Unheeded lessons from the US warship nearly sunk by an Iranian mine
A strangely amnesiac effect seems to surround the threat of underwater weapons that wait.
Bradley Peniston | April 14, 2026
Commentary Navy Iran
Thirty-eight years ago today, an Iranian mine tore a hole in the hull of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a guided missile frigate that had been escorting reflagged Kuwaiti tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. The blast broke the frigate's keel, flooded its engineroom, and lit fires on several decks. Only its well-trained crew saved the Roberts from sinking.
The story has become a touchstone of Navy schoolhouses, where instructors exhort officers and enlisted sailors alike to take seriously the grueling business of damage control. But a strangely amnesiac effect seems to surround the threat of mines.
The attack on the Roberts came nearly a year after Iranian minelayers had first taken U.S. planners by surprise. In early 1987, Washington agreed to shepherd Kuwaiti tankers through the Persian Gulf, where Iran and Iraq were striking at each other's economic jugulars. Operation Earnest Will began with a four-ship convoy: three U.S. Navy warships surrounding the supertanker Bridgeton. Within hours, the giant ship hit a mine. The Bridgeton’s double hull enabled her to sail onward. But the thin-skinned warships followed in her wake, huddling behind the damaged tanker for safety.
"The assumption that the Iranians 'wouldn’t dare' was shattered,” an official Navy history recounts. “The incident also revealed that despite all the preparation for the convoy, the United States had virtually no mine-warfare assets in the Arabian Gulf. Further convoys were postponed during the scramble to deploy eight MH-53 Sea Stallion mine-warfare helicopters and eventually eight ocean-going minesweepers (MSOs) and six coastal minesweepers (MSCs)."
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2026/04/lessons-navy-warship-iran-mine/412852/?oref=d1-skybox-hp
