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Service Experts Eye ‘Leap Ahead’ in Mine Warfare Capabilities

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But Landay noted that the next five Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, starting with the USS Momsen, which was commissioned in August, will be able to deploy the RMS. And if the LCS is not available, other ships could carry the MH-60S.

The MCM program that currently presents the biggest technical challenge is the Long-term Mine Reconnaissance System (LMRS), a submarine-launched UUV designed to look for mines “covertly.”

The challenge for LRMS is that it requires a much higher degree of autonomous operations than RMS, which is linked to its deploying ship by radio, and must be compact enough to fit into a sub’s 21-inch torpedo tube.

“We are not as far along with LMRS as we would like to be,” Landay conceded.

Because of that delay, the Navy is considering merging LMRS with what was to be a follow-on system, the “mission-reconfigurable UUV,” which could be programmed to conduct a variety of missions.

Lockheed has been awarded a developmental contract for a reconfigurable system, called the advanced development UUV, Landay said

Although the organic MCM capabilities initially will augment the dedicated mine force, the long-term status of the pure mine warfare community is uncertain.

“That is the kind of force-structure analysis the Navy’s going through. … We may very well not have any more dedicated MCM ships,” he added.

The dedicated force’s MH-53E helicopters also are facing service-life limits and the Navy will have to make a decision in the fiscal 2008 budget process on their future, he said.

The Navy also has not decided whether to replace the USS Inchon as an MCM command ship, he added. The Inchon, which was converted from an Iwo Jima-class helicopter carrier to a Mine Countermeasures Support Ship in 1996, was decommissioned in 2002.

The explosive ordnance disposal divers and the marine mammals run counter to the drive to get people out of the minefields, Landay said, but they provide “so much flexible capability” that they are likely to remain.

The divers and the mammals work mainly in very shallow water and the surf zone, which “continues to be the most challenging environment” for mine warfare, he said.

One possible tool to help in that difficult job is a small UUV, called Sculpin, that can scout for mines in advance of the divers. It was used on an experimental basis during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Another prospective aide is the Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis system, a helicopter-carried, multispectral sensor that looks for mines on the beach and in the surf.

The Office of Naval Research is developing another system, the JDAM Assault Breaching System or JABS, that would use Joint Direct-Attack Munitions to disperse multiple explosives to destroy obstacles and mines on the beach and in the surf quickly, Landay said.

The Marines, meanwhile, are working on a number of programs to deal with mines inland from the beach and “fill the capabilities gap not being addressed by the Army and industry,” Canfield said.

To fill those gaps and provide an organic capability for their infantry units, the Marines are now fielding a Lightweight Anti-personnel Obstacle Breaching System to clear a path through mines or barbed wire obstacles.

The Warfighting Lab also has assembled a kit of 11 items that could help small infantry units locate and neutralize minefields without waiting for the engineers, Canfield said. Test sets are being evaluated by the 11th and 22nd Marine Expeditionary Units during their deployments.

And the Marine combat engineers will get a new Assault Breacher Vehicle, a tank-like bulldozer, to clear large obstacle belts.

Landay said what excites him and his staff the most is that the advances they are developing are “really taking advantage of some of the leaps in technology. So for all the folks in the mine warfare community, it’s a pretty exciting time.”



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