The Pentagon Is Bringing Back Air-Dropped Sea Mines
By Kyle Mizokami
May 10, 2017
The Pentagon has developed two kinds of inexpensive sea mines that could quickly lay down a minefield in the enemy's backyard. The new Skipjack and Flounder mines are aerial bombs modified to quietly wait undersea and destroy passing enemy ships.
Using aircraft to lay mines goes back to World War II, as Col. Mike "Starbaby" Pietrucha writes in The Diplomat. A retired Air Force fighter crewman, Pietrucha explains that the technique is difficult to pull off. For one thing, minefields must be laid in patterns to ensure adequate coverage of a target, such as the mouth of a harbor or strait. This was a problem when the U.S. Army Air Force tried to mine from high altitude during WWII—the accuracy was poor. In Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War, mining from low altitude could be effective but was hazardous to aircrews.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a26463/quickstrike-sea-mines-slipjack-flounder/
