Rotary Wing Aviation Can Lead the Way to Think Outside the Box to Defeat Deadly Sea Mines: A Perspective

By CAPT George Galdorisi, USN (Ret.)

The Navy rotary wing community has been in the business of providing a means of countering the threat of sea mines for many decades. I have a bit of a personal connection here. My brother-in-law was an “HM guy,” and participated in mine clearing operations in the Suez Canal in the 1970s. During my time in HSL-32 in the 1970s, the HM hangars at NAS Norfolk, Virginia were across the tarmac from our hangar, and I had the chance to gain an understanding of what the HM bubbas did to complete their mission.

Most readers of Rotor Review know that our community is undergoing a huge transition in how we conduct airborne mine-countermeasures, or AMCM. Our venerable MH-53E Sea Dragon AMCM aircraft (aptly nicknamed “Big Iron”) is scheduled to sunset this decade, and the MH-60S will become the Navy’s primary AMCM helicopter as it gets outfitted with the ALMDS near-surface mine detection system and the AMNS airborne mine neutralization systems. These assets are part of an overarching MCM Mission Package that will be carried by some number of Littoral Combat Ships.

If you read the last issue of Rotor Review, you likely caught thoughtful articles by Lieutenant Joshua Price and Lieutenant Rob “OG” Swain that offered good suggestions for the trajectory of our HSC Community, especially in the area of MCM. In spite of what the MCM Mission Package—including the MH60S equipped with the ALMDS and AMNS—will bring to the Fleet, the Navy still has a deficit in its MCM capabilities.

As Lieutenant Price put it in his article, “The demand for a rapidly-deployable MCM asset with over-the-horizon capability has never been higher.” He also noted that, “Private industry has promised over-the-horizon full detect-to-engage capabilities from unmanned surface and airborne platforms.” It seems to me that we would be well-served to lean into this kind of capability. But before we get too excited about laying yet another mission on the HSC Community (something Lieutenant Swain cautions against in his article) it is worth asking the question: Is the adversary mine challenge really something that demands a great deal of attention and resources?

The Naval Mine Challenge Today

A great deal of ink has been spilled regarding the threat of adversary sea mines, so I will just surf the wave tops in summarizing this challenge. First, it is important to recall that mine warfare is not new. Precursors to naval mines were first invented by innovators in Imperial China. The first plan for a sea mine in the West was drawn up by Ralph Rabbards, who presented his design to Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1574. Since the invention of the Bushnell Keg (a watertight keg filled with gunpowder that was floated toward the enemy, detonated by a sparking mechanism if it struck a ship) in 1776, mine warfare has been an important element of naval warfare. Indeed, while the first attempt to deliver the Bushnell Keg from America’s first combat submarine, the Turtle, against a British warship in 1776 failed, subsequent attempts to deliver these early mines were successful. Not only did they damage and sink a British schooner and kill several British seamen, but the threat caused British capital ships-of-the-line to redeploy to avoid the threat.

Over 150 years ago Admiral David Farragut became famous for "damning torpedoes" (mines) at the entrance to Mobile Bay during the Civil War. Indeed, in the early stages of the Civil War, Admiral Farragut wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, about the sea mine threat posed by the Confederacy, stating, “I have always deemed it unworthy of a chivalrous nation, but it does not do to give your enemy such a decided superiority over you.” Farragut’s warning was eerily prescient.

The use of mines and countermeasures to mines have figured significantly in every major armed conflict and nearly every regional conflict in which the United States has been involved since the Revolutionary War. Mine warfare is an essential warfare capability integral to the ability of naval forces to open and maintain sea lines of communication and to dominate the littoral battlespace.

Modern naval mines were widely used for the first time over a century ago, during the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905). These were contact mines, floating in shallow water and kept in place with an anchor and chain. When the tide was right they would be just below the surface, ready to explode whenever struck by a ship. Some 2,000 of these mines were used to destroy sixteen ships during the Russo-Japanese war. That is one ship lost for every 125 mines used.

In the past several decades, rogue states have indiscriminately employed sea mines. Libya used mines to disrupt commerce in the Gulf of Suez and the Strait of Bab el Mandeb. Iran laid mines to hazard military and commercial traffic in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. During Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991, the threat of mines precluded the effective use of the Navy and Marine Corps expeditionary task force off the shores of Kuwait and hazarded all U.S. and coalition forces operating in the Arabian Gulf. The threat posed by mines was so extensive, that clearance operations in this confined body of water were not completed until 1997. Indeed, Operation Desert Storm highlighted the importance of mine warfare with the near catastrophic damage to USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58), USS Princeton (CG 59) and USS Tripoli (LPH 10).

Fourteen U.S. Navy ships have been sunk or damaged by mines since World War II, over three times the number damaged by air and missile attack. Today, mine warfare remains a critical element of naval warfare capability. In terms of availability, variety, cost-effectiveness, ease of deployment and potential impact on naval expeditionary operations, mines are some of the most attractive weapons available to any adversary determined to prevent Joint or coalition forces from achieving access to sea lines of communications or the littorals.

Worldwide proliferation of mines compounds this challenge. The number of countries with mines, mining assets, mine manufacturing capabilities, as well as the intention to export mines, has grown dramatically over the past several decades. More than 50 countries possess mines and mining capability. Of these, 30 countries have demonstrated a mine production capability and 20 have attempted to export these weapons.

Even the threat of mines can stop any naval operation dead in its tracks. The use of sea mines adjacent to maritime choke points presents a threat that is at once ubiquitous and deadly. Mines represent one of the most vexing military challenges. Sea mines are hard to find, difficult to neutralize, and can present a deadly hazard to any vessel—even those ships specifically designed to hunt them. These “weapons that wait” provide an adversary with an effective means to thwart even a major naval power.

U.S. Navy Plans and Efforts to Defeat Sea Mines

For those with stewardship for the U.S. Navy’s mine warfare capabilities, the old saw about meteorological phenomena rings true; “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.” Over the past several decades, the U.S. Navy has articulated a commitment to deliver robust mine countermeasures assets to the fleet. This aspirational vision has yet to be realized. That might have been enough when the United States was a “uni-power” and had unfettered access to the oceans and the littorals. However, today the Navy must accelerate its efforts to field effective mine countermeasures in an era of renewed great power competition.

There is little doubt that adversary sea mines pose one of the most compelling challenges faced by the United States today. It falls squarely on the U.S. Navy to provide the MCM capability to enable the Joint Force to operate forward in support of United States’ interests, as well as those of our allies and friends.

Today’s Navy and Marine Corps leadership at least articulates a desire to address the mine countermeasures challenge. During an NDIA Expeditionary Warfare Conference, Vice Admiral John Miller, former commander of Naval Forces Central Command, noted that developing a mine countermeasures capability is critical as the Navy faces increased mining threats from adversaries worldwide. During this event, Major General David Coffman, Commanding General of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade noted, “The threat of mines is growing globally. It is an asymmetric advantage that our enemy is trying to leverage and directly affects our maneuverability and our assets.”

However, while senior leaders are saying the right things, the Navy and Marine Corps would be well-served to accelerate efforts find an effective solution. The U.S. Navy’s mine countermeasures capabilities are little-changed today, even after decades of aspirational intentions to enhance the Navy’s MCM posture.

The situation has become so dire that naval professionals are identifying the magnitude of the problem and calling for a near-term solution. Writing for the U.S. Naval Institute Blog, Lieutenant Commander Jon Paris, an officer who has served on cruisers, destroyers and minesweepers, put the challenge this way:

The U.S. Navy is focused on high-end warfare—engaging anti-ship cruise missiles, defeating hypersonic weapons, protecting the homeland and allies from ballistic missiles, and operating the air wing far from shore in a command-andcontrol degraded environment. We are focused on defeating those we sometimes still call “near-peer” competitors. Our fleet’s muscle will not make it to the high-end fight, though, if it fears the deceptively destructive naval mine.

Mines are inexpensive. They present a fiscally efficient option to foes with a substantial return on investment. They are easy to deploy and are difficult to combat. They are stealthy and disrupt the world’s sea lanes and are built to guarantee a mission kill. Just the threat of their use or the rumor of their presence has immediate tactical and strategic impact, whether it is merchants avoiding chokepoints or harbors, causing untold damage to the economy, or billion-dollar naval vessels held at arm’s length, allowing belligerents to buy time and achieve objectives.

In his first-prize essay in the 2020 U.S. Naval Institute Mine Warfare Essay Contest, Lieutenant Ridge H. Alkonis, a Surface Warfare Officer who served a tour at the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center in San Diego, said this about the need for the Surface Navy to leverage autonomous MCM systems.

Mine hunting, finding, and sweeping are not marginal operations. The assets performing these missions must undertake careful thought and preparation, as countering mines cannot be made easy, cheap, or convenient. With the current mine countermeasures (MCM) force limited in personnel, material, and money, the Navy needs a new concept of operations that relies more on automated unmanned systems.

While there are many more professional articles that express this same sentiment—and in a powerful way—I think that Rotor Review readers get the point. Mines are—and will remain—a deadly threat to the U.S. Navy. Given this growing mine threat—especially by adversaries who seek to impede the U.S. Navy’s ability to access littoral seas—the imminent sundowning of the Navy’s current surface and airborne MCM assets, and the many-moving-parts of the LCS MCM Mission Package, it may be time to think out of the box to find, as Lieutenant Price suggests in his article, “An over-the-horizon full detect-to-engage capabilities from unmanned surface and airborne platforms.”

How far out of the box? A lot! The key here, I believe, is to keep the MH-60S as the centerpiece of this capability and have it work with an unmanned surface vehicle that can, day or night, perform the single-sortie detect-to-engage MCM mission. Far from being a hypothetical or far-in-the-future capability that must work its way through an always fraught acquisition system, this capability exists today in commercialoff-the-shelf (COTS) technology that was demonstrated during the U.S. Navy Trident Warrior 2020 exercise.

Marrying Air, Surface and Unmanned Capabilities

First, in order to ease into embracing this solution, it is worth remembering that the rotary wing community has a long history of working with surface assets—witness the LAMPS Mk 1, LAMPS Mk III, and now the MH-60R and MH-60S communities. Now we should look at the same lashup, but this time with an unmanned surface vehicle.

While there are several USVs that can provide the “truck” or basis for a single-sortie detect-to-engage MCM capability, I want to focus on the MARTAC T38 “Devil Ray” for a number of reasons. First, it is a COTS platform that I have seen perform in numerous Navy and Marine Corps exercises, experiments and demonstrations, most recently in Commander Third Fleet’s Integrated Battle Problem 2021. Second, the Devil Ray was demonstrated as part of an integrated MCM solution during Trident Warrior 2020. Third, the Devil Ray approximates the size of an eleven meter RHIB, and with modifications to the cradle supporting the RHIB on today’s Navy ships, the T38 can be and can be carried on most U.S. Navy ships in place of the RHIB.

While there are any number of COTS components that the Devil Ray can carry to perform the mine-hunting and mineneutralization mission, the systems used in Trident Warrior 2020 were a Kraken Robotics Katfish-180 Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) optimized to search for mine-like objects (MLOs), an Idrobotica Pluto Gigas Mine Neutralization System (MNS) Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), and an Idrobotica Pilota Control Console and Watch-Stander Station. These components—working together as an integrated COTS solution—successfully detected and neutralized a number of simulated mines during Trident Warrior 2020. For Rotor Review readers interested in a detailed summary of how this COTS solution performed during this exercise, you can read more in Naval News, “Dealing with the Threat of Adversary Sea Mines,” at this link: https://www.navalnews.com/navalnews/2020/11/dealing-with-the-threat-of-adversary-seamines/.

MARTAC T38 “Devil Ray

Moving Forward With a Near-

Term, Rotary Wing-Led MCM Solution

The reason that I headlined this article with the words “out of the box” is because during the course of the over half-century of U.S. Navy MCM, we have always thought in terms of systems attached in some way to the helicopter. Now I am suggesting freeing the helicopter of devices such as the ALMDS and AMNS and having it simply be the delivery vehicle and “coach” for an integrated, all weather, single-sortie detect-to-engage MCM solution.

While I have some level of confidence that the LCS MCM Mission Package—including the MH-60S equipped with ALMDS and AMNS—will eventually evolve and provide the U.S. Navy with a good MCM capability, the Navy is only buying a discrete number of Littoral Combat Ships and only some of them will be outfitted with the MCM Mission Package. That leaves the rest of the Fleet with no organic MCM capability.

From this former helicopter aviator, amphibious assault group and carrier strike group sailor’s perspective, this leaves the remainder of the Fleet dangerously exposed to deadly sea mines. The MH-60S (and MH-60R for that matter) are ubiquitous in our Fleet. Putting a USV like Devil Ray equipped as described above on a large number of U.S. Navy ships will provide the Navy with an urgently needed singlesortie detect-to-engage MCM capability—and one that has the MH-60 platform at its core.

The U.S. Navy has an ambitious series of exercises, experiments and demonstrations planned over the next several years. It is long past time to think outside the box and kluge together the reliable and versatile MH-60S with a COTS USV like Devil Ray outfitted with COTS MCM components and show how this solution can address a pressing Fleet challenge.

How would this MCM mission be conducted? The short answer is: In multiple ways. If the ship believes that a mine threat is close, it would launch the Devil Ray, equipped with the components listed above (or more advanced systems as newer technologies evolve), ahead of the ship to hunt for and neutralize mines while the MH-60S monitors its progress from above. If there is a threat of mines in an area where the strike group or individual ship intends sail to for an operation, the Devil Ray can be launched to that AOR to perform the same mission.

Putting this in concrete terms, if the AOR is 250 miles distant, the Devil Ray can proceed there at 80 knots and then remain on station for up to ten days, at which time it can return to the parent ship. As in the scenario above, the MH-60S can constantly—or just periodically—monitor its progress. If the area where the threat of mines exists is quite large, a number of Devil Rays can operate as a miniswarm with set search patterns. All this can be monitored and controlled by one MH-60S—executing advanced manned/ unmanned teaming concepts—while serving as a key node in a naval network supporting tactical and operational commanders.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Casey Trietsch receives a tour and demonstration from Bruce Hanson aboard the MANTAS T38 Devil Ray unmanned surface vehicle

U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Mike Jones.

MANTAS Devil Ray T24 USV