For the Want of an RMMV, Should Modular Mine Warfare be Lost?

RMMV aboard USS Independence (LCS 2)

     There have been a number of recent complaints from Congress and the Director, Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) regarding the poor performance of the Remote Mine hunting System’s (RMS) Remote Multimission Vehicle (RMMV). Some LCS critics have seized on this poor performance as another reason to cancel the LCS program, or to at least divorce mine warfare from the LCS program. These critics are ignoring the lessons of post World War 2 attempts by the United States Navy to field dedicated mine warfare platforms. They also forget that the LCS mission modules were always meant to be adjustable based on the given threat and host seaframe weight restrictions. As the saying goes, “there are many ways to skin a cat,” and there are equally many ways to go about conducting mine warfare. The Navy is pursuing the right course in making mine warfare a modular capability that can be deployed from LCS and other platforms. The problems with the RMMV suggest that Congress should better fund the Navy’s overall mine warfare capability.

     In the 70 years since the end of the Second World War the United States has twice attempted to create a dedicated force of mine warfare ships to support global naval operations. Neither effort has been fully successful. The first such endeavor was the construction of the 53 Aggressive minesweeper, ocean class (MSO’s) in the wake of the October 1950 amphibious assault at Wonson during the Korean War. By the late 1970’s however, this first postwar mine warfare force was poor condition. A planned modernization program on the fleet of 65 ships was curtailed to 13 units.[1] There was little specific training and enlisted men assigned aboard the MSO’s usually provided training on mine warfare to incoming officers.[2] The Commander of Naval Mine Warfare Command in 1985, Commodore Duke Cockfield, was quoted in the Navy’s All Hands magazine as saying, “If you go back to the 1970’s, mine warfare was in serious trouble.”[3] Finally, significant minesweeping operations such as the post-Vietnam War clearance of naval mines from Haiphong Harbor as part of the agreement ending the war were conducted by mine sweeping CH-53 helicopters rather than surface ships. Despite this success, overall U.S. mine warfare capabilities were at a low eb.

     The Reagan administration began a U.S. Navy surface ship mine warfare renaissance with the authorization for construction of 31 new mine warfare ships of the Avenger class mine countermeasures ships (MCM) and the Cardinal (later Osprey) class coastal mine hunter ships (MHC).[4] Construction was slow due to a general loss of mine warfare ship construction expertise in U.S. shipyards, and the Avenger class average cost grew to $260 million dollars a unit (in 2009 dollars) by the time they were complete and in active service.[5] Initial units of the MCM class were in service in time to participate in mine hunting and clearance actions during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. While mines claimed no Allied ship losses, significant damage was incurred by the cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) and USS Tripoli (LPH 10) due to hitting World War 1 design contact mines.

     The continued construction of both the MCM and MHC classes through the 1990’s appeared to have renewed the U.S. surface mine warfare capability, but this force is now aging as the MSO’s were in the 1970’s. In fact, the whole of the U.S. mine warfare capability, including surface ships, helicopters and explosive ordnance detachment (EOD) capabilities are, in the words of mine warfare expert Dr. Scott Truver, “brittle” and have historically accounted for less than 1% of the Navy’s program for funding and operations.[6] The Osprey class MHC’s have already been retired in the decade of the 2000’s. The last MCM is scheduled to leave service in 2024, and the MH-53E Sea Dragon minesweeping helicopters will depart active duty in 2025.[7]

USS Coronado (LCS 4) and JHSV 3 USNS Millinocket

     The Navy has obviously learned an important lesson in that dedicated mine warfare ships is not the best way to preserve a mine warfare capability. The service has committed to making the surface component of its mine warfare a modular vice platform specific capability. Multiple surface platforms may eventually deploy variants of the LCS mine warfare module. The Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) is one such ship, and recent exercises have explored the idea of outfitting the ship with an expeditionary mine warfare capability. Other ships with the space for the autonomous air, surface and subsurface platforms associated with the mine warfare modular might also deploy all or parts of this capability.

     This modular package of systems was always intended to be flexible and able to add or remove equipment based on the current threat. If the RMS and associated RMMV are not capable of meeting critical performance parameters, then other systems such as unmanned surface (the Minehunting Unmanned SurfaceVehicle (MHU) and Common Unmanned Surface Vessel (C-USV) or subsurface (MK 18Mod 1 Swordfish and Mod 2 Kingfish Unmanned Underwater Vehicles) systems may fill its position in the LCS mine warfare module (weight restrictions permitting). It is also worth noting that nothing in Dr. Gilmore's 03 August 2024 letter to OUSD, AT&L condemns the LCS program, or the concept of modularity for mine warfare. Specifically:

 “The reliability of existing systems is so poor that it poses a significant risk to both the up coming operational test of the LCS Independence-variant equipped with the first increment of the Mine Countermeasures (MCM) mission package, and to the Navy's plan to field and sustain a viable LCS-based mine hunting and mine clearance capability prior to fiscal year (FY)20.”[8]

     Mine warfare must continue to move past manpower intensive, ship specific capabilities to modular, automated systems. Surface ship mine sweeping is an intensive, very physical process that quickly saps a crew's endurance. There is good reason behind the aphorism of “hunt when you can and sweep when you must”. Mine sweeping operations on U.S. MCM ships involve the whole crew; often in “port and starboard” (six hours on and six hours off) watches that could last for up to a week. This operation also places highly trained sailors in the midst of an active mine field in order to accomplish their mission. Mine hunting in order to clear a swept channel through a mine field can be accomplished entirely through unmanned units like the RMMV, and other automated surface and subsurface platforms. Sweeping is best left for post-conflict clearance operations like that to clear Haiphong harbor in 1973, the Suez Canal in 1974 and the Persian Gulf in 1991 and 2003.

     The LCS remains the right platform to host the bulk of the surface ship mine warfare capability. An LCS-based capability frees the mine warfare capability from over a century of confinement aboard small, slow, short-legged ships often incapable of operations outside the shallow littoral zones of the world’s oceans. Furthermore, it ends the period of mine warfare as an arcane; little understood concept of naval warfare beyond those few sailors assigned to dedicated mine warfare platforms. The planned large force of LCS and FF variants has the potential to introduce the mine warfare module to a larger joint and multinational audience. A modular mine warfare capability can become just as common as helicopter-based antisubmarine warfare.

AN/SLQ-48 MNV

     Finally, it should be remembered that the RMS and its associtated RMMV have been in development since the 1990’s. Many RMMV’s are over 10 years old and their advanced age may play a role in their less than satisfactory performance. Poor RMMV performance may also be indicative of the poor funding state of Navy mine countermeasures in general since the mid 1990’s when the MHC class entered active service. Current fleet mine hunting capabilities remain resident in the aging AN/SLQ-48 Mine Neutralization Vehicle (MNV) whose tether to its host ship platform is 3500 feet in length.[9] The RMMV has no tether as does the older MNV and may still offer a significant improvement in fleet mine countermeasures capability beyond current legacy systems.[10]

     Mine Warfare in the U.S. Navy has been a neglected discipline for nearly two decades. The change to a modular capability from its previous platform-centric model can liberate the mine warfare discipline from its century-long confinement aboard small, slow ships with little survivability. Problems with one system of the modular capability should not distract Congress or the Navy from making the important change to surface naval mine warfare.

    

                

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[1] Tamera Moser Melia, Damn the Torpedoes, A Short History of U.S. Naval Mine Countermeasures,Washington D.C., The United States Navy Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1991 p. 97.

[2] Ibid, p. 98

[3] http://www.navy.mil/ah_online/archpdf/ah198502.pdf, p. 26.

[4] Melia, pp. 117, 118.

[5] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/111th-congress-2009-2010/reports/07-17-smallcombatants.pdf, p. 6 (author: Dr. Eric J. Labs, supervised by Dr. J. Michael Gilmore and Matthew Goldberg)

[6] Truver, p. 47.

[7] Ibid, p. 48.

 [8] J. Michael Gilmore, Letter to Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and      Logistics (OUSD, AT&L) Frank Kendall, subject: Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV) and Remote Minehunting System (RMS) Reliability, 03 August 2015.

[9] Norman Friedman, The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapon Systems, 5^th Edition, Annapolis, Md, U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2006, p. 821

[10] http://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/ms2/documents/RMS-brochure.pdf