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).

Like Kobra: I live in Australia, but unlike him I live on the east coast. I live near the Naval Air Station HMAS Albatross (Or “Birdy” as we call it in the Navy). It’s not unusula for me to see a lot of traffic heading North South or south west to Canberra as I live right along that flight path.

What I see regularly are:

Seaking Mk50’s
Seahawk S-70B-9
Super Seasprite (SH-2GA’s)

What I see on occassion is

Herks (not only Aussie ones)
Hornets (Kob- mate we don’t have the Super Hornets here), these fly in pair down to RAAF Fairbain to offer protection in Canberra and rotate back home up the coast every week.
F-111’s fly down here a bit as well using the bombing range in Nowra.
CH-47D’s, a pair few around here not long ago in support of Comando training in the Shoalhaven Area
RNZAF A-4’s, they used to be based here but since they killed them off we don’t get them now, it’s a pitty, they were really liked by the community.

What I have seen once, here and there

E-4B (GWB comes over)
NH-90 NFH- flying in company with a Seaking Mk50
F-14D
F/A-18C
C-5

My sister lives near RAAF Richmond and when I go to see her I am always treated to a nice little display, though I do miss the C-141’s coming in.

Finally My father lives near RAAF Williamtown (AKA Fighter Town Australia), Hornets and Hawks buzz his place often and I am dying to get up that way again especially since the Wedgetail has come home 😉

Ok I admit that I don’t know as much about planes as I do about naval assets, but I do know somethings. The F-111 is a low flier and hits the deck going fast, The Tornado can do this but can’t carry the same amount of ordinance as the Pig, it’s loads are more incommon with those other planes I mentioned (that is why I compared them). The Fencer I agree I made a mistake there (silly me sitting up all night working and not thinking). It is more of a Hi-lo-hi strike plane and I don’t think it’s TFR is as good nor the pilots trained to fly as lo as those in the Pig, I mean how often do you see any F-111’s up at altitude, this is why I seperate the Pig and the Fencer!

Hey guys don’t forget that the RNZAF is still flying around in Bell 47’s, now that has to account for something!

I never really got to finish what I wanted to say before but that’s ok, I can continue after I answer some of the questions here!

what I meant was which part of world’s oceans are most suitable for mining I know a few like baltic, persian gulf etc
but can more important shipping lanes be closed like straits of malacca?

Certainly yes, a lot of the worlds shipping lanes go through the Malaca straights, even holding Singapore at ransom with Mines is a dangerous thought. And if you have subs capable of deploying mines then some of the worlds harbours come to mind. Imagin a terrorist navy mining the lanes to Faslane? The UK would be hold up to no end, though IMHO the RN has some of the best anti-mine technology in the world (even better than the Americans). Other important shipping places that could be mined would be both the canals (Suez and Panama), The Yellow sea preventing surface vessels getting in there because it is already too shallow for subs. the Sea between the Kamchutkas and the mainland, even Thailand could come under threat!

do you think waters around the kurils would have seen extensive mining?

No not really, The Japanese know that the islands are theirs, and the Russians know it too, but since these were taken as a war prize in the Russo-Jap war of 1905 I seriously doubt that any move by Japan will be taken to reclaim them, the Japanese have far more important things to worry about (e.g. North Korea and China).

Norway has a quite good MCM fleet.

They do indeed and with a lot of home grown tech it has done itself credit.

Slightly off topic,but are those torpedo launchers that are marooned at the bottom of lets say sea and waiting for the submarine or ship to pass ,in service with any Navy in the world? Its not quite the mine talk,but if you think about it,it can be described as an “active” mine that actually attacks its target,rather than stay dormant.

I know what you are talking about mate and let me assure you that there are nothing like those around in this world (thankfully). Underwater torpedo launchers that are acting as mines, deadly stuff but what you have to realise is that having a torpedo in place in such a system is only effective for x amount of time, after that the explosives onboard start to decay and the system then becomes unstable. Having a system like this would require a lot of maintainence with current technologies and systems, the fuel needs tending and the explosives need regular checks. If you keep sending people to maintain these things, then other people are going to notice it and know what’s down there!

I wonder how these types of weapons would be dealth with?

Simple mate, they carry torpedos so treat them as subs. Fire off noise makers and destroy the fish then take out the launch platform.

what is the naval response to these mine technologies, tactics and lessons from history?

well those navies that are serious about a mine threat try to stay on the cutting edge of the technologies involved here. Tactics are deveolped over time and only those navies who have really needed it have anything decent in place. Lessons, well the best lessons come from having been in a war using mines, as I said before Australia has alsways beein in sucha a position even during WWI so our lessons have been handed down from our great great grandfathers!

Ever less dedicated mine countermeasures vessels are in existence, and as far as I recall few if any new projects are in existence that will deliver new ones. The trend seems to be for other ships that can also do MCM with the use of autonomous undersea vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for detection and expendable mine destructor mini-ROVs.

Australia has had ROV’s in use for a long time now, our old Bay class had the cutting edge ROV’s from France back when they entered service. We had a bit of trouble with them but sorted it our really quick, I think with the new Huons we have a different system but still ROV’s are a majore part of the MCM vessel’s ops.

In addition to this we have the Airborne Mine Countermeasures (AMCM) concept, which is being developed further in the US for use in the LCS MCM mission suite. Seeing as this involves the use of a special MH-60S variant equipped with towed bodies, and my favourite, a cabin door mounted laser and 30mm gun firing supercavitating ammunition to detect and disable mines in the surf zone, this brings us back to naval aviation.

How do these compare to the MH-53’s? I think the Japanese EH-101’s would be more of a comparrison don’t you?

Of all the worlds MCM forces, I feel (and this comes after having seen these forces in action), that the RN has the best, followed by the RAN, then the Italian’s and the South African’s, floating around would be the best way to describe the USN’s MCM vessels, though their airbourne assets are very capable and actually pick up the slack.