Iraqi sea mines posed a constant threat to US warships during operation Desert Storm An example of the extensive damage caused by mines.
	US countermeasures to mine warfare have not always maintained the necessary sea superiority. Dr. Fred E. Saalfeld and John F. Petrik look at what is being done to rectify the situation			A clear vision
				The US Navy and Marine Corps intend to ensure that mines do not interfere with their expeditionary and sea-control responsibilities. The US record in mine warfare is mixed and over the past 20 years the mix could have been better. During the tanker war of the 1980s American warships convoyed tankers through the Straits of Hormuz by placing them in front of the escorts. That may have been sensible because the commander realised there was a lot of reserve buoyancy in large tanker hulls, but naval forces should not have to resort to improvisation. Things weren’t much better a few years later during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. We were reminded again that US warships were imperfectly equipped to handle the mine threat. Matters were better on the ground in Kuwait, where marines breached the Iraqi barriers without difficulty, but that was a deliberate operation against a clearly identified obstacle belt. Humanitarian de-mining operations since reminded us of other unpleasant realities – landmines are hard to locate and clear, and remain deadly for years. Lieutenant General John Rhodes, commanding general of the Marine Corps’ combat development command, put the matter clearly in a memorandum for the chief of naval operations: “Desert Shield and Desert Storm left an indelible impression that the naval services need to regain a counter-mine and counter-obstacle capability that would again enable amphibious operations in all environments.... As we move closer to making ‘Forward from the sea’ and ‘Operational manoeuvre from the sea’ a reality, I think it is important to pause and re-assess how the naval services approach the potential debilitating effects of enemy mines and obstacles. We need to refine the required capabilities to overcome this threat. The desired endstate I believe we share is to field systems that will overcome mines and obstacles enabling unencumbered manoeuvre from the sea to inland objectives." Mine countermeasures A diverse array of transnational-national, rogue and sub-national adversaries now form the most immediate danger to the US. The navy and Marine Corps now devote more attention to the littoral operations needed to counter those potential adversaries. The forces that will oppose them are an asymmetrical and asynchronous threat. The enemy will not attempt to match our strengths, but try to hurt us in ways quite different from those a peer would use. Whichever of the three classes of threat dominate the near future – renewed major military competition, traumatic attack, or erosion of support – we can expect it to engage US forces asymmetrically. And a large class of such threats are asynchronous, occurring at widely dispersed points in time. Mines, because their action typically occurs long after they are placed, are the classic asynchronous weapons. Both the navy and Marine Corps need mine countermeasures consistent with the tactical doctrine of ship-to-objective manoeuvres that applies manoeuvre-warfare principles to amphibious operations. Their countermeasures must impose aminimal impact on tactical lift, entail minimal vulnerability and proceed at an operational pace consistent with the high tempo of ship-to-objective manoeuvres. The countermeasures we give the forces should therefore provide: rapid clandestine mine and obstacle surveillance in very shallow water and the surf and beach zones; and rapid organic mine and obstacle clearance in very shallow water and the surf and beach zones. Joint vision 2010, the navy's strategy Forward from the Sea, and the marines' doctrine of operational manoeuvre from the sea, all imply a need for robust, effective countermine capability. And it is the job of the Department of the Navy's science and technology programme, led by the office of naval research, to help see they get that capability. The office of naval research concluded its work in the joint countermine advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD) and results included: Advanced sensors. A system that detects, classifies and identifies underwater mines in support of finding minefield gaps. The coverage rate increased with identification by an order of magnitude: Advanced lightweight influence sweep system (ALISS). This sweeps acoustic and magnetic sea mines in the shallow and very shallow water portions of assault lanes. ALISS uses super-conducting technology that will be extended into high-temperature superconductivity: Magic lantern (adaptation) (ML[A]). This provides the means to detect rapidly, identify and classify minefields in very shallow water, the surf and the landing craft zone. Now mounted on a piloted aircraft, soon it will be on an autonomous aerial vehicle: Explosive neutralisation advanced technology demonstrator (ENATD). This offers an in-stride mine countermeasure capability from over-the-horizon onto a defended shore during amphibious assaults. This system has moved to acquisition but still imposes a large logistical burden. With limited funds, the navy has decided to concentrate on achieving a critical mass of science and technology resources in areas that support future naval capabilities. We call these efforts that achieve critical mass, spikes. Organic mine countermeasures are the original spike. Only a broad range of versatile basic capabilities can overcome the mine threat – underwater sensors, bottom imaging, improved intelligence, increasingly robust ship design, biomimetics and so on. Among the projects in the spike are autonomous underwater vehicles for very shallow water; surveillance that exploits national technical means; the rapid airborne mine clearance system (RAMIS) and Hydra-7. RAMIS clears sea mines; Hydra-7 clears landmines. They both work by firing hyper-velocity projectiles, non-explosive darts, from above; data fusion, mine countermeasures must feed into and draw upon the common tactical picture. Ship-to-objective manoeuvres call for an ability to breach minefields and obstacles in stride. The organic systems we develop must have a small logistical footprint, be affordable and move us toward fully autonomous technology. Current work seeks improved breaching technology. Mine clearance of beaches after forces have landed ashore Long-term work Because long-term basic and applied research can be difficult to see in the final product, it is worth outlining some of the fundamental lines of work relevant to mine countermeasures: Nano-elec-tronics will permit development of miniaturised low-power electronics for application in small, highly functional UAVs and WVs as well as smart weapons; advances in autonomous control theory will improve UAV and UUV performance and our ability to control multiple UAVs and UWs. Autonomous control theory has broad implications for all robotic applications; coupled ocean and atmospheric modelling. Development of improved oceanic and atmospheric modelling will enhance littoral warfare capabilities. Enhanced representation of the physics of boundaries promises significant payoffs in weather prediction and environmental protection; photonics promises dramatic improvements in lasers, communications and data processing. Improved sensor performance and better processors will be important to mine countermeasures. Laser line scan has become an important addition to the array of sensors used to detect, identify, and classify mines; biosensor and biodetector research should yield more breakthroughs than simply mine detection and classification; automation of human decision-making coupled with robotics would enable us to replace humans with machines in dangerous environments. Because effective decision-making needs solid situational awareness, work includes physics-based data fusion and assimilation as well as signal processing. The vision inherent in a science and technology community focused purposely on the needs of the sea services will permit us, above all, to see the new ideas that will enable us to stay at the crest of the revolution in military affairs. ©