initiated but died in 2002, and there was the so-called 2010 Mine to complement the Quickstrikes. The program was to provide the Fleet with a modern air-dropped mine by 2010. But that, too, was canceled as was another offensive mine concept, the 2020 Mine (Sea Predator).
The situation may now be changing. In some scenarios, where the U.S. Navy is engaged in coastal/littoral operations, mines could prevent an adversary’s submarines, midget submarines, swimmer-delivery vehicles, and even fast surface craft from entering the area.
As early as 2005 the Secretary of the Navy’s Research Advisory Committee examined the issue and concluded:
The U.S. Navy should consider employing mines in offensive operations, to create barriers to deny areas of interest/operations to hostile submarines, UUVs, and SDVs. The current U.S. mine capability is limited and rapidly dying. It is unlikely that the planned 2020 Mine will be developed on time, at cost, and with the capabilities originally expected. Accordingly, the Panel recommends the use of existing and in-development foreign-built mines that could be fitted with advanced sensors to meet the use described above.1
Subsequently, several senior Navy officials, including the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commanders, U.S. Third and Fifth Fleets, are warming to the idea of offensive mine warfare. Without mines the U.S. Navy essentially gives adversaries a free pass. In the fall of 2010, Captain John Hardison, then-deputy program manager of the Navy’s Mine Warfare Programs Office (PMS-495), identified remote control and improved targeting for “offensive mining” as among his “top items of interest.”2 He essentially echoed Admiral John C. Harvey Jr., Commander Fleet Forces Command, who said that the Navy needs to avoid the loss of its naval mining capabilities, while acknowledging that funding offensive-mine research and development is not at the top of his list of priorities.3
But specific efforts that could lead to a realistic offensive mining capability are difficult to identify. A new target-detection device, the Mk 71 TDD for the Mk 65 Quickstrike, has been developed and fielded. The Mk 71 program dates to the early 1990s, with acquisition beginning in Fiscal Year 2005, but has been delayed by low-level funding, changing priorities, and a “tech-refresh” to make it more producible. The development of a new Mk 75 fuze for other bomb-conversions also has taken longer than anticipated but should available in a few years. As an example of the fragility of the U.S. mine industrial base, the sole company that has provided a critical component of the TDD has ceased production, spurring the Navy to look for alternative sources—including foreign ones.
The recently touted AirSea Battle Concept outlined in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review calls for high-volume, aircraft-delivered mines. Air Force B-52H, B-1B, and B-2A strategic bombers are the nation’s only high-volume mining capability. Close collaboration between the Navy and Air Force has been on the rise, in part because the services are seeking means to justify their force levels. In wartime, however, mining operations will be only one of several missions demanded of Air Force strategic bombers and, if the mining targets are at great distances, their supporting fleet of aerial tankers.
The Quickstrike mines—available and planned—pale in comparison with advanced mine technologies. Captain Mark Rios, Resource Sponsor for Mine Warfare (N852) in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said that the Navy has the ability to lay indiscriminate mines, but could create mines that would more effectively target enemy ships and could be turned off by remote control after a conflict ends. “I think we want there to be a discussion about how we can use mines,” Rios noted at the 2010 Expeditionary Warfare Conference. “Clearly some of our adversaries or potential adversaries have submarines, have patrol craft that are very nimble and fast. Early on in the conflict, mining their harbors or their approaches to come in and out of port would reduce the number of ships and submarines that could come out to attack us and this reduces the threat.”4 He also has spoken of “glide mines” with global-positioning-system targeting, which can be launched from tactical aircraft outside the range of adversary anti-aircraft weapons, and mine-laying unmanned undersea vehicle “trucks” that can be deployed from the Navy’s special-forces-configured cruise-missile submarines.
Captain Rios is an optimist. The Sea Predator or 2020 Mine concept called for a remote-controlled, mobile mine that would take advantage of the basic mine characteristics––high-lethality, long-endurance, man-out-of-the-loop, strong psychological impact, and force-multiplying features that free manned platforms for other duties. Sea Predator also was to have autonomous mobility and remote control. It was envisioned to be both submarine- and surface-ship deployable, with the Littoral Combat Ship identified as a candidate platform.
Some observers have suggested adapting a foreign mine to Navy service—as in the 2005 NRAC study’s recommendations—a good idea as several allied navies have modern mine-development programs. The U.S. Navy has had some success with foreign weapons and systems, among them the Mk 92 fire-control system, the OTO Melara 76-mm guns, the AV-8 Harrier series aircraft, Martin Baker ejection seats, etc.
Still, foreign-made mines could be difficult to integrate because of weapon safety, delivery-vehicle interface, delivery methods, and other technical/operational concerns. Information-assurance issues with software-driven technologies are huge, generally, and the Navy would have to ensure there are no embedded “Trojan Horses” or viral codes in the foreign mines. That said, as this was written the Navy was considering a “drill-down” study to get to the “ground truth” about acquiring and employing foreign mines. This nascent interest has not yet translated into funding, and given increasing pressures on Department of Defense and Navy budgets, the situation could likely become business as usual with interminable delays in the effort.
Within the mine-warfare community, the reluctance to invest in an advanced new mine looks to be held hostage to resource competition. The Navy’s mine-warfare resource sponsor has a difficult problem: balancing mine countermeasures (MCM) and mines/mining while having to fund legacy and future MCM systems as new systems are being brought on line, with no growth in total funding. Indeed, problems with the mine-warfare module for the littoral combat ships recently dictated a redesign of that “package,” including additional costs and delays in the future MCM program. Mine warfare––mines and mine countermeasures, from the labs and industry, and from Navy headquarters to deployed forces—usually accounts for less than 1 percent of the Navy’s total annual obligational authority.
Thus, while the technologies for improving mines are mature, the Navy’s will to develop, acquire, and deploy them remains uncertain—at best. But increasingly, as smaller navies obtain advanced coastal and midget submarines and swimmer-delivery vehicles, the potential role of offensive mines increases.
1. Science and Technology for Naval Warfare 2015–2020 (Washington: Naval Research Advisory Committee Report, NRAC 05-3, August 2005), p. 38.
2. PMS-495, “Future Mine Warfare Business,” NDIA Conference, 21 September 2010, slide 7. Although “offensive mining” was at the top of this list, the briefing noted that the list of priorities was “not in rank order.”
3. Cid Standifer, “Navy Examines Improved Offensive Mine Warfare Capabilities,” Inside the Navy, 18 October 2010.
4. Ibid.
Dr. Truver is director, National Security Programs, Gryphon Technologies LC, Greenbelt, Maryland. He is a frequent contributor to Proceedings and other defense-oriented publications.