The United States of America is the country that has achieved the greatest success in mine warfare in the past. No German successes in the Baltic or the British anywhere can compare with the American operation "Starvation" ("Starvation", translated as "Famine"), during which the coastal waters vital for the survival of Japan were mined. During the Cold War, it was the Americans who were noted for massive mine laying during the Vietnam War, and they first encountered modern mines in the Persian Gulf. They were the first to use guerrilla (actually terrorist) mine warfare at sea against Nicaragua. Americans have the most maritime clearance experience in modern history.
Currently, it is the United States that has not only the most complete concept of mine warfare, but also the forces and means necessary for it, as well as trained personnel who are continuously improving their skills in conducting mine warfare in exercises.
At first glance, the decisions of the United States are compromise, as they make aircraft mines, structurally similar to aerial bombs, which is not entirely optimal. But on the other hand, this gives them the opportunity to massively produce both real combat mines and practical ones for exercises, and use them intensively. Also, such a unification reduces the cost of the military.
Or such an example as the CAPTOR mine torpedo. It only attacks underwater targets. At first glance, this is a strange decision, because enemy submarines will be able to "slip" over obstacles on the surface. In fact, the Americans killed a crowd of birds with one stone. They solved the problem of the destruction of neutral ships and ships, civilian ships, reduced to zero the risk of politically unacceptable collateral losses, moreover, without inventing technically complex target selection systems.
Yes, they let the surface ships go, so what? Their carrier-based aircraft is quite capable of preventing any ships from walking on the surface of the water, and mines can work under the surface. This is all the more important because the fleet of their main enemy - our Navy - is mostly underwater.
Covert mining from submarines is not a problem for them either.
Likewise, Americans look good when clearing mines. At first glance, their approaches are more similar to those that were considered advanced in the 80s and 90s of this century, and there are only eleven minesweepers, but not everything is so simple.
Nowadays, as mentioned earlier, the "top" method of dealing with mines is the combination "Mine finder + disposable mine destroyer". This approach is due to the fact that now some of the mines are tuned to specific ranges of physical fields, when the mine will be triggered (and the physical fields created by unmanned underwater vehicles - UUVs - are usually not included in this range), and the other part is used as "defenders" and works on literally everything.
In the eighties, to neutralize a mine, it was enough to use STIUM - a self-propelled remote-controlled mine seeker-destroyer, a small uninhabited underwater vehicle capable of finding a mine using a hydroacoustic search, and installing a small explosive charge on it, which then, after STIUM retreated to a safe distance, undermined and destroyed a mine.
Mine defenders put an end to this practice. Now, when STIUM tried to neutralize a defender mine, it was simply blown up. STIUM is an expensive device, much more expensive than a modern destroyer. This fact caused the birth of modern tactics and technology, with all its disadvantages in the form of the duration of work to destroy mines and the huge cost of consumable destroyers.
However, the defenders have a weak point - since they react to a very wide range of external disturbances, they, in theory, could be wiped out with the same acoustic trawls - if the trawls could move on their own, without minesweepers. With this approach, the defender mines would find themselves in the position of victims - they would be destroyed by trawling, and then, the “main” mines, unable to react to the STIUM approach, would be easily destroyed by these devices.
Expensive disposable exterminators would not be needed.
And here the Americans have a trump card - thirty MH-53E anti-mine helicopters, which not only carry a special anti-mine GAS, but also tow a trawl in flight. The trawl that pulls the helicopter may well wipe out the defenders without risking inevitable death of the trawler. Because it is towed by a flying helicopter, not a minesweeper.
The Americans have had these machines in service for a long time, they used similar helicopters even when trawling the Suez, basing them on universal amphibious assault ships, and so far these machines have fully justified themselves.
And when the helicopters wiped out the defenders, their NPA - STIUMs - came into play. But, unlike other countries, they are based not only on minesweepers, and not so much on them.
Currently, in the United States, in the presence of, albeit not entirely modern, but quite adequate to the tasks of eleven minesweepers of the Avenger class, a program has been implemented to deploy expeditionary mine action units. These units, armed with both boats with sonar equipment, NPA-seekers, STIUM, and disposable destroyers, can be based on almost any ship, as well as on the shore. And if in general eleven US minesweepers are not impressive in number, then in general, the number of mine action units in the Navy is very large, and the presence of helicopters with trawls that quickly "pop out" dangerous mines - defenders, then gives these units the opportunity to operate freely. They can be deployed on landing ships, and on floating expeditionary bases, and in ports where mine clearance is required, on Coast Guard ships, and simply on warships.
One of the tasks of the LCS program was the fight against mines. As part of the creation of an anti-mine "module" for these ships, work was launched on the RMMV project - Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle. This underwater drone, according to the creators of Lockheed Martin, was supposed to be a key anti-mine weapon for the LCS, although they began to design it for the destroyers of the Spruance class.
The project, however, failed, but other important subsystems "turned out" - the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS), that is, the air laser mine detection system, and the Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS), in translation - the air mine neutralization system. Both are installed on MH-60S helicopters.
One of them, created by Northrop Grumman, is a laser emitter, the illumination of which allows a special optical system to detect mines at a shallow depth through the water column.
The second, from Raytheon, is a pair of helicopter-controlled, disposable destroyers dropped into the water from a helicopter.
The Americans have already used the laser system in Bahrain, during the Shiite riots in this country, in order to exclude the setting by the Shiites or Iranians of mines of various types. At shallow depths, this system is fully justified.
At the moment, the American military-industrial complex has many other projects related to mine clearance. For example, the UAV "Knifefish" is a mine finder, capable of not only finding mines, but also recognizing and classifying them. It is assumed that this system will replace the dolphins, which the Americans previously used massively to find mines (and very successfully).
The teams of specially trained divers, trained to neutralize "simple" mines, for example, outdated anchor mines with contact fuses, have not disappeared anywhere either. These divers are also used during special operations. So, for example, in the 60s, the Americans managed to steal the latest mine-torpedo during the exercises of the USSR Navy.
The final touch to the American approach is the placement of a full-fledged compartment with anti-mine equipment directly on the battle ships. For example, the URO destroyer Bainbridge is equipped with a closed compartment for an UFO, a crane for launching it, and all the equipment necessary for the destroyer to be able to independently fight mines anywhere in the world. This is not a substitute for a minesweeper or a specially trained anti-mine team, but the destroyer turns out to be quite capable of ensuring its own passage through the mines. While the project of equipping destroyers with anti-mine equipment is somewhat stalled - RMMV is no longer relevant, and, apparently, the Americans will take a short pause to revise the concept. But in the near future the project will surely have a "restart".
In general, the Americans have the necessary equipment, knowledge and experience in order to ensure not just the clearance of harbors, but the very quickest clearance, when, for example, minefields prevent ships from being hit, and counting goes on for hours. They already have everything for such actions on a small scale.
On a large scale, when the enemy has planted hundreds of mines during, for example, a raid by a group of submarines or an air strike, and in several bases at the same time, the Americans will not be able to act quickly. However, their difference from all others is that in order to gain such an opportunity, they do not need to invent or create anything from scratch - they just need to increase the strength of their forces, which, in general, is not difficult, and can be done in advance.
Let's list the current American "components of success" in mine warfare.
1. Experience and training.
2. Availability of a means of high-speed demining, in fact, "breaking through" minefields - trawls towed by helicopters. These trawls make it possible to eliminate defender mines and reduce the entire task of demining to a quiet search for mines by unmanned underwater vehicles - UUVs, with their subsequent destruction.
3. The presence of anti-mine subunits, which have available various ULA for the search and destruction of mines, which can be based with their boats on any ship and in any port, attached to amphibious forces, etc. They can be airlifted as they use small boats instead of minesweepers.
4. Availability of a system for rapid detection of mines - hydroacoustic stations on helicopters and boats, laser systems on helicopters.
5. Placing permanent anti-mine subunits, equipment and equipment for fighting mines directly on warships.
6. The presence of eleven quite effective minesweepers. This number looks ridiculous for a country like the United States, if you do not know that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
And, of course, in the United States, work continues on new UUVs, unmanned boats, destroyers, new methods of communication with underwater vehicles are being worked out, their integration into tactical control networks.
Other work is also underway - for example, studying the possibility of using supercavitating artillery shells against underwater objects. Such ammunition allows them to fire their guns at torpedoes, and yes, at mines. And together with helicopter systems for detecting these mines, both laser and hydroacoustic, such a solution in the future may make it possible to simply shoot a minefield without further ado.
Work on an anti-mine "module" for LCS ships has not gone anywhere. Although so far the Americans have nothing to brag about, but this is for now.
Traditional means of mine clearance, the same explosive charges and cords are still in service.
In general, it is worth recognizing that although the development of the US mine action forces currently smacks of a certain haphazard nature, but these forces in general are, they can perform tasks as intended, they are numerous, they are well prepared, and, most importantly, no matter how chaotic their development was not, but it goes.
And this is the only such example in the world today.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the fact of the resistance of American ships to explosions. As you know, every new US Navy ship is tested for its durability to detonation - in other words, a powerful explosive charge is blown up next to the ship. The internet is full of photos from such tests.
This is a consequence of the fact that the command of the US Navy attaches great importance to the survivability of warships.
In 1988, the Oliver Perry-class Samuel B. Roberts frigate was blown up by an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf. The explosion of a mine pierced the hull (the maximum size of the hole was 4, 6 meters), tore off the turbine from the mountings, and cut off the power to the ship. The keel was broken. The engine room was flooded. However, after five minutes, the crew, in the course of damage control measures, managed to restore the ship's power supply, launch the radar and weapons, and return the ship to limited combat capability. The flooding of the interior was stopped. After that, the frigate, on its own, on retractable propeller-driven propellers, left the minefield area at a speed of 5 knots.
In 1991, the Ticonderoga-class cruiser Princeton was blown up by two Iraqi Manta bottom mines. The ship lost speed and received extensive damage, but retained its buoyancy and was later repaired. Then the landing helicopter carrier "Tripoli" was blown up by a mine. The ship retained its speed and combat effectiveness, but lost the ability to use aircraft due to the leakage of aviation fuel. These facts indicate that the mine resistance of American ships is quite high.
And all this is also a plus in a mine war.
But, as it was said, no one fully takes into account the lessons of the Second World War and what follows from them. And the United States has serious vulnerabilities in the minefield. So, veterans of the mine action forces note that there is no single approach to either mine action tactics or their doctrines, there is no single center responsible for mine warfare, Navy officers focused on conducting mine action have career problems, and in general, it is necessary would have more anti-mine forces.
Despite the fact that the United States has a much better mine action situation than the overwhelming majority of other countries, this criticism is partly justified, and this gives some chances to the opponents of the United States, both state and irregular.
