The U.S. military is using sea drones to help clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines that might be lurking there, in a quiet effort to ease Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway and begin reopening it to commercial shipping.

Sea drones, including uncrewed surface vessels and submarines, are an increasingly important part of the U.S. Navy’s countermine capabilities as it retires traditional minesweepers. They use sonar to scan the bottom of the ocean for mines without putting sailors at risk.

“You’re less concerned about attrition, so sending them through the minefield is much more palatable, and if you lose some they can be replaced,” said Scott Savitz, a senior engineer at Rand who previously provided on-site analytical support for the Navy’s mine warfare command and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

https://archive.ph/htoja#selection-887.0-895.317

As I recall, some members were claiming that the Navy is deficient in minesweepers. But are minesweepers outmoded now? Are there things they can do that a drone can't?

1 hour ago, Alan Zweibel said:

The U.S. military is using sea drones to help clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines that might be lurking there, in a quiet effort to ease Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway and begin reopening it to commercial shipping.

Sea drones, including uncrewed surface vessels and submarines, are an increasingly important part of the U.S. Navy’s countermine capabilities as it retires traditional minesweepers. They use sonar to scan the bottom of the ocean for mines without putting sailors at risk.

“You’re less concerned about attrition, so sending them through the minefield is much more palatable, and if you lose some they can be replaced,” said Scott Savitz, a senior engineer at Rand who previously provided on-site analytical support for the Navy’s mine warfare command and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

https://archive.ph/htoja#selection-887.0-895.317

As I recall, some members were claiming that the Navy is deficient in minesweepers. But are minesweepers outmoded now? Are there things they can do that a drone can't?

Hoping that they work just as good or better than conventional minesweepers. Please keep us posted.

1 hour ago, Hawaiian said:

Hoping that they work just as good or better than conventional minesweepers. Please keep us posted.

Just read CNN like he does.

Better info will be found at

https://warriormaven.com/

And its never behind a paywall, nor does it spout anti American agitprop

https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2167996/mine-countermeasures-unmanned-surface-vehicle-mcm-usv/

The Mine Countermeasures Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MCM USV) is a long-endurance, semi-autonomous, diesel-powered, all-aluminum surface craft that supports the employment of various mine countermeasure (MCM) payloads. Designated on Oct. 8, 2018, as an Acquisition Category II Program of Record, the MCM USV with its modular Payload Delivery Systems (PDS), provides minehunting (MH) and minesweeping (MS) capabilities to the MCM mission package (MP). The MCM USV is the first USV designed to be operational in the Fleet and constitutes the first step toward building the hybrid fleet described in Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Force Design 2045. Leveraging a mature craft design developed under the ACAT III Unmanned Minesweeping Module (UMS) program, the MCM USV program employs multiple PDS, such as the Minesweeping PDS, Minehunting PDS, and PDSs for future payloads, including mine neutralization, all of which integrate with the base MCM USV.

Works, kind of, as long as there are no waves.

https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2025/01/lcs-mine-countermeasures-module-ready.html

The components of the LCS MCM mission module were not originally designed to be loaded into the 30,000 square feet of mission bay space and shortcomings have been encountered in balancing the space between 11 meter CUSVs, four or five 12-foot CONEX boxes, a lift system for the CUSVs, and an independent berthing box for the operators of the MCM suite.

According to Captain Scott B. Hattaway, Director of the SMWDC Mine Countermeasures Technical Division, the 11 meter CUSV is currently limited by form factor, limiting the endurance of the platform and the weight of the cable for towed sonar depth. The current form factor of the CUSV is limiting the maximum performance that can be extracted from the AN/AQS-20C sonar suite.

Another limiting factor, according to Captain Hattaway, is the range offered by the CUSV. Line of sight between the LCS mothership and the CUSV is required. In heavy sea states, effectiveness is limited. Bandwidth is taxed by the amount of information that needs to be shared back and forth to the operator and the sensor suites.

A critique from outside the DoD:

The MCM module is becoming a real ‘Rube Goldberg’ collection of increasingly ridiculous, mismatched, and constrained components attempting to meet a bare minimum capability.

A reminder … Even if all this works perfectly, it’s still a failure in that it’s predominantly a one-at-a-time hunting method which is operationally useless in a combat situation.  Yes, the Navy claims to have an influence sweep capability but, to the best of my knowledge, that has never been tested and certainly not realistically.  I have severe doubts that the sweeping method will work against modern smart mines.

Two decades or more of work and we have a cobbled together collection of misfit, limited capability MCM components.  Well done, Navy!  You’ve made us proud.

The Avengers were retired prematurely. The Raytheon system they depending on is a piece of <deleted>.

https://centerformaritimestrategy.org/publications/dont-sweep-minesweepers-under-the-rug-americas-critical-naval-vulnerability/

(The) top leadership has invested far too much faith (and money) in a platform that is more based in science fiction than in reality. The Navy’s plan to replace dedicated minesweepers relies heavily on the Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV), the autonomous primary component of the Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS). Upon decommissioning of the Avenger-class, the UISS will be the Navy’s only surface maritime minesweeping capability outside of the AQS-20C towed sonar array. These unmanned surface systems would be deployed off of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship platform, which has been stricken with its own problems.

Unfortunately, testing shows that the CUSV and UISS mine clearing system as a whole are not operationally suitable: UISS reliability and availability do not support sustained mine sweeping operations, suffering from issues relating to mission availability and degraded mission performance.

When employed from its intended platform, UISS demonstrates an operational availability of just 29 percent, well below the Navy’s minimum threshold, while also facing issues relating to maintenance and repair. “Maintainers demonstrated limited capability to repair the UISS due to deficiencies in maintainer documentation for operational-level repairs and additional repairs that required subject matter expert intervention,” according to DOT&E.

The CUSV is further limited in endurance and weight of its cable, restricting the possible depth of towed sonar. Line of sight between the mothership and the CUSV is required and in heavy sea states its effectiveness is limited. Bandwidth, in particular, is taxed by the amount of information that needs to be shared between the ship-based operator and sensor suites aboard the unmanned vessel.

Despite these persistent and well-documented concerns, the Navy inexplicably cleared the CUSV and UISS for initial operational capability in 2023.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/09/combat-ineffective-littoral-combat-ships-are-replacing-mcm-ships-in-bahrain/

Prematurely rushed into service. The Brits have been on sea trials in the Gulf since 2023 for their Harrier system, in addition to sea trials under other operational conditions The Persian Gulf present very particular challenges. Meanwhile, the Italians, Japanese and Koreans are sticking with a new class of conventional minesweepers rather that vapourware.

The U.S. Navy retired its last Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships this week in Bahrain, ending a legacy of over three decades of service in the forward-deployed mine countermeasures mission as part of Task Force 55. The replacement ships, Independence-class littoral combat ships, have struggled to meet the requirements of operational mine countermeasures missions...........

.......One test of the MCM package on USS Tulsa (LCS 16), a ship that arrived in Bahrain in May for MCM operations, resulted in a runaway USV, according to one U.S. Navy official familiar with the testing. During that test, part of the tow bracket used to recover the mine countermeasures CUSV broke, leaving it unrecoverable........

......Another point of concern is the current suite of sensors which are ineffective in locating mines in operational environments, leaving the MCM-equipped littoral combat ships with inadequate sensors and countermeasure platforms for turbid waters or deep waters. The sonars on the CUSVs are not a high enough resolution to identify specific threats. The lasers used on MH-60S helicopters require water that is not too turbid to operate in

............According to the U.S. Navy official, there is much less room for error when it comes to the unmanned systems used for mine countermeasures. Each mission takes roughly four hours of maintenance pre-mission followed by one-and-a-half hours of calibration of GPS and sonar to reach acceptable accuracy for MCM missions. The rough estimate is six hours of pre-mission preparation before mine countermeasures can begin. In real-world scenarios, that time may not exist.

These concerns do not address the single points of failure in the LCS and MCM package, which make the package an extremely risk-prone platform for operations.

The platform lift on the LCS that moves equipment from the mission bay to the flight deck is a major operational point for equipping the MH-60S with ALMDS or AMNS. If the lift fails, the helicopter is combat ineffective. If the tow hook on a CUSV breaks, it is combat ineffective and must be towed back or recovered another way. If the Twin Boom Extensible Frame, used to lower CUSVs into the water, breaks, the entire MCM platform is inoperable and USVs cannot be launched for missions.

Its going to break down most of the time. Not to mention the LCSs develop hull cracks if they go more that 5 knots. Retro-fitted hull plates (aka patches) might alleviate that.

9 hours ago, Rockyroad said:

Just read CNN like he does.

9 hours ago, Yagoda said:

Better info will be found at

https://warriormaven.com/

And its never behind a paywall, nor does it spout anti American agitprop

Typical Pavlovian responses. I cite information that actually tends to defend against criticism of the US Navy's readiness in regards to minesweeping and somehow this is interpreted as being negative towards the Navy.

A trolling post has been removed.

How much do these new systems cost?

Assuming they are successful, what can the US navy and air force do about mobile land based missile batteries on the coast of Iran?

5 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Assuming they are successful, what can the US navy and air force do about mobile land based missile batteries on the coast of Iran?

If they exist, blow them up like they did the others

13 minutes ago, Yagoda said:

If they exist, blow them up like they did the others

Because they are mobile launchers it is not difficult to hide them. And since it has been reported there are numerous launchers left it not that easy to destroy all of them. One Iranian missile can inflict enough damage to cause mayhem.

8 minutes ago, Hawaiian said:

Because they are mobile launchers it is not difficult to hide them. And since it has been reported there are numerous launchers left it not that easy to destroy all them.

How do you know there are any at all?

27 minutes ago, Yagoda said:

How do you know there are any at all?

Why did you post, "if they exist"? And I posted,"It has been reported."

According to this report, there are enough left to do significant damage.

caliber.az/en/post/what-is-left-of-iran-s-missile-arsenal

13 minutes ago, Hawaiian said:

According to this report, there are enough left to do significant damage.

caliber.az/en/post/what-is-left-of-iran-s-missile-arsenal

How do they know?

15 minutes ago, Yagoda said:

How do they know?

How do you know what you know?

43 minutes ago, Hawaiian said:

How do you know what you know?

Thats why I said, if

How about 1 Trump topic and 1 war topic a month?

Now seems to be the perfect time to fire the Secretary of the Navy and replace him, with immediate effect, with a bloke from Vietnam. Lets see how long the non-white bloke stays in post. Technically his appointment is interim, due to the unusually swift departure of his boss.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2026/04/23/us-navy-secretary-john-phelan-leaves-trump-administration/

Phelan had zero experience of the navy, unless you include any boats he might own. He was a donor to the President's campaign. He had also flown Epstein Airways.

It seemed all rosy when appointed in 2024:

https://www.navytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2024/11/27/trump-taps-businessman-john-phelan-to-be-navy-secretary/

Just as an aside......my company supplied 10 large industrial hoses to Glasgow docks for the demagnetising of a minesweeper.

They were phenomenally profitable.

We got a phone call the next day....a lorry had backed over them all.....could they place a new the order for 10 more.