The Dutch-Belgian mine countermeasures (MCM) mothership project offers a glimpse at one vision of future mine countermeasures.  MCM motherships have been frequently discussed and proposed for US Navy mine clearance efforts.  In fact, the original purpose of the Afloat Forward Staging Base was supposed to have been to act as an MCM mothership.  However, that usage appears to have fallen by the wayside as the ship searches for a new mission (see, “AFSB – Looking For Something To Do”).  Regardless, let’s take a look at the Dutch-Belgian MCM mothership project and see if there are any lessons from the project that are applicable to US Navy MCM needs.

In no particular order, here are some observations, good and bad, collected from a YouTube promotional video[1] narrated by the program manager:

Ship Size – The mothership is 82 m long (269 ft) with a displacement of 2800 tons.  Maximum speed is 15 kts and range is 3500 nm (speed basis unknown).  Base crew is 33 with a capacity of 63.  Contrast this with the Freedom class LCS MCM which is 378 ft long with a displacement of 3500 tons and a maximum speed of 40 kts.  Clearly, in the quest for multi-mission modularity, the LCS was grossly overbuilt for the MCM role.  Overbuilt means wasted money and resources.

Dutch-Belgian MCM Mothership

 Buzzwords and Graphics – The mothership project managers refer to the MCM equipment as the ‘toolbox’ which is, presumably, a marketing buzzword suggesting modularity.  This kind of buzzword fascination serves no beneficial purpose and contributes to a feeling of undeserved superiority and arrogance.  In other words, when exposed to buzzwords on a daily basis, people begin to believe the hype and fail to ruthlessly examine the concepts and execution, believing that the system is inherently superior.  We’ve seen this with the LCS, Zumwalt, Ford, F-35, etc.  …  all abject failures due, in large measure to a failure to ruthlessly examine and critique the projects at early stages.  The projects were protected by their buzzwords.  No one wanted to be seen contradicting or criticizing the magnificent buzzwords.

Similarly, today’s digital public relations graphics are hugely detrimental to programs.  Again, they convey an awe-inspiring sense of superiority and accomplishment that blinds program personnel to the flaws in the product.  It may not seem like it but glitzy graphics are one of the causes of project failure.

Hosting – The mothership can host two UAVs, two RHIBs, and two unmanned surface vessels (USV).  While that technically meets the definition of a mothership, in that it plays host to a smaller craft, it is a very small complement for a mothership.  I would have preferred to see a mothership capable of hosting a dozen USVs and a dozen UAVs (although I’m dubious about the value of small UAVs for MCM work).  That would make the mothership a significant MCM asset. 

Hosting merely two USVs and two UAVs of dubious utility is a very minimal capability. The two RHIBs are, presumably, for personnel movements and, perhaps, diver platforms for addressing single mines which serve no useful purpose in combat mine clearance operations.  That leaves just two USVs which are far too few to be effective in combat mine clearance.

Launching – One decidedly positive feature is the presence of two separate davit based USV launch mechanisms, port and starboard.  This provides redundancy and speed of operations as opposed to a single launch point.  One of the major failings of the LCS MCM variant was the installation of only a single UUV/USV launch point which has become a logistic and efficiency choke point with individual launches and recoveries requiring one to two hours per evolution.

Communications – The program manager emphasized that the mothership needed extensive communications with the various unmanned vehicles.  The concept of operations calls for a stand off distance of 12 nm from the minefield and the UAVs are intended to act as communication relays as well as providing surface mine visual detection.  The downside of all the communications is that it provides the enemy with a positive location.  Extensive, continuous communications will be detected regardless of any claims of line-of-sight or low probability of intercept.

Sonar – The mothership has a mine and obstacle avoidance sonar in recognition of the reality of operating near a minefield and never being 100% sure that you’ve avoided all mine threats.  This is lacking in the LCS MCM, I believe.

Shock Testing – The mothership was tested for resistance to nearby explosive shocks although no details were provided as to test conditions.  As you recall, the LCS failed its shock testing quite badly with the explosive loads having to be reduced and the final tests cancelled due to anticipated damage.  Being shock resistant is just a common sense requirement for a MCM vessel.

Mine Hunting – The mine hunting concept involves at least two to three passes.  The individual steps are:  detection, identification, and destruction.  This is a very time consuming process and is, essentially, a one-at-a-time process as opposed to sweeping.  The process is suitable for small area clearance with no time constraints but would be unsuited for combat clearance of large areas in short time frames.

Additional information is available in a Naval News article [2]

Conclusion

So, what does all this offer the US Navy in the way of lessons?

There are aspects to like about the Dutch-Belgian MCM mothership such as multiple launch mechanisms, mine detecting sonar, limited size, limited speed, and single function.

There are also aspects that are detrimental such as the very limited vessel capacity, the inclusion of UAVs that serve no real MCM purpose, the limited number of launch/recovery stations, and the need for incessant communications.

Considering the benefits and detriments, it is possible to design a conceptual MCM mothership for the US Navy.  An MCM mothership should have the following characteristics:

• Host at least a dozen USVs capable of conducting sweep operations as opposed to one-at-a-time hunting.
• Speed should be limited to around 15 kts which is sufficient for the task and avoids over-building and unnecessary costs.
• Physical dimensions should be minimized to the extent possible.
• No aviation capabilities beyond Scan Eagle type UAVs and even that should be justified by a CONOPS that can actually benefit from them.
• Very long endurance and range.

With the demise of most/all of the Freedom class LCS, the Navy is  woefully short of MCM assets and the LCS is not even a capable, effective MCM asset if it was available in numbers.  We desperately need a new MCM ship and a mothership, as described, would be a good start.

As a reminder, the Allies used over 250 minesweepers for the Normandy assault.

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[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCrfvHAKJwg

[2]Naval News website, “This Is What The Future Belgian & Dutch MCM Motherships Will Look Like”, Xavier Vavasseur, 27-May-2019,

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2019/05/this-is-what-the-future-belgian-dutch-mcm-motherships-will-look-like/

The LCS mine clearance capability was a very marginal capability from day one, even if it had worked perfectly.  The fundamental, inherent, problem was – and still is – that the MCM module simply could not clear mines efficiently or quickly and in combat mine clearance, speed is everything.  An amphibious assault that has to stand offshore for days or weeks while mines are slowly cleared is a disaster.  A carrier group that is forced to drift in one spot for days while a navigational chokepoint is cleared of mines is a disaster.

As an example, the WWII Normandy D-Day landing accomplished its mine clearance ‘in stride’ as the invasion fleet crossed the channel.  There was no delay and there was no pre-sweeping to give away the element of surprise.  The mine clearance was an ‘instantaneous’ event that occurred as the assault began.

So, what do we know about LCS mine clearance?

From LT Roxanne Sumanga (MCM Naval Mine Warfare school) commenting at the Surface Navy Association (SNA 2021) Virtual Symposium held in mid-January 2021,

“The time piece is a little bit more tricky.  So generally as MCM Officers, we’re always working against time.  So regardless of platform, regardless of systems, we can always finish faster. The question is how much risk are you willing to inter?  [Example] So we can take a channel [and] clear it in 10 days, [and do it] by 7 [days].  Are you willing to sail through a channel with 40% risk?  So the time piece is relative.

Compare the LCS to the MCM Avengers. If the Avenger acquires a mine via sonar, it can do a run to detonate the mine.  With an LCS using unmanned systems, the LCS sends out the drone, gathers the data, analyzes it, and if questionable, sends out the drone again, do a different pattern to gather more data and then analyzes it again, and then send out a system to neutralize the mine.  So, for an Avenger that can detect and destroy a mine in four hours, it might take the LCS an entire day and that is because the LCS cannot do a single sortie to detect and engage and relies on unmanned systems.” (1)

Let’s repeat … Combat clearance is all about speed.

Speed can be achieved via individual speed from a single platform, cumulative speed by using a lot of platforms, or a combination of both.  The worst situation would be what the Navy currently has which is neither individual platform speed nor numbers of platforms.

The Navy currently has 8 active Avenger class MCM.  There are no LCS with functional MCM modules and only 6 LCS – 3 on each coast – are designated as future deployable MCM vessels.  The Navy has discussed various MCM module procurement plans but it is unclear where any additional modules beyond the designated 6 would go.  Regardless, it leaves the MCM numbers woefully short of any useful speed and capacity.

In previous posts and comments, I’ve analyzed the LCS clearance process and estimated the LCS can clear one mine per hour.  Based on Lt. Sumanga’s comment, that estimate may be wildly optimistic.

In combat mine clearance, speed is everything and we have nothing.

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(1)Naval News website, “Update on the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Program”, Peter Ong, 4-Feb-2021,

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/02/update-on-the-u-s-navys-littoral-combat-ship-program/

The Navy – and, I suspect, many naval observers – have a completely unrealistic idea about mine clearance (MCM, mine countermeasures) and the speed with which it occurs.  The Navy would have us believe that half dozen LCS-MCM vessels are all we need.  On a particularly honest day, you might get a Navy admiral to grudgingly admit that a few MCM operators in a RHIB might also lend a hand but that’s the extent of the clearance assets that the Navy is developing.

The problem (well, one of many!) with the Navy’s MCM vision is that it is excruciatingly slow and I’ve pointed this out many times.  I won’t rehash the overall discussion.  Instead, I’d like to take a deeper look at the heart of the MCM system, the Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS, AN/ASQ-235).

Airborne Mine Neutralization System - Empty  Carrier Being Recovered

As enumerated by the Navy, mine clearance consists of three basic steps:

Detect possible mines with a broad area search

Identify mines with small AQS-20A towed sonar

Destroy mines with AMNS/Archerfish

This already sounds slow, doesn’t it?  Searching an area twice before you can neutralize the first mine is not a process designed for speed.  But, I digress …

The AMNS is the neutralizer which is the Navy’s less-violent euphemism for the destructor system.  The system consists of a helicopter (MH-60S or MH-53E) which mounts a carrying cradle (Launch and Handling System, LHS) for four mini-unmanned ‘torpedoes’ which are individually guided to a mine and then blow themselves up, destroying the mine in the process.  Thus, each helo can destroy a maximum of four mines before it has to return to the host ship to reload or replace the cradle.

Archerfish is the destructor for the AMNS.  It is a small, lightweight (34 lb), expendable, remote controlled, underwater vehicle which carries a small shaped charge to destroy mines one at a time.  It is a suicide vehicle since it is destroyed each time it is used.  Each Archerfish contains a sonar, video camera, and light to assist the operator in reacquiring the mine. 

Archerfish

Unfortunately – and repetitively inefficiently - , AMNS has to reacquire the previously detected mines and the Archerfish is then guided to the mine by a sonar sensor operator on the helo, using a fiber optic communication cable, positive identification is established, and the destructor is command detonated.

The destructor reacquisition and approach phase is not a lightning fast operation as some might imagine.  The destructor doesn’t approach the target at 50 kts, ram into it, and explode.  Instead, the approach is slow and time-consuming.  From the BAE Archerfish data sheet we get a sense of the slow, deliberate approach process,

Excellent maneuvering characteristics enable Archerfish to traverse the target to obtain pictures and sonar images from a variety of angles.  Archerfish approaches the target under command guidance. In the final stages of the approach, the Archerfish sonar and video also acquire the target and transmit more detailed information to the operator via the fibre optic link.(1)

Shown below is the launch system with four destructors.

AMNS with Four Archerfish Loaded

AMNS - Note the Size of the LHS Mounting System

Setting aside the first two steps of the MCM process which are the initial survey and subsequent sonar identification, the speed of the AMNS portion is determined by the steps below.  The time estimates are just ballpark figures and would depend on a multitude of factors but they offer a decent approximation.

 ^(a)demonstrated on an LCS video; very lengthy process

The overall time for a single cycle with the helo already configured for the AMNS and with the LHS already loaded is on the order of 2h:20m.  That equates to a mine clearance rate of 4 mines per 2h:20m or 1 mine every 35 min or, roughly, 2 mines per hour.  This is the best case clearance rate but the actual rate is lower since the helo has to return for maintenance, crew changes, fuel, etc., multiple times over the course of a day so the actual clearance rate is less than 2 mines per hour.

It is also important to note that the helo is also used for the initial broad area detection sweep, using the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) and that time has to be included in the overall mine clearance rate so the effective clearance rate is further reduced to around 1 mine per hour on a sustained basis.

The AMNS system, assuming it works as advertised – and they never do - , is decisively effective, in that it blows up the mine, while also being utterly inefficient.  Clearing minefields one at a time is the worst possible approach especially in combat where speed of clearance is vital.  Ships waiting for passage through a chokepoint or amphibious forces waiting to land can’t wait while mines are cleared one at a time and yet this is the system that the Navy has decided on for its future mine clearance capability. 

We should note that the Navy is also working on a rapid sweep technique using the Common Unmanned Surface Vessel (CUSV), however, the effectiveness of sweeps against modern smart mines is highly questionable.  As with so many other weapon systems, we desperately need to test the sweep system under realistic conditions against actual smart mines to determine whether the system can work, at all.

AMNS is fine for peacetime or very limited mine clearance operations but in war mines are likely to be laid by the thousands and AMNS will be completely unsuited for the task.  We need to develop highly efficient, wide area sweeping and neutralization capabilities. 

AMNS is yet another example of the Navy developing peacetime capabilities instead of large scale war capabilities.  We must break out of this peacetime mentality that the Navy is married to and start preparing for real war.

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(1)https://www.baesystems.com/en/product/archerfish-mine-neutralisation-system

Avenger Class MCM

• USS Champion
• USS Scout
• USS Ardent