Just for some comparative perspective, let’s take a look at
another MCM system, this one from Atlas Elektronik which is developing a system
to equip the new Belgian-Dutch vessels that are planned. The two countries are teaming up to build
replacement MCM ships and frigates. Belgium
is in charge of MCM vessel procurement and the Netherlands is responsible for the
frigate. (1) The new ships will replace the
existing Tripartite class minehunters and the command and support ship BNS
Godetia.
 |
| Atlas MCM System |
Following the current trend towards ‘families of
capabilities’ and ‘systems of systems’, the Atlas system components include:
Atlas Remote
Capability Integrated Mission System (ARCIMS) Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV)
– The USV is 33 ft long, weighs 13,200 lbs, and has a payload capacity of 6,600
lbs. It can accommodate a power module
and magnetic, acoustic, and electric sweeps.
The boat’s max speed is 40 kts but the towing speed is only 8 kts. (2) While perfectly adequate for non-time
critical mine clearance during peacetime, this is woefully inadequate for
combat mine clearance.
 |
| Atlas USV |
SeaCat Autonomous Underwater
Vehicle (AUV) – The AUV is a small, torpedo shaped unmanned, underwater
vehicle that weighs around 150 lbs and has a payload capacity of around 60
lbs. It is equipped with a dual
frequency side scan sonar and has a max speed of 6 kts. (3) It can operate autonomously or via remote
control using a 1000 m fiber optic cable.
Optional payloads include a multibeam echosounder, imaging sonar,
sub-bottom profiler, conductivity/temperature/pressure (CTD), or a camera.
 |
| Seacat UUV |
Towed Synthetic Aperture
Sonar – The sunspecified sonar is towed by the AUV and provides mine
detection and classification capability.
Again, the max speed is 6 kts.
Mine-sweeping –
Sweeping is provided by the ARCIMS USV and includes magnetic, acoustic, and
electric sweeps.
Vertical Take-off and
Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (VTOL) – I have no idea what effective use
this would provide.
Mine Avoidance Sonar
– This is a hull-mounted sonar for the MCM host ship.
The Belgian Navy will spend 1.1 billion euros on the entire
MCM project which envisions a range of unmanned systems including unmanned
surface, aerial and underwater vehicles alongside towed sonars and mine
identification and neutralization ROVs.
Does all of this sound familiar? This is, more or less, what the US Navy has
been trying to develop for the MCM version of the LCS.
What assessment can we make of the system and how does it
compare to the LCS MCM module?
Speed. As we noted, the speed of the components is
very slow (6-8 kts) and is suited only for non- combat scenarios. For rapid combat clearance operations the
system is entirely unsuited. The same is
true for the LCS whose components have an effective clearance rate of 2 mines
per hour, at best. In both cases, the
slow speed can be compensated for by sheer numbers of additional units but the
numbers required would be staggering and far beyond any imaginable acquisition
program. Further, such numbers would
require a degree of asset co-ordination that is also unimaginable.
Transit Time. The low speeds of the various components mean
that the transit time to and from the mothership, which stands well off from
the suspected minefield, will be quite lengthy thereby contributing to an
extremely slow overall clearance rate.
Again, the same applies to the LCS module components.
It is clear that the high tech, individual component
approach to mine clearance is inherently slow and combat ineffective which
leads one to wonder why it is even being pursued. In fact, one could make a reasonable case
that the ‘why’ is related to either the fixation by modern militaries on
automation and unmanned for its own sake or the desire of commercial companies
to offer products which enhance their corporate profits but do little for the
customer’s combat capabilities coupled with the Navy's inability to recognize that and specify products that would actually be effective.
_____________________________________
(1)navaltoday.com website, “Atlas pitches MCM toolbox for
new Belgian, Dutch minehunters”, 1-Feb-2019,
(2)Naval Technology website,
(3)Geo-matching website,
Maybe the navies of the world are unwilling to admit that there is no viable combat solution to naval mines at the moment? If used in large numbers (like China has) by both sides, mines could turn the parts of the oceans into something like WWI trenches, with neither side able to approach the other side without huge losses, and no safe spaces for civilians.
ReplyDelete"Maybe the navies of the world are unwilling to admit that there is no viable combat solution "
DeleteWell, maybe, but I think there are viable combat solutions.
The obvious one is high speed influence sweeping. For some reason, navies have almost abandoned this technique. Yes, I know that sweeping has never been 100% effective and with modern smart mines it will be even less so, however, the vast majority of modern mine inventories are still 'dumb' mines so sweeping will still neutralize many mines.
We need to devote more research and development to influence sweeping. Just as modern mines have evolved to try to discriminate between sweeping and legitimate targets, so too should modern sweeps evolve to better simulate the mine triggers. Instead, we're using almost the exact same sweeps we used in WWII and Korea!
In addition to sweeping, we need to consider area 'bombardment' using small powered, guided charges like the Russian RBU that can gravity 'glide' towards targets and explode. The West seems to have a fixation with identifying each individual mine rather than just blowing up any mine-like object in the area and not worrying about what, exactly, it was. If we blow up a few rocks along the way, who cares?
We can consider actual sacrificial remote controlled ships to use as 'proof' of clearance ships and, if constructed to be extremely compartmented, they could 'sweep' remaining mines. These would be cheap, commercial, throwaway vessels.
Finally, we need to recognize and ACCEPT that no amount of mine clearance is 100% perfect and that we will suffer occasional mine damage/sinkings in combat. What we need to do is stop building gazillion dollar ships that we can't afford to lose and start designing and building small, single-function ships that we CAN afford to lose.
We also need to recognize the value of numbers when it comes to mine clearance. Normandy, for example, involved some 250 minesweepers! The entire US Navy has around 10 Avenger MCM vessels that are way past retirement age and a handful of sweep helos that are also well past their safe operating age. Pathetic.
So, I think there are viable combat solutions but we don't seem to have much interest in pursuing any of them.
Was just thinking the same thing, why cant we just build a ship that can "soak" up all kinds of mines? Not sure how many it could take before sinking but for the billions we spending, I think a specially designed ship could absorb quite a lot of punishment! Might actually be cheaper and faster than trying to identify every freaking object in the ocean.
DeleteArea bombardment. Why not use low yield underwater nukes to sterilize the area your going into, should also knock out any other unfriendly targets (ie. subs, sosus, ect.) Used to have nuke warheads for ASROCS, you could long range missile deliver or drop from aircraft in high speed runs. Need to bring back a long range nuke AAM like the we had in the cold war, you could put a big dent in a mass air/ASM attack far from the fleet.
Delete"Why not use low yield underwater nukes"
DeleteDo you have any data that would suggest such an approach would be effective over any significant area? If you don't achieve some sort of sympathetic detonation of surrounding mines, you'll just clear the immediate area which, in terms of a minefield, is fairly small.
The larger question/issue is why have Western navies opted to adopt small, snail-slow, individual mine clearance methods rather than large, area clearance methods?
Delete"Was just thinking the same thing, why cant we just build a ship that can "soak" up all kinds of mines?"
DeleteWe had one of those, the MSS-1 (minesweeper, special), also known as the "world's largest outboard." Basically we took a commercial hull, ex-Harry L. Glucksman, removed everything, welded any holes in the hull shut, filled it with styrofoam, and put 5 diesels on main deck with driveshafts down the sides to props in kind of an inboard/outboard, put the small crew in a cabin mounted on shock absorbers, and tested it as a ship to sail in a mine field, set off mines, and stay afloat. You can read more about it here, including some before and after photos:
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/mss-1.html
It entered service in 1969 with Gene Cate as the first OIC, did some testing for a few years, won a MUC in 1970, and was then withdrawn from service in 1973.
"The larger question/issue is why have Western navies opted to adopt small, snail-slow, individual mine clearance methods rather than large, area clearance methods?"
DeleteI'd opt for two kinds of mine countermeasures ships:
1) MCM, basically a smaller LSD, that would carry help sweep sleds and remote controlled MSBs in a well deck, with a helo deck and hangar for say, two, H-53s, and the capacity to launch the RBU-type mine bombardment weapons that you advocate here, and the saturation underwater destruction vehicles that you discussed earlier (assuming those are not exactly the same thing). This would be your quick and dirty fast clearance ship and would come first.
2) MHC, mine hunter coastal, that would do detailed search and destroy hunts to sanitize an area completely.
The MCM could come in first, clear the area to a risk level acceptable for an amphibious assault. Then after the assault and the port is secured, then the MHC could come in and clean up anything left.
Bottom line: Nothing useful is going to happen as long as mine warfare is the red-headed stepdaughter of the Navy. At least not until something happens like the mines in Haiphong and we suddenly have to do something with mine warfare.
When dealing with modern mines, there aren't any large, area clearance methods other than scaling up to many, parallel, "snail-slow, individual mine clearance methods".
DeleteInteresting...the MSS-1 was sure some out of the box thinking!! Thanks for digging that up CDR CHIP!!! There might be somthing to look at and emulate here!!
DeleteThanks CDR! Never heard of it. So why can't we do something like that today?!?
DeleteWe could make it optionally manned, super easy to fix, capable of taking punishment, mount different noise generators to stimulate all kinds of USN ships, buy a couple of them to pretend to be a carrier TF or amphib group and you soak up a bunch of mines and sea bedded torpedoes. I bet a couple of these things would be way cheaper to buy and operate, a LOT FASTER TO CLEAR the mine field than these exquisite USVs that search and find a mine once in awhile and then stop working.....
We really need some basic simple paravane sweepers to deal with dirt-cheap moored mines that everyone has,and some RSVs or towable sleds to area sweep for magnetic mines.
ReplyDeleteThe current MCM strategy is like pulling ticks off a saint bernard with tweezers.
I know, we are using the slowest, least efficient way of doing this. Probably the most expensive too!
DeleteI think they've gone the slow, precise route because they are focused on opening ports for civilian shipping, not freedom of maneuver for naval opertions.
ReplyDeletePorts are smaller and sheltered, making slow clearance less of a hindrance. Civilian ships can't take mines - both because of light construction but also because a damaged freighter blocks the port better than a mine!
None of these systems are intended for use in large scale war, so of course they are useless for it!
While not a fan of the push towards all the unmanned nonsense... Maybe this is the place for it. Not in the flea-bite detection sense, but maybe in the sacrificial context. Instead of detecting and destroying, why couldnt we use torpedo-esque units that generate the sound signature of juicy targets, sure to flush out most mines? This is old tech, the Navy had 'practice torpedoes' that emmulated Soviet sub sounds decades ago, and they were only 25lbs,5ft long and about 5in diameter. Have had one as a mantle decoration for a decade, and it dates to the mid-1970s. Magnetic pulse generators, or other triggers wouldnt be that difficult to add albeit in a larger package. Sending a dozen or two sacrificial units at a time to clear a lane isnt rocket science. Yes therell always be some missed, and damage, but it seems that a mass of cheap sacrificial noise making targets, followed my more traditional methods is better than the slow, unmanned Buck Rogers everyone is so in love with today...
ReplyDeleteAnd btw...im suggesting these units are not even controlled. Simple preprogrammed launch and forget units... Running a course to maximize 'coverage', a straight line, possibly concentric circles, whatever the specific geograpy calls for.They're either destroyed by mines or run til the batteries die and they sink. But built and sent out in sufficient numbers to give a respectable margin of error that an area is safe for follow on efforts or passage...
DeleteI like that idea, make them float when it has finished, with a little transmitter, so can be collected.
Delete"why couldnt we use torpedo-esque units that generate the sound signature of juicy targets, sure to flush out most mines?"
DeleteWe already have that. It's called influence sweeping. The sweep generates magnetic, acoustic, or other signatures that activate mines. For some reason, however, we've relegated them to nearly abandoned, nearly forgotten status.
The various USVs (like the CUSV) are intended to tow sweeps but the sweeps themselves seem to be getting little development effort.
With the sweeps getting minimal attention, and needing a tow vehicle whether surface or helo, thats where I thought cheaper, disposable(??) units built by the thousands might be an avenue to explore. Fire and forget units that only need a platform able to put them in the water. Possibly helo dropped when the boundaries of a possible minefield are vague or unknown, until a relatively safe starting point is cleared for a ship to do clearing with a larger mass of them...
DeleteFunny, I was also thinking that this would be the one place that unmanned would make sense. But I hadn't come up with anything beyond that.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of low-tech, low-cost minesweeping versions of the roomba.
Unless you have surveyed an area before mines are laid every rock, washing machine (and there is a few of them), and all rubbish has to be examined. Old mines do things like count. They will go off the tenth time they detect a ship.
ReplyDeleteIf surveyed then one only needs to look at what is new.
Surveying wastes time and is a symptom of our obsession with information at the expense of effective action. We become paralyzed by our desire for perfect information.
DeleteSweep repeatedly and blow up everything that looks suspicious and move on! We tend to overthink things in the modern military.
One comment on speed. If you're towing sweep gear behind you, that's a lot of drag and it really slows you down. I'd want to see higher sweep speeds in the channel. The German Seehund Troika drone sweeps can do 10 knots while sweeping. They are a lot bigger than this proposed drone--82 feet long and 99 tons, and have a more powerful engine. But you're not going to get much faster than that pulling sweep gear until you get to the helicopter sled sweeps.
ReplyDeleteIn Australian think tanks we have a weekly Women, Peace, and Security update (see https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-women-peace-and-security-update-4/). Maybe you can do a weekly update from a US perspective?
ReplyDeleteI do posts on women from time to time. I'm open to suggestions for topics. What is it that you'd like to see more of and that falls under 'naval matters'?
DeleteCommentary on the sad state of US Navy mine countermeasures.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/05/08/the-us-navys-modernization-rush-must-not-harm-mine-countermeasures/
Okay, crazy idea time, look to the past for ideas. Use nets or booms to protect ships. Stationary nets could be installed to create channels through mined areas. Mobile barriers may be possible as well. I don't think you could deploy mobile barriers all the time, the drag would be tremendous, but it could make sense for high value ships that had to make it through without damage. Maybe, specialized (unmanned?) ships could be used to shield other ships transiting mined areas. I'm thinking something along the lines of a huge floating dry dock that can move while partially flooded with a ship able to sail within and protected by the dry dock.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting Navy document on nets and booms from 1944.
https://maritime.org/doc/netsandbooms/index.htm
In an earlier post on the Wonsan mine clearance, ComNavOps wrote, "For example, instead of using exquisite technology to identify every mine, get its serial number, count the rivets on it, and neutralize them one by one, perhaps we should be looking at a method of indiscriminate destruction of every object that even remotely looks like a mine – area destruction instead of precision destruction. An example of such an approach would be to flood an area with a true swarm of small, suicidal underwater vehicles that just blow up everything they ‘see’ and don’t worry about what it was. This is just one back-of-the-napkin idea. I’m sure MCM professionals could come up with other ideas." That is a very interesting concept. The one concern I see is that the ocean bottom is strewn with so much junk that it would take thousands of them to clear an area of any size. But they wouldn’t have to be very big. Mines aren’t heavily armored, so the charge needed to set off a mine from adjacent to it is not large.
ReplyDeleteEarlier in this tread, Jjabatie mentioned a torpedo influence sweeper. That’s another interesting idea. My concern there would be that generating a sufficient acoustic or magnetic signature to set off a mine historically requires fairly large equipment with a fair amount of power, so that torpedo might have to be very large, although with modern electronics that might be doable with something smaller. The small size of the swept path has always been a problem with the helo sweeps, and their influence generating equipment is carried on a fairly large sled.
ComNavOps also mentioned an RBU-like device that could launch an explosive device that would then glide through the water to a mine. We toyed with a somewhat different idea, put a large enough explosive charge to detonate everything within a 100-150 yard radius, and then about 20 of them well-place could clear a one-mile swept channel.
And obviously we could look further into the “Mississippi One” concept. The problem with the original was slow speed, but you could put more powerful engines on it if you are doing more than a concept study. It also could carry acoustic and other influence-generating equipment onboard. Size is definitely not an issue there.
These and other ideas could all be tested and developed if the Navy were willing to spend the time and money to do so. It’s the same thing on the mining side. The US just ignores mine warfare until it bites them in the rear end.
Right now, most development of MCM techniques within NATO takes place with the Dutch, Belgians, and Germans. Their goal is keeping the Rhine open for merchant shipping. So their priorities are completeness and safety of MCM crews, not speed.
I don't think an RBU-like falling device would work. If unguided, you would need a prohibitive number of them to ensure you either hit or detonate close enough to every mine in the channel you're trying to clear.
DeleteFor a "guided RBU" I don't think there's a guidance technology that would be cheap enough, small enough and high enough resolution to work against bottom mines. The guided RBU works against submarines because they're a relatively large target in the water column. You can't just blast out a ping with such a sensor and expect to get back an image-level picture of the sea floor. At best you'd get a rough bathymetry.
To discriminating a small target laying or partially buried on the sea floor, we currently have to use towed, high-resolution, synthetic aperture sonar. That obviously won't work on the head of a falling munition.
It might be interesting to test MOAB-sized bombs for the distance they can reliably detonate a mine, but I'm skeptical this approach would work. Modern explosives are fairly insensitive to shock. We've investigated using
multiple, large bombs on the beach or surf zone to move mines out of the way, but I'm not aware of any tests to area-detonate mines in deeper waters.
Instead of these approaches, just scale up the number of USVs and operate them in parallel. If one towing a sonar at 8kts is too slow of a detection rate, use ten, or a hundred.
"For a "guided RBU" I don't think there's a guidance technology that would be cheap enough, small enough and high enough resolution to work against bottom mines."
DeleteThere's a marked tendency among military observer/commenters to expect any device or system to work 100% against every imaginable threat. This is an absurd expectation. Mine countermeasures are one of the best examples of needing multiple systems to deal with the threat and the multiple types of the threat.
So what if a guided gravimetric RBU type device wouldn't work on bottom mines (and there's no proof that it wouldn't, by the way)? If it would work on just one type of mine, that would be fine.
"The guided RBU works against submarines because they're a relatively large target in the water column."
You're assuming this wouldn't work without any evidence to back up your assumption. We use sonobuoys to detect subs at distances of miles with just faint returns. I see no reason why we can't detect a mine size object at distances of feet.
Of course, since no one has actually tried this we don't know whether it will or won't work but logic suggests it's likely and well worth a little research test time to find out.
The one thing about the MOAB approach, or something smaller, is that we would not necessarily be trying to set off the explosive in the mine spontaneously, but rather to destroy the sensing and activation mechanisms. Those can be fairly finicky and are not typically housed in armored containers. Destroy the firing mechanism and the mine either goes off or becomes inert. We can live with either result.
Delete"You're assuming this wouldn't work without any evidence to back up your assumption. "
DeleteYou're assuming it would work without providing any evidence.
I'm basing my assertion on my understanding of how these sensors work. I'm not an expert, for sure. It is an interesting topic though, so I have tried to read up on it.
Sonobuoys, again, detect a large metal object in the middle of the water column. They don't detect an influence mine sitting on the bottom. You need imaging-level resolution, and even then it's still hard.
Look at some of these images generated by synthetic aperture sonar.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Change-detection-using-Synthetic-Aperture-Sonar%3A-Midtgaard-Hansen/7931f6645b802810b0e32d1ebfe8c870c4aefa16/figure/1
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Change-detection-using-Synthetic-Aperture-Sonar%3A-Midtgaard-Hansen/7931f6645b802810b0e32d1ebfe8c870c4aefa16
See how cluttered some areas are? Which object is the mine? Are any? Are you going to blow up every object in that 100m section? There are dozens of mine-like objects. How sure are you your weapons hit the right targets?
Now do that for a 150m wide, 6-9 mile long stretch of ocean to open up a single assault lane. Do that again 5 more times to meet Marine requirements.
How many tens of thousands of RBU weapons will you have to use?
"You're assuming it would work without providing any evidence."
DeleteNo, I'm assuming it COULD work. As I said, it hasn't been tested but there is enough circumstantial evidence to believe that it COULD work and is worth trying.
"They don't detect an influence mine sitting on the bottom."
No one but you has suggested a sonobuoy or RBU-type weapon could do so. I don't know why you would even speculate about it. As I said, and will repeat, if an RBU-type weapon can work against even one type of mine, it's worth looking at.
"Are you going to blow up every object in that 100m section? "
Yes! Now you're getting it. There's no need to identify every object in the ocean. Just destroy anything mine-like and move on. That was the point of the post - that we are too enamored of data when the simpler course of action is to blow up everything and move on.
"How many tens of thousands of RBU weapons will you have to use?"
Who cares? If they can clear mines, it's a win! How many tens of thousands of every kind of weapon did we use in WWII?
We're planning on using thousands of multi-million dollar precision guided weapons. Why would we hesitate to use thousands of multi-hundred dollar weapons to remove mines?
"Who cares? If they can clear mines, it's a win! How many tens of thousands of every kind of weapon did we use in WWII?"
DeleteHow do you even know how many munitions to use unless you take the slow, 8kt, fine-grained imaging to see how many mine-like objects there are?
You launch salvoes until things stop blowing up … then you're done. You're trying to make something complicated out of something simple. You'd make a fine Navy admiral!
DeleteThat doesn't even make sense. You fire a salvo of 20 RBUs, they all hit rocks. Nothing blew up. Must be fine! Let's go sailing.. Oops. Nope. Mine.
DeleteCDR Chip said, "The one thing about the MOAB approach, or something smaller, is that we would not necessarily be trying to set off the explosive in the mine spontaneously, but rather to destroy the sensing and activation mechanisms. Those can be fairly finicky and are not typically housed in armored containers. Destroy the firing mechanism and the mine either goes off or becomes inert. We can live with either result."
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this is knowing whether or not it worked. If you detonate a big bomb and nothing else detonates, did it kill the mines? It might just bury still-live mines.
You can be pretty sure when a targeted mine neutralization device works, because the mine detonates.
And that's kind of the tradeoff. Time versus certainty of clearance.
DeleteMine warfare is not about absolutes, it's all probabilities. I don't know that we can ever know that we absolutely, positively got every mine. But we take some of these tools, and work with them, and test them, and in doing so we build up enough information to feel, say 90% confident that we got every one at some point. Depending on the mission, we go forward at that point or we say, no, how much longer would it take to get a 95% or 99% confidence level?
ReplyDeleteTargeted mine detonation is designed to get closer to that 99% confidence level and wait until we get there. Area-wide efforts are designed to get us close enough to take the chance.
The problem with this is the same problem with influence sweeps. It’s hard to have confidence in your confidence level. You might have 90% confidence against your exercise mine you tested against, but the enemy might’ve hardened their sensors and fuses to reduce the effectiveness of your countermeasures.
DeleteNow massive over pressure might be hard to counter, so perhaps you could have a higher confidence in your confidence level. I don’t know. Worth investigating.