It is a dark little secret in the Pentagon that nobody wants to admit, let alone deal with right now.
The U.S. is woefully incapable of countering the sea mine threat from a Iran, which could virtually paralyze the flow of oil from the Strait of Hormuz for weeks if not months at a cost of trillions of dollars to the world economy and send gas prices through the roof.
The scary part is the U.S. also has no real way to counter the threat either now or in the future and Iran knows it!
The U.S. Navy is weak when it comes to sea mine warfare, says one U.S. Navy Admiral. See article: Sea Mines: An Explosive Problem http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2001/05/42929?currentPage=all
When asked specifically whether he was “comfortable” with the Navy’s mine-clearing capabilities, the Chief of Naval Operations said bluntly, “No.” But, Adm. Jonathan Greenert went on in remarks at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space symposium last month, “I feel much better than I did six months ago. We’ve moved about a billion dollars total” from various accounts to weaponry for shallow-water warfare in places like the (Persian) Gulf, and “a lot of that was in mine warfare,” Greenert said. “But we have more work to do,” he said. Adding “It’s not just the near term issue.”
“We’ve been doing mine counter mines since 1971 and we still can’t get that package ready for production,” lamented naval historian and analyst Norman Polmar.
For now, “14 minesweepers and two squadrons of helicopters are our nation’s entire mine countermeasures capability.”
In March 2012, Adm. Greenert made a very public point of mentioning the need for more mine-hunting helicopters and ships to the Persian Gulf, noting that the deployment would double the number of Avenger-class minesweepers operating out of Bahrain from four to eight.
What he left unsaid was that’s more than half the nation’s entire minesweeper force, leaving just two ships for training in the States and four in Japan to keep an eye on China’s estimated arsenal of 100,000 naval mines.
At the moment, moreover, the reinforcements for the Persian Gulf are still en route (not under their own power) but hauled aboard heavy-lift ships, since the small minesweepers aren’t well-suited to cross oceans on their own. The Navy continues to upgrade the 1980s-vintage minesweepers, recently improving their sonar for example. Overall, however, the Avengers are slow, vulnerable, and increasingly difficult to maintain.
Another obstacle to the high-tech approach is that the LCS’s MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopter is simply a lot smaller than the MH-53E Sea Dragon that makes up the US Navy’s existing airborne mine-hunting squadrons, which operate off big-deck amphibious warfare ships and carriers. Equipment optimized for the MH-53 needs to be resized for the MH-60, with inevitable losses in capability.
In a Sep. 11, 2008 report, the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy also said that in the two decades since the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, the Islamic Republic has excelled in naval capabilities and is able to wage unique asymmetric warfare against larger naval forces.
According to the report, Iran’s Navy has been transformed into a highly motivated, well-equipped, and well-financed force and is effectively in control of the world’s oil lifeline, the Strait of Hormuz.
The study says that if Washington takes military action against the Islamic Republic, the scale of Iran’s response would likely be proportional to the scale of the damage inflicted on Iranian assets.
The Islamic Republic’s top military officials have repeatedly warned that in case of an attack by either the US or Israel, the country would target 32 American bases in the Middle East and close the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
40 percent of the world’s oil supply passes through the Strait waterway.
A recent study by a fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Caitlin Talmadge, warned that Iran could use mines as well as missiles to block the strait, and that “it could take many weeks, even months, to restore the full flow of commerce, and more time still for the oil markets to be convinced that stability had returned”.
Background
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines.
Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel. Naval mines can be used offensively—to hamper enemy shipping movements or lock vessels into a harbour; or defensively—to protect friendly vessels and create “safe” zones.
Mines can be laid in many ways: by purpose-built minelayers, refitted ships, submarines, or aircraft —and even by dropping them into a harbour by hand. They can be inexpensive: some variants can cost as little as US $1000, though more sophisticated mines can cost millions of dollars, be equipped with several kinds of sensors, and deliver a warhead by rocket or torpedo.
Sea mines flexibility and cost-effectiveness make mines attractive to the less powerful belligerent in asymmetric warfare.
The cost of producing and laying a mine is usually anywhere from 0.5% to 10% of the cost of removing it, and it can take up to 200 times as long to clear a minefield as to lay it. Parts of some World War II naval minefields still exist because they are too extensive and expensive to clear. It is possible for some of these 1940s-era mines to remain dangerous for many years to come.
Mines have been employed as offensive or defensive weapons in rivers, lakes, estuaries, seas, and oceans, but they can also be used as tools of psychological warfare. Offensive mines are placed in enemy waters, outside harbors and across important shipping routes with the aim of sinking both merchant and military vessels.
Defensive minefields safeguard key stretches of coast from enemy ships and submarines, forcing them into more easily-defended areas, or keeping them away from sensitive ones.
Minefields designed for psychological effect are usually placed on trade routes and are used to stop or completely arrest shipping reaching an enemy nation…
“At this point the US just cant deal with that threat”, said one retired US Naval officer, who spoke on the condition of secrecy.
He also pointed out that Iran could lace the water with hundreds or thousands of smaller dummy mines in with the real mines, which are hard to distinguish and would take time, effort, money to also deal with. These dummy mines will really slow you down…You also have different types of sea mines, including limpet mines, moored contact mines, drifting mines, bottom contact mines, remotely detonated mines, not to mention something people are not much aware of underwater improvised explosives (UIED’S)…influence mines, daisy chain mines…†he said.
DEALING WITH SEA MINES THE HARD – WAY BLOWING THEM UP!
See rare French Sea mine detonation to give you an idea of how navies deal with the problem of navel mines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5aLDsfoaw
See also a real video of a scuba diver blowing up a sea mine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR9sWqyAlmE&feature=related
Iran will most likely close the strategic strait of Hormuz by implementing a asymmetrical naval warfare strategy the U.S. is ill prepared to deal with right now.
The fact is the U.S. is years behind in anti mine warfare capability, it would take a massive expenditure of cash and resources to correct that. Here is the real frightening part – Iran knows that and if attacked or bombed will most likely retaliate by deploying thousands of active and dummy sea mines in the Strait. “No one is prepared to deal with the consequence of thatâ€, said one analyst. See special report: Iranian Mining of the Strait of Hormuz Plausibility and Key Considerationshttp://www.inegma.com/reports/special%20report%204/Iranian%20Mining%20of%20the%20Strait%20of%20Hormuz.pdf
See also Youtube video :Saab Smart MCM – Naval Mine Counter Measures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QITH-EJw3GY