A New Risk Model for Mine Countermeasure Operations

Mine warfare is often the “wicked problem” of any naval warfare scenario. It is complex and requires time to resolve and often cannot adequately be practiced within the constraints of an oversubscribed exercise scenario or time-limited operation. This was demonstrated during the clearance of the Khawr Abd Allah waterway approach to Iraq in the northern Arabian Gulf in 2003, where the estimate to clear was approximately four weeks, but the time allotted was 24 hours (to allow a British ship in to deliver humanitarian supplies). Whatever could be achieved in that short time had to be defined as the acceptable level of risk.

As Hans Taylor and Sam Lynch wrote in 2018, “Mines are a growing operational concern as they proliferate in the naval arsenals of potential adversary nations.”¹ Even nonstate actors have used improvised mines in a variety of scenarios and to some effect. In addition, the ability of future adversaries to employ cyber warfare will force naval forces to operate at times in communication- and GPS-denied environments, including when trying to clear a minefield. The mine countermeasures (MCM) problem likely will become harder, and friendly navies may not have a technological advantage.

Mine Countermeasures Today

The MCM process involves choosing and then clearing a route through which ships can pass. While clearing, when a sensor detects an object that does not “belong” to the area, a classification of the contact occurs, with the subsequent aim of identifying and finally neutralizing the contact. Recent autonomous mine-hunting systems often necessitate reacquisition of the contact, an extra step. Thus, current MCM operations require five steps before risks can statistically be reduced to an acceptable level: detection, classification, identification, reacquisition, and neutralization.

The statistically driven method requires that the sensor make a number of passes over an area before the other phases of the MCM operation can be executed and a clearance percentage—with a possibility of a defined number of mines remaining—determined. This percentage may or may not meet the commander’s risk-acceptance threshold.

A New Approach

As technology and the capability to search for mines advances, why do navies continue to use this same statistically driven method—essentially the same process applied for decades? A new way to think about MCM operations would place priority on access, followed by clearance.

Access is the ability to provide entry for a military force to an objective; it involves a comparatively high level of risk. This is a necessarily vague definition, as it encompasses a number of events and includes advance-force operations as part of the access spectrum of tasks that need to be completed. The acceptable level of perceived risk relies on factors such as time, shock hardness of the ship, GPS accuracy, and electromagnetic signature. Access may include the selected removal of some contacts, but ultimately involves only enough effort to reduce the risk to an acceptable level for the operational commander. Clearance involves providing clear transit paths for both merchant and military vessels, referred to as Q-routes, and requires a methodical approach that is time- and labor-intensive.

In prioritizing access over clearing transit paths, MCM operations shift focus from the transiting platforms to the contacts in the water. Currently, an MCM operation must progress through each MCM stage successively, until a statistically acceptable level of risk is achieved to attempt access. But with today’s technology, this may not be the most expeditious way of providing access.

The five MCM phases are premised on the sensing capabilities of 50 years ago. Sensor technology today is considerably more sophisticated, to the point that multiple phases can be conducted in a single pass. In fact, if the goal is to ensure speedier access at an acceptable level of risk, sufficient data can be gained in the detect and classification phases of the operation to bypass the identification phase.

Modern sensors provide sufficient fidelity to classify an object as “minelike” with a high degree of confidence. These same sensors also can measure the size of the object and extrapolate the maximum amount of explosive that could be carried in a container that size. Therefore, the risk associated with that object can be accurately assessed without identification.

Apply the Risk Model to the Contact

If the risk data is first applied to the contact, a risk area around the contact could be calculated based on the amount of damage a ship could sustain and remain in the fight. Moreover, in the area around the contact, there are different levels of risk that occur if the contact is a mine, based on the ability of the vessel to withstand the effects of a detonation. This does not require knowing the mine type—the commander can make a decision on how much risk is acceptable in the given scenario to achieve the outcome desired. Questions of clutter density, sensor degradation, GPS degradation, and cyber effects can all be dealt with by changing the potential risk that will be accepted given knowns and some of the unknowns.

If the problem is considered from that perspective, access choices might change. Consider a search that turns up ten possible mines. Based on different risk assumptions, it might become apparent that a slightly harder-to-navigate route could provide speedier access than a higher-risk but simpler one. If the harder-to-navigate route is chosen, the need remains to remove (neutralize) contacts to reach the access point, but against fewer contacts—perhaps only two or three instead of all eight (see Figure 1).

The access route may not be straight and could have multiple turns, but that can all be incorporated into the risk calculation and made a known quantity. This simplifies the problem of what contacts to remove and what areas to avoid, given the risk for acceptable damage.

Therefore, the new method includes these steps:

• Decide on best access path based on current knowledge of the environment and all available intelligence
• Conduct search and classification of access route
• Apply data analysis to suspected contacts to determine acceptable level of mission risk
• Design the route through contacts, taking into account neutralization capability of the MCM force and turning ability of ship

Employing this new thinking about how to execute MCM operations would provide better risk-based approach options. Thinking differently about the MCM problem will help navies use new technology to break free of doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.