Non-Subscriber Extract
Hunting in warm waters: UK reinforces expeditionary MCM capability in Gulf
By Richard Scott
05 June 2009
The UK Royal Navy has four mine-countermeasures vessels forward deployed in Bahrain. (Richard Scott/NAVYPIX)
The low cost and high disruptive potential of the sea mine has marked it out as the quintessential asymmetric threat in the maritime arena.
Mine countermeasures (MCM) therefore remain a vital enabler for maritime forces, whether to 'punch a hole' for an amphibious assault, ensure access for seaborne logistics, and/or maintain freedom of navigation for mercantile traffic along commercial sea lanes. This ability includes not only locating and neutralising mines but also identifying those areas where mines are not present.
The UK Royal Navy (RN) has historically been regarded as among the leading practitioners of MCM, and since the end of the Cold War has sought to focus its mine-warfare (MIW) capabilities on operations in littoral theatres far from home.
In fact, expeditionary MCM is nothing new for the RN, the service having been involved in five major mine-clearance operations over the last three decades: around the Falklands (Malvinas) in 1982; in the Red Sea in 1984; in the Persian Gulf during the 1987-88 'Tanker War'; off Kuwait in 1991; and in the approaches to southern Iraq in 2003.
However, with the prospect of offensive mining against UK ports considered relatively remote, recent years have put a new onus on operations and exercises far away from temperate northern Europe in order that equipment and operators can be honed to deal with the particular environmental challenges encountered in distant regions characterised by warm and shallow waters.