Navy began development of the Littoral Combat Ship class of ships, a small, frigate-sized, multipurpose ship that used “mission modules” of rapidly deployable, specialized equipment to adapt to specific threats. In an ideal world the Avenger-class minesweepers would have been decommissioned years ago. On the other hand crews that man the minesweepers are described as capable and eager to perform their mission, hobbled not only by the age and difficulty to maintain their ships but by a Navy reliant on computer simulations of missions instead of actual hands-on training and exercises. In recent years the minesweepers have “suffered the highest rate of mechanical problems of any Navy ship”, and one ship, USS Devastator, spent so much time tied up at a pier in Bahrain sailors joked it was actually a building. In reality, as ProPublica points out, the ships suffer from abysmal reliability rates. The Avenger-class mine countermeasure (MCM) vessels are mostly based abroad, in Japan and Bahrain, where they stand ready to clear North Koran and Iranian mines-theoretically. B-29 bombers dropped 12,135 mines and sank or damaged 670 Japanese ships, making Starvation one of the most effective naval campaigns of the war-for very little effort.ĭespite the utility of mines, the Navy has traditionally neglected its minesweeping force, relying on European and Japanese minesweepers to augment its forces in wartime. Army Air Force dropped thousands of sea mines during Operation Starvation, a minelaying effort designed to strangle the economy of Japan during World War II. Mines have been used in most naval conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries. 50 caliber machine guns, minesweepers are a far cry from the sleek, fast-moving destroyers, massive aircraft carriers, and other, more glamorous Navy ships.īut they’re absolutely vital. Just over two hundred feet long, slow and armed with a pair of. Navy built 14 Avenger -class minesweepers in the 1980s and 90s. The Avenger-class minesweepers USS Devastator (MCM 6), USS Gladiator (MCM 11), USS Sentry (MCM 3), USS Dextrous (MCM 13), the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87) and an MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter minehunting helicopter assigned to the “Blackhawks” of Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron (HSM) 15 maneuver in the Arabian Gulf, July 6. This makes minesweepers, wooden or fiberglass-hulled ships specifically designed to hunt down and dispose of minesweepers, vital in a conflict. Dropped in a waterway or sea lane, they are often invisible to regular ships until a ship physically contacts the mine, or the magnetic field of a ship’s hull sets the detonator off. Like land mines, naval mines are metallic munitions with a hollow core designed to explode if triggered. One of the oldest and most dangerous weapons of war, modern naval mines date to the 19th century. increase, the ships that could see the most action are the least ready for it. A new report by ProPublica alleges the service has neglected the fleet and that minesweepers are, in the words of a serving officer “the ships that the Navy forgot.”Īs tensions between Iran and the U.S. Navy’s elderly fleet of minesweepers-the service’s main line of defense against one of the oldest and most effective weapons in naval history-is so run down it is unable to fulfill its mission.
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