(Washington, D.C.) A massive surface ship and submarine maritime attack in enemy waters near hostile territory needs to accomplish a number of dangerous operations, penetrate defended areas, identify enemy weapons and move quickly to succeed. Lives — hang in the balance of time.
Any such assault, the results of which might largely depend upon the speed of undersea and surface movement, could quite likely encounter highly-dangerous mine fields. These mines would be in place to explode approaching platforms, or deny any ability for attackers to conduct offensive operations in vital combat areas.
Enemy mine threats, increasingly becoming both more pervasive and complex, span a large sphere of operational areas to include both shallow-water littoral and deep, or
“blue water” attacks. Should an attacking force come under heavy fire, enemy mines would need to be found — and destroyed or neutralized — quickly. Some mines are buried beneath the ocean floor, simply tethered to the bottom or merely suspended in different parts of the water column.
The growing modern mine threat is so significant, that the Navy has been fast-tracking a wide range of new countermine attack and defense strategies. The approach is focused on both littoral mine fields as well as higher-tech deep water mines associated with threats posed by great powers as well, according to senior service leaders.
“We have significant gaps in our capability to defeat 100,000 Russian and Chinese mines which will not be laid in shallow water,” Maj. Gen. David Coffman, Director of Naval Expeditionary Warfare, told an audience in 2019 at the Surface Navy Association Symposium.
