Fixed and rotary wing aircraft have long enabled the successful execution of mine warfare, whether in the mass deployment of minefields or in sweeping them up via towed sleds and sensors. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps still need these capabilities, but Chinese and Russian advancements in antiaccess, area-denial (A2AD) systems preclude the employment methods that succeeded in the 20th century. In the Pacific, conventional strike capabilities will likely push U.S. aircraft carriers out to the Second Island Chain, further degrading the payload-per-sortie capacity to deploy mines from strike-fighter aircraft.1 Regardless, the Naval Aviation Vision 2030-2035 makes no mention of carrier-based aircraft deploying mines. Air Force bombers, which can deliver large quantities of mines from a distance, will be tasked to conduct long-range maritime strikes against the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships, resulting in asset scarcity. U.S. Navy submarines can deploy the Submarine Launched Mobile Mine (SLMM), but the payloads are limited, slower to emplace, and the assets will also be scarce if prioritized for maximal clandestine sea denial.2
As for airborne mine countermeasures (AMCM), the MH-53E platform is one of the most accident-prone in the Navy. The 2030-2035 Vision looks to the MH-60S Seahawk and MQ-8 Fire Scout to fill the Sea Dragon’s role in concert with the Littoral Combat Ship mine countermeasures (MCM) mission package, despite both helicopters having less than half the shaft horsepower and range of the MH-53E.
To see the future of Navy and Marine airborne mine warfare capabilities, leaders must look to the past. Previous programs like Boeing’s Pelican, DARPA’s Walrus, and current unmanned capabilities present creative options for airborne mine deployment and MCM. Unmanned versions of a wing-in-ground ultra-large transport aircraft and hybrid airship would optimize mine warfare capabilities to meet the challenges of modern combat.
The Pelican and Future Mine Deployment
Boeing Phantom Works designed the Pelican in early 2000 as a high-capacity cargo plane that would have been the biggest in the history of aviation. The aircraft would be “longer than a football field, with a wingspan of 500 feet, and a wing area of more than an acre,” to capitalize on the wing-in-ground (WIG) effect. The WIG effect occurs when a plane or glider flies no higher than the length of its wingspan above the surface, where the induced drag decreases and increases the lift each wing can generate at a given speed. With greater lift comes a reduced fuel burn rate, extended range, and greater cargo capacity. The Pelican could conceivably carry a payload of 1.5 million pounds (lbs) and fly 10,000 nautical miles (nm) over the sea in ground effect. The Pelican was designed to take off from traditional airfields and could fly up to 6,500 nm as a traditional airplane. With its max payload capacity, the Pelican could have transported 70 heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks (HEMTTs), 52 M270 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRSs), or 17 M-1 Abrams tanks for the U.S. Army. For mine warfare, the WIG plane could have carried up to 750 Mk 65 2,000-pound mines, effectively a whole minefield. A 2005 Congressional report assessed a collection of airlift and sealift platforms, determining the Pelican as marginally feasible to deliver by 2015. However, Boeing pivoted away from the program by mid-2006.
Despite the cancellation, a desire for zero carbon transport and revitalizing U.S. sealift is reviving WIG options. The start-up REGENT (Regional Electric Ground Effect Nautical Transport) is building the first zero-emission seaglider for coastal transportation. The craft combines rotary wing-in-ground functions with hydrofoils and distributed power systems, with an initial craft carrying 12 passengers 180 miles at up to 180 mph by 2025. Future variants will increase range via multiple engine and fuel options, platform size, and provide options for unmanned. DARPA is returning to explore WIG and seaplane capabilities via its Liberty Lifter Request for Information and Proposers’ Day, which concluded in September 2021 and March 2022 respectively. The Liberty Lifter vehicle concept recognizes that “traditional sealift is vulnerable to threats, requires functional ports, and results in long transit times . . . [whereas] traditional airlift is orders of magnitude faster but is expensive with limited ability to support maritime operations.”
Whether from the private sector or via DARPA, a ground effect seaglider or seaplane could create offensive or defensive minefields beyond the scale of present systems and at a lower risk. Given their smaller radar cross-section and greater speed compared to traditional ships and their low altitude, usually 20-50 feet off the ocean surface, they could operate below radar horizons and with a far larger area of uncertainty (AOU) while inserting into a denied area. A REGENT Viceroy operating at 180 kts could produce an AOU 36-times that of an Aegis Destroyer operating at 30 kts.3 As REGENT proves their capability and increases the platform’s combat radius, these seagliders could be regionally deployed from the various archipelagoes and islands of the Western Pacific, much like the Marine Corps aspires to in Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO).
Further, if scaled to carry 10-20 thousand pounds of cargo, a WIG minelayer could deploy dozens of mines out of its cargo area, much like the U.S. Air Force is developing concepts to deploy palletized cruise missiles via traditional cargo handling procedures. With various WIG platforms operating in a denied area, China’s People’s Liberation Army would be challenged to maintain targeting solutions on each minelayer, rather than trying to intercept a single bomber or submarine deploying them. Lastly, a credible allied demonstration of this capability in the Indo-Pacific would further raise the costs and risk of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan and potentially deter that aggression. Yet offensive mining is not the only area for airborne creativity.
A Walrus, Hybrid Airships, and Airborne Mine Countermeasures
The Navy and Marine Corps are at a crossroads on whether to adapt existing, less capable helicopters to do the Sea Dragon’s mission, or reevaluate a Congressional proposal to buy the $138 million-per-airframe CH-53K to operate as a successor to the MH-53E. The Naval Aviation Vision 2030-2035 indicates a preference for the former, but there is a third option: hybrid airships.
Unlike the semi-rigid, lighter-than-air vehicles such as the Goodyear blimp, hybrid airships use their helium-filled envelope to generate 60-80 percent of the lift, with the remaining generated by air passing over the airship body and supported by ducted fans on the sides of the airship. DARPA’s Walrus, like Boeing’s Pelican, was a turn-of-the-century project for a Hybrid Ultra Large Aircraft (HULA) that would substitute for a faster and more versatile sealift substitute. DARPA conceived of the Walrus as capable of carrying a payload of 500-1,000 tons up to 12,000 nm in less than 7 days while being to operate without traditional airfield infrastructure. A small-scale demonstration was scheduled for 2008 for a mini-Walrus with a C-130 equivalent lifting capacity, but was canceled due to a lack of funding and endorsement by Congress and DARPA.
Rather than a modern Hindenburg, today’s airships are more survivable, have greater capacity, and are multi-mission capable, depending on their payload. In the commercial sector, the UK-based start-up Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) has planned a production run of its Airlander 10 by 2025. The Airlander 10 was designed to reduce the CO2 footprint for passengers compared to traditional jet aircraft but has numerous other uses beyond experiential travel. HAV proposes three different customizable payloads for communications and surveillance, logistics, and mobility, which could serve military purposes, including mine warfare. In a logistics setup, the Airlander 10 can carry a 10-ton payload (equivalent to the MH-53E) to a 4,000 nm max range, while requiring only a 600-meter take-off and landing area. While the hybrid airship’s cruise speed is slower, at 75 knots (kts), compared to the Sea Dragon, it is sufficient to keep up with surface navy units maxed out around 30 kts. Further, whereas the MH-53E can be airborne for “approximately four hours,” the Airlander 10 can fly a single mission for five days.4 By 2030, HAV plans to field an Airlander 50, with a 50-ton cargo capacity. While the airship was designed as a luxury transportation option, it represents a cheaper option for airborne mine countermeasures than current options. Depending on payloads, the Airlander 10 costs about $50-70 million to produce, compared to the modern CH-53K ($138 million), or less capable MH-60 Seahawk (approximately $47 million per airframe).
The Airlander 10 Hybrid Airship in flight. Credit: Airlander
A fleet of Airlander 10s for airborne mine countermeasures could replace the twenty-nine aging MH-53Es, all without the requirement for a ship or carrier from which to deploy them. With its 10-ton capacity and a 2,000 nm combat radius, an Airlander mine countermeasures vehicle could deploy regionally from places such as Australia, Japan, Bahrain, or Germany and be on station in just over a day. Like the Sea Dragon, it could carry a full Mk 105 minesweeping sled, AN/AQS-24 side scan sonar system, or various unmanned vehicles being fielded across the mine warfare enterprise, depending on the requirement. While PLA A2AD systems may challenge hybrid airship employment, any threat environment safe enough for operating a Sea Dragon and its expeditionary base would be similarly available to an Airlander, but for a greater time than the heavy-lift helicopter. Experimentation must follow, but hybrid airships should rise to the consideration of Navy and Marine mine warfare planners.
Unmanned, Opportunities, and Organization
Beyond each platform’s present capabilities, the mine warfare force developers should integrate autonomy as each system is brought into the fleet. Adapting the avionics, and command and control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like the MQ-4C Triton or MQ-8 Fire Scout will require deliberate, potentially expensive, testing and evaluation. However, fleet operators will only grow more confident with these systems as they are demonstrated afloat. Both an unmanned WIG mine layer and an unmanned hybrid MCM airship would be more capable of filling the dull and dangerous tasks of operating within A2AD envelopes and around minefields. With the former, the unmanned WIG craft could fly its low-observable mining mission without human operators onboard, drop mines in a prescribed pattern, and report back completion. By contrast, the unmanned hybrid airship could be loaded with the expected AMCM equipment, make its slow transit to a given area, then stay on station and in contact with a shipboard human controller far longer than a manned aircraft could while clearing a minefield. Autonomy would increase these platforms’ capacity, capability, and availability while reducing the long-term cost for humans to operate them.
WIG aircraft and hybrid airship platforms could prove valuable across numerous missions. The Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) and EABO operational concepts each seek mobile, low-signature, and low-cost maritime options to project power, support logistics, and enable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Ground effect aircraft in particular could serve this purpose, all with greater mobility than traditional surface ships, and less strategic risk than aircraft carriers. Hybrid airships could provide additional capacity for long-range logistics transport, antisubmarine warfare (ASW), and ISR, operating from expeditionary bases. Experimenting with and integrating these platforms will complicate the adversary’s decision-making and create more opportunities for the Navy and Marines to achieve their objectives. Long-term, mine warfare-equipped hybrid airships and WIG cargo craft could be standalone units or could operate as part of helicopter mine countermeasures or patrol and reconnaissance squadrons. Weaving these capabilities into a forward Indo-Pacific Foreign Military Sales framework would increase the capabilities of U.S. allies and partners using dual-use emerging technologies while reinforcing technical interoperability and service engagement. The Philippines, Thailand, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, and numerous individual Pacific islands could use these systems for low-cost littoral transport, maritime domain awareness, and fisheries enforcement. Airborne creativity should not stop at one mission area or country border.
Looking Forward
Mine warfare, both offensive and defensive, must be a focus area for the Navy and Marine Corps. The remaining capabilities from the Cold War cannot sustain the service into the next century. Unmanned wing-in-ground aircraft, such as Boeing’s Pelican, or seagliders, such a REGENT’s Viceroy, would provide agile, low-observable, and scalable methods to deploy mines in denied areas. Similarly, an unmanned hybrid airship, such as DARPA’s Walrus or HAV’s Airlander 10, could enable expeditionary long-range airborne mine countermeasures at an equivalent or better cost than replacing or sustaining the MH-53E Sea Dragon fleet. The revolutionary technology imagined in the early 2000s is being fielded in the commercial sector, but the Department of the Navy must be willing to consider creative, non-traditional platforms to do vital mine warfare missions. In a time of flat budgets and growing threats, the words of Winston Churchill are incisive: “Gentlemen, we have run out of money; now we have to think.” Think of a mine warfare future with a Pelican, a Walrus, and no man.
1. JP 3-15, B-17, Appendix B, Section 3. b. (3) (b) 1.
2. JP 3-15, B-18, Appendix B, Section 3. b. (4) (b) 1, 3.
3. Based on an AOU’s size being determined by the formula Pi (times) r (squared), where r is the speed of the vessel creating an area of uncertainty.
4. Joint Publication 3-15, “Barriers, Obstacles, and Mine Warfare for Joint Operations,” 6 September 2016, Appendix B, Section 4, c (1), (a) Page B-21.
