Worries Surface On New Navy Mine Warfare Plan
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on October 31, 2017 at 4:00 AM
ANNAPOLIS: The Navy’s new plan to put mine-hunting gear on a wider range of warships could finally break mine warfare out of its ghetto — or it could keep mine-hunting the same redheaded stepchild but spread it across more decks.
The Navy has experimented with integrating Mine Counter-Measures (MCM) onto ships that weren’t minesweepers before, said naval analyst and mine warfare expert Scott Truver, and it didn’t stick. In particular, the Arleigh Burke-class USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) had a mine-hunting robot variously known as RMS or RMMV aboard, along with a crane to launch and recover it. That particular drone was eventually cancelled because it was prone to breakdowns, but aside from that, Truver told me, “people finally realized… that it was difficult, an almost silly proposition to tie up a DDG while the RMMV did its thing.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2017/10/distributed-mine-warfare-or-diluted-concerns-on-new-navy-plan/?_ga=2.7428465.217511175.1509364597-381149324.1509364597
