CDR Salamander - A Mine Threat? Where are the Minesweepers?

At the end of last week, things were a’buzz’n about ‘ole silent-but-deadly…MINES!

There is a lot of bad and in some places intentionally misleading reporting from traditional media on down over this weekend, so let’s do a quick summary.

The NYT got the ball rolling.

Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf channel that carries 20 percent of the world’s oil, according to U.S. officials, an effort that could further complicate American efforts to restart shipping there.

While the U.S. military said it had destroyed larger Iranian naval vessels that could be used to quickly lay mines in the strait, Iran began using smaller boats for the operation on Thursday, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps can deploy hundreds, even thousands, of the small boats, which the Iranian force has long used to harass larger ships, including the U.S. Navy’s.

This quickly reminded everyone of a little event from the start of the year that had a memorable visual.

Via TWZ:

Four decommissioned U.S. Navy Avenger class mine countermeasures ships have left Bahrain on what may be their final voyage aboard a larger heavy lift vessel. Avengers had been forward-deployed to the Middle Eastern nation for years, where critical mine countermeasures duties have now passed to Independence class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).

The public affairs office for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) and U.S. 5th Fleet first released pictures of the M/V Seaway Hawk, a contracted semi-submersible heavy lift vessel, carrying the former Avenger class ships USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator, and USS Sentry last Friday. The Navy released more images and a brief statement yesterday. The date stamps on the pictures show the Avengers were physically loaded onto the Seaway Hawk in Bahrain on January 9.

This had a second echo of a seapower past.

Battered and unseaworthy, HMS Middleton was dragged by tugs into Portsmouth naval base on Sunday.

The Hunt class mine countermeasures vessel (MCMV) returned to the home of the Royal Navy on March 8 after being brought back from the Gulf by a heavy-lift ship.

The ignominious piggy-back was cheaper than letting the more than 40-year-old ship make the 6,200-mile journey back from Bahrain under her own power and freed her crew to join other ships.

But her return after a journey that took weeks meant the end of the Royal Navy’s anti-mine vessel presence in the Middle East after almost 50 years. Only unmanned drone systems are left, according to the Navy.

Another metaphor, etc.

However, there is a worry that Iran might mine the Strait of Hormuz because it has been a concern—and occasionally a reality—for almost half a century.

Over the weekend, a generally useful primer from Just Security.

Once an area has been mined, it is often virtually impossible to guarantee that it has been fully demined. An oil tanker explosion with a naval mine would be an environmental disaster that would further halt shipping. Following the armed conflict, Iran would have an affirmative obligation under Hague VIII to remove its own mines. Still, commercial shippers would have to trust Iran that this has taken place. And removing mines is notoriously difficult. Since 1997, a multinational naval mine clearance and ordnance disposal operation has been conducted in the Baltic Sea to clear and destroy an estimated 160,000 mines from the First and Second World Wars, and just 20% have been removed or destroyed.

Complicating matters, at this very moment, the U.S. Navy is retiring its four Avenger-class minesweepers previously homeported in the Middle East and moving toward a different strategy. The new strategy for mine countermeasures is untested and focuses on using the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) in combination with helicopter support, drones, and Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel. In an apparently shortsighted move, just one month before the Iran conflict began, the four Avenger-class minesweeper vessels left their home port of Bahrain to be decommissioned and scrapped in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The U.S. Navy acknowledges that the LCS “will always struggle to achieve the same level of Mine Countermeasure proficiency” as dedicated minesweepers. It remains to be seen whether the combination of LCS, helicopters, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, and Navy-trained dolphins (with natural sonar capability) can fill the gap left behind by these departed minesweepers. Finding naval mines in an international strait is already notoriously difficult, particularly in an international strait that has so much existing debris that camouflages the existence of mines.

…except…the removal of the Avenger Class has been long in the making. The final step was six months ago when they were decommissioned. I’m not sure what their readiness state was by the time they left. Knowing how this works in my Navy…not that great. At this point, the neglected old girls are little more than a danger to themselves and inadvertently to others—qualified crews long PCS’d elsewhere.

That is why I said the article was “generally useful”. A non-zero number of iffy items. I almost didn’t even quote them—as they are partially funded by George Soros’s Open Society…so, yeah…I read everyone.

When people got through the initial dopamine hit from this latest news cycle, we quickly got to the “LCS and the MIW Mission Modules!” stage

Well…

The U.S. Navy Independence class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara, which are configured for minesweeping duties, have appeared in port in Malaysia. Both of these ships were last known to be forward-deployed in the Middle East, having arrived in Bahrain in the past year or so to take the place of a group of now-decommissioned Avenger class mine hunters. Now, as Iranian attacks on commercial ships have caused a virtual halt to maritime traffic through the highly strategic Strait of Hormuz, these ships have emerged thousands of miles away. The extent to which Iran has seeded naval mines in the Strait already is unclear, but this remains a huge threat to the future security of the waterway and will have to be taken into account in any future effort to reopen this critical waterway.

A spotter in Malaysia posted pictures of the USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara, which are said to have been taken today at the North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT) in the Port of Penang.

First of all…I have heard enough from my Australian friend about deployments to Butterworth…that those LCS bastards should be having superior liberty…I hope…though they may be welded to the pier given what is going on.

Sad.

Anyway, let’s go to the chart room.

That’s 3,000 nautical miles from Butterworth to the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, right outside Chabahar (we’ll return down-post to that port).

If you assume an 18-20 knots speed of advance, that is a bit more than six to a little under seven days’ steaming distance.

Not quite a quick reaction force, but let’s ponder this.

Regardless of how they are named, the Littoral Combat Ship is not all that great at conducting combat in the littorals. It can barely defend itself from minimal threats. Moving them out of the way was a good idea as we don’t have a large enough Navy to properly escort them along with higher-and-better use of our DDGs.

Why move the LCS to almost a week’s steaming away? I don’t know. Port availability? Proximity to maintenance support in Singapore? Looking for help on liberty from the next Fat Leonard? We’ll find out some day…but as the only mine warfare (MIW) capable asset (let’s put to the side concerns about how much MIW capability/capacity they actually have), something beats nothing…and a decision has been made to put something very far away and out of the way.

Let’s circle back to the NYT claim about the mining threat to the Strait of Hormuz. Is there one?

Of course, Iran has a history of laying mines, has a lot of mines stored, and on paper has a lot of ways to deliver them.

However, to get mines in the sea lanes, you have to move the mines from storage, put them on a ship, have the ship get underway, and then have it lay its mines.

When you consider the absolute dominance the U.S. and Israel have had over Iran the last week, and the curb-stomping of their navy and port facilities, is anything getting underway from mine capable ports?

If reports are correct about Super Hornets doing strafing runs over Chabahar, I don’t think there’s anything with mines getting underway. If there were, I don’t think the only MIW assets we have nearby would be a week away.

Also, no ships have hit mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

We’ve discussed MIW a lot here and at the OG Blog if you’re looking for more detail. Mines are not to be dismissed. They have damaged more U.S. warships since WWII than any other weapon systems…but temper that with what open source indications and warnings you can find.

At least this Monday AM, it looks like another exceptional detail of this conflict with Iran, we may have mostly—if not fully—kept the mining capability of Iran from getting to sea.

We had a mature plan to go after Iran when I was at CENTCOM a bit under two decades ago, and we have constantly updated various OPLAN COAs since then. As many smart people are pointing out, we kind of have things wired.

Just like the best place to destroy an aircraft is on the ground, the best place to sink a mine layer is pier side.

If we got inside the Iranian MIW OODA loop to the point to make them combat ineffective, then Bravo Zulu to the intel bubbas who made this happen.

We’ll see in the next few days, but again, no one has hit a mine yet.

Until then, from the 2008 Russian move, The Admiral, one of the best depictions of fighting in a minefield ever put on film.

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