How long would it take to sweep the 2000sq.nm field HE described well – to get all of them – months would be the answer!

Try years mate, even long after WWII ended, in 1998 the RAN found a mine just off the coast on New South Wales it had drifted off its moarings and come dangerously close to civilian trafic in the area, HMAS Huon was on hand inside 24hrs to sweep the rest of the area, needless to say that not all mine fileds are clearly marked. And the employ of them in covert measures does not include use of GPS positioning to determin their position for friendly forces let alone enemy captured documents. Thus an area the size he is talking about might never be totally free at all!

Ideally the use of Mines would restrict the enemy into coming down a narrow passage where you would have better defences to handle seaward approaches, low cover over the mine field would be handled by Helo patrols and top cover would be your own fighters on a marpat mission. Add to the equasion the use of AWACS and even J-STARS or ASTOR or a simlar system and you have a total denial area favouring your forces over a numerically superior enemy.

It must also be said that there have been huge advances in Underwater mine warfare these days and UUCV’s are starting to be come a force multiplyer rather than a novelty, they are serious enough that the USN is now looking at designs incorperating UUCV’s with mother subs, I have seen a couple of the designs leaked to Popular Mechanics but this is still some way off (at least 50 years).