Navy awaits laser minesweeping

 

By William Matthews - Staff writer

Posted : Monday Apr 2, 2007 21:16:54 EDT

 

Sweeping along at 60 knots, a Navy helicopter equipped with a blue-green laser will soon be able to detect mines in water deeper than 40 feet.

 

Using data collected during the sweep, the helicopter will return to the area and use a second, more focused laser to zero in on the mines, then destroy them with specially designed 30-millimeter supercavitating bullets.

 

The new Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) and its companion Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System (RAMICS) promise to dramatically speed up mine detection and clearing of floating and near-surface mines, and at the same time make the process safer.here.

 

“This takes the man out of the minefield,” said Gary Humes, program manager in the Navy’s mine warfare program office. “It’s a capability we do not have today at all.”

 

Current mine detection and clearance sometimes is as primitive as posting two petty officers with binoculars on either side of a ship’s bow to spot mines. Beside them stand sailors with rifles, ready to explode the mines, Humes said.

 

The Navy also uses a variety of mine detectors and detonators towed slowly through the water by helicopters, and it has a fleet of mine-countermeasures ships that attack mines with divers and remotely piloted underwater vehicles.

 

All are considerably slower than ALMDS and RAMICS are expected to be — eventually. The mine-detection system is scheduled to be ready for use in 2009, the mine destruction system a year later.

 

The need for better mine-detection and -clearing capabilities has been clear since the Iran-Iraq War spilled over into the Arabian Gulf to become the tanker wars of 1984-88. Mines were a problem again during the first Gulf War in 1990 and 1991.

 

Since then, the Navy has worked on a variety of helicopter-based mine-detection systems. The ALMDS and RAMICS systems are the product of more than seven years of development by Northrop Grumman.

 

Dave Stafford, a Northrop vice president and director of the company’s maritime and tactical systems, described the two high-tech systems during an April 2 press briefing.

 

“We’ve chased a bit of science here and come up with a gem,” Stafford said.

 

The mine-detecting laser is encased in an eight-foot pod that is attached to the side of an MH-60S helicopter. The laser fires “hundreds of pulses per second” to collect information about what is in the water, Stafford said.

 

Exactly how deep it can see is classified, but it is deep enough to protect all Navy ships to keel depth, he said.

 

The laser is fired into the water, and cameras in the pod capture the reflections to create images, which are stored in digital form.

 

When the helicopter returns to its ship, the data is transferred to computers, which display it for analysts to examine and help to identify mines. It requires “massive computing” power, Stafford said.

 

Once the mines are identified, the helicopter is outfitted with the RAMICS system. Reconfiguration takes about four hours, he said.

 

RAMICS uses the same type of blue-green laser, but this one is much more narrowly focused. Using Global Positioning System coordinates, the helicopter goes back to the minefield, relocates the mine and homes in on it.

 

The system then aims a 30-millimeter gun that fires bullets designed to travel accurately through water. Instead of being diverted off course by water, as ordinary bullets are, these supercavitating bullets create an air bubble, or “cavitation envelope,” around themselves and travel in that through the water to accurately hit their target, Humes said.

 

Mine clearing could be done even faster if detection could be followed immediately by destruction, but that’s not yet possible, Humes said.

 

“We’re talking about terabytes of data,” too much to be quickly analyzed or even transmitted from the tracking helicopter to a ship or another helicopter, he said. That’s the next step, but it’s likely years away.

 

The first pod, delivered to the Navy in January, is the product of a $35.7 million contract for two pods. Once in production, the pods should cost about $4.5 million apiece, Humes said.

 

Northrop Grumman says the Navy plans to buy 45 pods by 2018 for $255 million.

 

The RAMICS system cost $36.9 million to develop, according to Northrop. It is expected to cost about $5 million per system, Humes said.

 

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First thought goes not to mines but submarine detection, Cold War, space based laser detection of NATO submarines. Maybe we are finally getting to the age when those Soviet titanium hulls will provide the only protection a submarine can count on (VDeep ). Today's terabyte is tomorrow's pebble after all. They are still huge oceans but the littorals may become a little less horrific for surface ships with blue/green laser support.

Navy awaits laser minesweeping

 

By William Matthews - Staff writer

Posted : Monday Apr 2, 2007 21:16:54 EDT

 

Sweeping along at 60 knots, a Navy helicopter equipped with a blue-green laser will soon be able to detect mines in water deeper than 40 feet.

 

Using data collected during the sweep, the helicopter will return to the area and use a second, more focused laser to zero in on the mines, then destroy them with specially designed 30-millimeter supercavitating bullets.

 

....

 

Northrop Grumman says the Navy plans to buy 45 pods by 2018 for $255 million.

 

The RAMICS system cost $36.9 million to develop, according to Northrop. It is expected to cost about $5 million per system, Humes said.

 

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Sorry, sounds lame to me. Two sweeps? 4 hrs in between? What if that was a dolphin? What about smart mines? I want a helo go there and come back with area clear. Good idea, screwed implementation.