Maritime Warfare in a Mature Precision-Strike Regime
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Navy appears to have made little progress in addressing this challenge. Although China, Italy, and Russia sell such advanced mines on the open market, and there are concerns that buyers may have further modified these mines to enhance their effectiveness, the U.S. Navy has traditionally viewed countermine operations as “an inconvenience, or in many cases ignored [them] during fleet exercises and routine deployments.”118 The lessons to be derived from mine warfare are less about U.S. losses in the First Gulf War than about the progression of mine technology over the course of the last century or so, and the successful use of mines in littoral waters to impose substantial costs on surface warships. Modern mines are far more sophisticated than those that inflicted damage on the world’s most advanced navy in 1991.119 Over time it seems increasingly likely that the distinction between mines and UUVs will blur, making mines even more formidable. At the same time, the cost of the most advanced “smart” mines is only a small fraction of that for a modern warship. This suggests that mines will become an increasingly important part of a maritime competitor’s A2/AD force, particularly if they can be emplaced in deep waters or move either continuously or periodically. Either approach would severely complicate minesweeping operations.
The Changing Maritime Geography: Undersea Economic Infrastructure The Admiralty should never engage itself to lock up a single vessel even—not even a torpedo boat or submarine—anywhere on any consideration whatever. The whole principle of sea fighting is to be free to go anywhere with every d—d thing the Navy possesses. The Admiralty should…reserve entire freedom of action.
Admiral John “Jackie” Fisher, First Sea Lord, Royal Navy120
Shortly after the end of World War II, a growing number of countries, led by the United States, began developing offshore energy fields along their continental shelves and in other areas where shallow waters permitted such construction. The ever-growing demand for energy fueled the undersea economic infrastructure’s continued expansion 118
James D. Bahr, Damn! The Torpedoes: Coping with Mine Warfare in the Joint Maritime Environment (unpublished paper: May 10, 2007), pp. 2, 7. On an encouraging note, the U.S. Navy’s attitude may be changing. In recent years, the fleet has conducted two international mine warfare exercises and is investing in upgrades to its mine countermeasure capabilities as well as in new unmanned mine warfare systems. The Navy’s new class of Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) has been designed with mine countermeasure operations as one of their principal missions.
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Contact mines were among the most widely used mines in the two world wars. As the name indicates, they detonated when they came in contact with a ship’s hull. Magnetic mines were developed by both Germany and Great Britain during World War I, with improvements made between the two world wars. As their name suggests, these mines detonated when a passing ship’s magnetic force repelled a magnet in the mine, detonating it. During World War II, both acoustic and pressure mines were employed as well. The former relied on detecting a passing ship’s propeller noise to trigger a detonation, while the latter detonated based on the change in water pressure from a ship passing above.
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Till, Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century, p. 351.
Modern mines are far more sophisticated than those that inflicted damage on the world’s most advanced navy in 1991.