At the outset of the current dust-up between Iran and the United States and Israel, Iran sowed the Strait of Hormuz with mines, trying to prevent shipping from entering or leaving. Now that plan, to try to blockade shipping, would seem to have backfired rather nastily on the Islamic Republic, as they have learned to their sorrow that when it comes to naval blockades, we're better at it than they are.
The mines were still a problem, though. Last month, President Trump made the rather surprising announcement that the Strait of Hormuz was completely cleared of Iranian mines. The commander of Central Command (CENTCOM) concurred. Now, a new report has some interesting details on how that was done, with unmanned ships and underwater automated mine detectors playing a key role.
Minesweeping an area of sea even in peacetime is a painstaking process that can take months. Specialised vessels must snake up and down the waterway, cutting mines from their moorings and shooting them when they start to float.
But in this case, US Navy divers worked in small teams using inflatable-hulled craft. They located Iranian mines with the help of robot boats and submersibles — such as the US Navy’s Common Uncrewed Surface Vessel — operating towed sonar arrays.
These devices, containing high-resolution, side-looking sonar sensors, can see objects such as mines on the ocean bottom at startlingly high resolution. That enables them to sweep large areas with minimal risk to crews.
The "minimal risk" part ends when a mine is found, it seems.
“That is usually followed up by a navy diver who’s got to get in the water and approach the mine, and then put a charge on it and destroy it,” said Bill Hamblet, a retired US Navy captain who often operated in the Gulf.
He said it was a “very small, lightweight kind of force”. The US may have staged some operations from the USS Miguel Keith, a floating “expeditionary mobile base” attached to the Gulf naval forces, Hamblet added.
Robot submersibles can also be used to destroy mines with explosives, he said. These could include the UK’s SeaFox, or the newer US AN/ASQ-235 Archerfish, said Bryan Clark, a demining expert at the Hudson Institute.
Pretty much any job in the nation's armed forces can be dangerous; they tell you that when you sign up. But this one seems a bit more hazardous than most, as is most explosives disposal. Now, though, according to CENTCOM and the president, those mines are swept. There are indications that Iran may be attempting to launch rocket-propelled mines back into the Strait, but reports indicate that isn't going so well for them.
As for our mine-disposal crews, they deserve our thanks and our respect; they took a difficult and very dangerous job, and they nailed it, without one service member lost.
There's a lot yet to be done in this affair before Iran's hash is well and truly settled. The United States is hitting Iranian tankers that try to slip through our naval blockade. Israel is talking up the notion of doing something major, although what, exactly, isn't being said out loud. The United States Treasury Department has been slamming Iran's economy, and their currency is now at the "wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread" phase. The Weimar Republic looks pretty prosperous compared to Iran today.
And the Iranian people? Aye, that's the question. We suspect, and we hope, that as John Steinbeck put it, that in Iran the grapes of wrath are growing ripe for the vintage.
Is the curtain starting to come down for the mullahs and their sycophants? If it were, it would look a lot like this.
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