The U.S. Navy—the most powerful navy in the world—lacks the most effective (and cost-effective) means of sea denial: expeditionary mining.1 Conventional mining by warships, submarines, aircraft, and unmanned systems is a worthy investment. But history has shown the strategic, operational, and tactical value of mining littoral regions in adaptive, unconventional ways. In modern scenarios, deploying small teams to lay mines from shore or from civilian, host-nation, or nonstandard vessels may be the only feasible method to deter an amphibious landing or deny enemy vessels maneuver in littoral regions.
Expeditionary mining is not a new concept. Sovereign nations and nonstate actors have achieved strategic and operational objectives such as deterrence and sea denial using those kinds of asymmetric tactics. This includes shore-based mining and mining from unconventional platforms, particularly in littoral regions and strategic chokepoints.
During World War I, U.S. trawlers, passenger liners, and freight steamers were rapidly converted from their civilian purpose into minelayers.2 To defend Wonsan Harbor in the 1950s, within a three-week period, North Korean forces rolled some 3,000 mines over the sides of barges towed by tugboats, and they used small fishing vessels and sampans throughout the war to lay mines clandestinely.3 In 1987, the Iran Ajr, a small landing craft, laid mines in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war until the U.S. Navy captured and scuttled it.4 And, just last year, Ukraine defensively mined its own port of Odessa to deter Russian amphibious landings, and Russia laid mines in the Danube River to blockade commercial vessels.5 Technologies employed in these and other historical mining operations have ranged from conventional mines with influence sensors to tethered, remote-controlled mines, to improvised devices detonated with time-delayed fuses or victim-triggered switches.
The Expeditionary Mine Mindset
The Department of Defense defines expeditionary forces as “an armed force organized to achieve a specific objective in a foreign country.”6 The closest related term for expeditionary mining is the expeditionary mine countermeasures (MCM) company, which is a “platform agnostic, scalable MCM force package . . . capable of rapidly deploying and performing all phases of MCM consisting of planning, search, reacquire, identify, neutralize, and exploit mines and maritime IEDs.”7
Therefore, an expeditionary mining team should be a rapidly deployable task-tailored force able to conduct asymmetric mining operations. This could include intelligence preparation of the operational environment to support minefield planning, mine storage and assembly, low-visibility minelaying, minefield monitoring, and—if remote-controlled fuses are used—mine initiation. Concepts would include shore-based mining and embarking vessels of opportunity for minelaying operations. Whether operations were offensive or defensive would depend on the tactical situation and objectives. The purpose of expeditionary mining would be sea denial or sea control of key maritime terrain in the vicinity of expeditionary advanced bases and advanced naval bases and to support littoral operations in a contested environment.
Conventional Mining is Insufficient
Air and maritime superiority cannot be assumed in the next war. Conventional platforms are bigger targets in contested (including potentially mined) waters, and these platforms have finite capacity for armament. Submarines effectively laid mines throughout World War II, and air-dropped mines were the key to success in Operation Starvation during that same war.8 Surface ships laid massive minefields in the North Sea in both world wars.
Modern warfare presents different challenges to offensive mining. With moored and drifting mines in the Black Sea today, it would be ill-advised to deploy warships or submarines to emplace additional mines to deter Russian amphibious landings into Ukraine without first mine hunting or sweeping the operational area. To deter other amphibious invasions, an adversary force likely would mine surrounding waters and approaches to channels, harbors, and ports. This negates any presumption of maritime superiority. Air superiority also is not guaranteed because of large weapon engagement zones and the potential presence of enemy aircraft, so aerial mining would be risky.
Small, specialized teams of trained operators with an inventory of small- to medium-sized mines, however, could conduct low-visibility mining in the littorals from shore, small craft, or nonstandard vessels to prevent (or at least inhibit) an amphibious invasion. From an acquisition perspective, expeditionary mining teams could produce a more cost-effective return on investment than advanced submarine-launched and air-dropped mines that take up space otherwise needed for other payloads.
Particularly when combined with other antiaccess/area-denial capabilities, expeditionary mining offers options for sea denial and deterrence. As Milan Vego notes in On Littoral Warfare, “Narrow passages between islands can be blocked by mines and coastal missiles or gun batteries. Numerous islands canalize the movements of the enemy forces,” just as Allied mining in the English Channel “forced [opposing naval forces] to concentrate
. . . making them vulnerable to attack.”9 When countering a large naval force during littoral operations in a contested environment, an asymmetric force such as expeditionary mining teams could have an outsized effect.
Expeditionary Mining Technologies and Platforms
Expeditionary mines would have to be portable and modular with in-the-field customizability for sensor types, arming, firing parameters, and even scalable net explosive weights that operators could apply to specific targets in specific environments. These characteristics would help expedite development and fielding, as well as training and logistics requirements. To achieve sea denial through offensive or defensive mining in support of littoral operations in a contested environment, multiple smaller mines could do the trick. The 1991 mine strikes on the USS Tripoli (LPH-10) and Princeton (CG-59) show the efficacy of mines with relatively low explosive weights.10
Furthermore, mine types must offer target discrimination to enable sea control when necessary. Remote-controlled mines offer the chance for an operator to arm or detonate a mine from afar to enable periods of safe passage for commercial or military shipping, while still holding target vessels at risk. Remote-controlled mines could be tethered: Russia used such mines during the Crimean War of 1854–55 to defend the Kronstadt and Sevastopol ports in the Baltic and Black Seas, respectively.11 These mines could be untethered and use acoustic or a combination of acoustic and radio frequency signals to arm or initiate. Some of these systems require further development, but the fundamental technologies already exist.
In addition to shore-based mining, expeditionary mining teams would need to embark suitable small boats and nonstandard vessels with ordnance, just as the United States did during World War I, the Iraqis did in the Arabian Gulf, and the North Koreans did at Wonsan. Naval Special Warfare Command’s combatant craft or Navy Expeditionary Combat Command’s 40-foot patrol boats could be suitable for smaller mines. Expeditionary mining teams also could embark merchant vessels, barges, and other vessels of opportunity with containers such as the Cube, which offers a containerized multimission module system to store, launch, and lay larger mines.12
An expeditionary mining capability could fill the gap when air and sea control is contested or not ensured and help win or prevent conflict through sea denial and deterrence. If the Navy and Department of Defense are serious about deterring adversaries from conducting amphibious invasions and other littoral operations, they should commit to this comparatively low-cost, asymmetric capability with an historical track record of providing sea denial against large navies in the littorals.
1. VADM Albert H. Konetzni Jr., USN, “Mine Warfare,” CHIPS (January–March 2003).
2. David D. Bruhn and Rob Hoole, Home Waters: Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and U.S. Navy Mine Forces Battling U-Boats in World War I (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2018).
3. CDRs Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson, USN, “Wonsan: The Battle of the Mines,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 83, no. 6 (June 1957).
4. Bradley Peniston, No Higher Honor (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006).
5. Michael Shtekel, “Deadly Mines Infest Odesa Coast,” Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 18 July 2022; and “Floating Mines Hit Danube Traffic,” Reuters, 25 April 2022.
6. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 1-02: DoD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, February 2023), 73.
7. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-15: Barriers, Obstacles, and Mines in Joint Operations (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 26 May 2022), B-24.
8. George K. Hartmann with Scott C. Truver, Weapons that Wait (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 73, 78.
9. Milan Vego, “On Littoral Warfare,” Naval War College Review 68, no. 2, (Spring 2015): 38–42.
10. Bryan M. Cochran, ”Mine Warfare—The Joint Force Commander’s Achilles Heel,” research paper, U.S. Naval War College (February 2004), 3.
11. Arthur Nicholson, Very Special Ships: Abdiel Class Fast Minelayers of World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015), 97.
12. Naval News Staff, “Danish and Finnish Companies Ink MOU for Modular Mine-Laying System,” Naval News, 7 February 2023.
