Service Experts Eye ‘Leap Ahead’ In Mine Warfare Capabilities

By OTTO KREISHER
Special Correspondent

After years of struggle against funding shortfalls and major technical challenges, mine warfare officials believe they are on a firm path to fielding the capabilities the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps need to overcome one of the major obstacles to expeditionary operations.

The Navy will conduct a trial of two of its long-sought capabilities against sea mines during the deployment of an expeditionary strike group next year, said Rear Adm. (select) William E. Landay, program executive officer for littoral and mine warfare at Naval Sea Systems Command.

On shore, the Marines are fielding an array of new mine-clearing equipment for their infantry units and combat engineers, said Alan Canfield, the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory liaison at Naval Coastal Systems Command, Panama City, Fla.

And the naval services are developing other “leap-ahead” systems to deal with sea and land mines, which could be operational in this decade, the officials said.

Landay credits Marine Maj. Gen. James R. Battaglini, director of expeditionary warfare, for taking the lead in crafting “a mine warfare vision and a road map that’s going to get us from where we are today … to where we want to go in the future.”

The capability they are seeking, Landay said, “is modular; it is unmanned; it is capable of being employed off multiple platforms;” and it will be effective against all of the mine threats “from deep water all the way through the beach.”

Although the Navy had been considered a reluctant warrior in the mine countermeasures (MCM) fight, history demonstrates the need for effective mine warfare programs, particularly when operating in the littoral.

Iraqi mines in the Persian Gulf damaged the cruiser Princeton and the assault amphibious ship Tripoli in 1991 and nearly sank the frigate Samuel B. Roberts in 1988. In total, 14 Navy ships have been damaged or sunk by mines since World War II.

Naval intelligence estimates that 50 countries have sea mines and Rear Adm. Mark Edwards, director of surface warfare, recently listed mines among the top anti-access threats to the Navy.

Although the Navy has improved its MCM capabilities in the last two decades, all of those assets are in the dedicated mine warfare force — ships, helicopters, divers and marine mammals “that really don’t do anything but mine warfare,” Landay noted.

The Navy now is moving on a path toward “the vision” of having an organic capability within the battle groups, he said.

The two “overriding goals” Battaglini has established are: “Always reduce the timeline — how long it takes to do the mine warfare mission — and get people out of the minefield,” Landay said. “In the organic systems, that’s very much what we are doing.”

Landay’s office is working on six major programs, plus some other concepts, to fulfill that organic vision. The top six are:

The Remote Minehunting System (RMS), an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), by Lockheed Martin, that will be deployed by surface ships to search for mines.

The AQS-20 advanced minehunting sonar, from Raytheon, which will operate from the RMS and MH-60S helicopters.

The Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS), a helicopter-deployed system, by Northrop Grumman, that promises a much faster means to find moored sea mines.

The Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS), a helicopter-towed weapon, by Raytheon, that locates and destroys moored mines.

The Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System (RAMICS), a sophisticated laser-aimed gun, from Northrop, to defeat mines on or near the surface.

The Organic Airborne and Surface Influence Sweep (OASIS), a towed device, by EDO Corp., that imitates a ship’s magnetic and acoustic signals to set off influence mines.

All of those systems “are designed to give us more capability, to be able to be employed from the battle group, from the dedicated assets,” without putting people in the minefield, Landay said.

Landay expects initial production decisions on RMS, AQS-20 and ALMDS in fiscal 2005, on OASIS and AMNS in 2006 and on RAMICS in 2007.

To support those developments, the Navy asked for $4 billion in the fiscal 2005 budget and Landay expects “that much or more” for 2006.

The Navy plans to conduct the “first organic mine systems deployment” with the Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group at the end of fiscal 2005, putting an RMS and two AQS-20s on the high-speed vessel Swift as a surrogate Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), he said.

The Navy intends to deploy most of its new MCM systems from the Sikorsky-built MH-60S helicopters and on the proposed LCS. While new helicopters are flowing into fleet squadrons, the planned 2008 introduction of the LCS fleet is in doubt.

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.”