• Sailors from HMAS Yarra take control of the steading line as they deploy the ships SUTEC Double Eagle mine disposal vehicle during mine operations at Exercise Dugong 2015. Credit: Defence
    Sailors from HMAS Yarra take control of the steading line as they deploy the ships SUTEC Double Eagle mine disposal vehicle during mine operations at Exercise Dugong 2015. Credit: Defence
  • Further acquisition of Lockheed Martin's RMMV was cancelled in February, putting a question mark over delivery of the RMS modular mission package under development for the USN's Littoral Combat Ships. Credit: Lockheed Martin
    Further acquisition of Lockheed Martin's RMMV was cancelled in February, putting a question mark over delivery of the RMS modular mission package under development for the USN's Littoral Combat Ships. Credit: Lockheed Martin
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The RAN’s Mine Counter Measures (MCM) capability, important as it is, often appears to be the poor relation to larger, more visible programs for larger, more visible assets.

Julian Kerr | Sydney

With a fresh review of the MCM force understood to be in progress, practical measures to improve elements of this neglected capability under Project Sea 1778 may now face further delay.

Phase 1 of Sea 1778 received First Pass approval in 2012 and, according to that year’s Defence Capability Plan, would furnish the initial means by which task groups would implement self-protective MCM along intended routes, through choke points and within objective areas; complemented by the current dedicated MCM force.


 

"The Double Eagles have been in service with the RAN since 1999 and that’s now a problem."

 


A Request for Proposals (RfP) was followed in June 2014 by a restricted Request for Tender (RfT) to undisclosed contenders - thought to be Thales, BAE Systems, Ultra Electronics and Saab.

Evaluation was scheduled to be completed in August 2015, at which time ADM was told that only high priority projects were being approved by government prior to release of the Defence White Paper.

As of July 2016, informed sources confirmed that the project had yet to go to government and capability requirements were being reviewed.

If so, this will provide an opportunity to assess new technology not included in the RfTs, against the background of the $1-$2 billion provisioned in the Integrated Investment Program for MCM from 2017 to 2030.

This includes extending the life of four of the original six Huon class Mine Hunters Coastal (MHC) until the 2030s through a service life extension and capability assurance program to be carried out between 2018 and 2025.

The two Huons that will not have their operational lives extended have been in reserve since 2011 and would have taken five years to restore to service and crew. Their capability was, however, lost to the Mine Warfare and Clearance Diving Group five years earlier when both vessels were transferred to border protection duties.

According to the White Paper, the Huons’ life extension will provide time to develop and evaluate remotely-operated MCM systems and bathymetric collection (the latter separately to Sea 1778 under JP 1770 Phase 1 which Lockheed Martin is now in the process of running) to inform capability development.

In the meantime, in addition to the Huons’ high fidelity variable depth sonar Navy’s MCM Force continues to rely for mine hunting and mine disposal on the Saab Double Eagle Mk II remotely-operated vehicle (ROV), two of which are carried on each MHC to provide redundancy in the event of one vehicle being damaged or destroyed.

The 360 kg Double Eagle has an operational depth of 300 metres, roughly the limit from which a detonating mine would impact a surface ship. On operations, battery-powered twin thrusters propel the ROV at speeds of up to six knots 200 metres ahead of the Huon to which it’s tethered and from which it’s controlled.

In its minehunting configuration the Double Eagle ROV is equipped with a low-fidelity sonar, searchlight, and a low light closed circuit television camera.

When configured for its mine disposal configuration, in addition to the searchlight and television camera the Double Eagle is fitted with a relocation sonar and a 50 kg disposal charge which it places close to the mine.

The system is designed to combat seafloor and buried mines – usually one and the same – but the RAN elected not to also equip its Double Eagles with mechanical or explosive cutters used to sever the mooring of a tethered mine and bring it to the surface where it can be destroyed.

Instead, the Huons could utilise mechanical sweeping seldom practiced and with a very low rate of effort – or more likely identify the location of such mines to support cable cutting and disposal by clearance divers. Similarly, the Huons have a basic influence sweeping capability to detonate acoustic and magnetic mines, but one that is not thought to be exercised with any regularity.

The Double Eagles have been in service with the RAN since 1999 and that’s now a problem, according to Australian and other sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. (The RAN declined to provide anyone to be interviewed for this article).

Of the seven major navies using the Double Eagle, the RAN is unique in not having updated or addressed obsolescence issues with its 14 systems, the sources said.

“They’re very dated and unfortunately they’re no longer really supportable; if components break the spares don’t exist any more and Navy will have to start cannibalising,” said one source.

“Double Eagle is a very good platform, you can keep the core system and upgrade some of the components; the sonar, processing power and other elements. You’ll then have a state of the art capability, but at present it’s not at all clear whether Navy has a clear roadmap to address this and wider MCM issues.”

These wider, futuristic issues around MCM and other aspects of maritime warfare appear, according to the sources, to revolve largely around autonomy and the degree of risk that is created when it’s introduced over a current capability.

Unmanned future

At the domestic level, Dr David Battle, head of DST Group’s Unmanned Systems and Autonomy Group, expects the RAN will take delivery of its first autonomous underseas vehicles (AUVs) equipped specifically for mine hunting work with sidescan or synthetic aperture sonar, soon after 2017.

Development work is proceeding on both manportable and midsized capabilities, using as test vehicles the commercially-available REMUS 100 and REMUS 600 AUVs developed by Kongsberg subsidiary Hydroid.

The battery-powered AUVs can execute preprogrammed search patterns in operational areas utilising their sonar and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) software.

ATR provides onboard data processing which accelerates post-mission analysis and thus the tempo of mine clearance operations, together with the ability to program the vehicle to manoeuvre at different angles over an object on the sea bed, making it much easier to identify. In both instances the data remains on the AUV until it returns to the host ship.

The main limitation of the MHC-Double Eagle combination is deployability. Although the Double Eagle can be transported in a container, the Huon is too slow to keep up with a task group, lacks sufficient endurance for unattended voyages beyond the Australian region, and has limited capacity for resupply at sea.

By contrast, a mine hunting and disposal capability based on AUVs is air deployable. Medium-sized vehicles such as the REMUS 600 can provide a forward-based vessel fitted with a crane the ability to search a minefield and perform preliminary classification at rates similar to those achievable with an MHC, a Double Eagle and a well-trained 35-strong crew.

Small, manportable AUVs such as the REMUS 100 can then search relatively shallow waters and reacquire contacts identified during the search phase at higher resolution and from multiple angles. If a medium AUV fitted with ATR and a small AUV are launched in tandem, both can work in parallel.

Targets from the classification stage that warrant further investigation would then be inspected and disposed of either by clearance divers, or by one-shot mine disposal vehicles controlled via a fibre-optic cable from platforms ranging from surface combatants to rigid-hulled inflatable boats.

One such disposal vehicle, the Atlas-Electronik Seafox, is able to automatically relocate previously-acquired positions of underwater objects with its integrated homing sonar. These objects can then be identified via the onboard CCTV camera and, if necessary, destroyed with a built-in, shaped charge producing a kinetic effect sufficient to detonate an insensitive munition mine.

The fact that Seafox and similar capabilities must blow themselves up to destroy a single mine or just one of what could be several dozen plausible decoys can make clearance an expensive exercise.

UK experience

Meeting this challenge is an important element in the UK’s two-pronged development strategy for MCM. This involves collaborating with France in the development of an autonomous unmanned mine hunting and mine disposal system while separately pursuing an autonomous sweep capability capable of being integrated into manned MCM platforms.

The system architecture under development for the Maritime Mine Countermeasures (MMCM) project by a Thales/BAE Systems team incorporates an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) equipped with an autonomous navigation system; an obstacle detection and avoidance sonar; a towed SAMDIS synthetic aperture sonar, a threat identification and neutralisation capability based on a ROV; and long-endurance AUVs also using SAMDIS which provides very high resolution and multi-aspect functionality for improved classification.

The threat identification and neutralisation element is to be furnished by Saab’s developmental multi-shot mine neutralisation system (MuMNS), a unique capability fitted to a reusable tethered ROV launched from a USV.

MuMNS consists of a magazine accommodating three disruptor launchers, a manipulator arm and nail gun to attach a 1kg shaped charge disruptor to the target, and an antenna buoy that rises to the surface after a pre-set delay of up to 28 days to receive the detonation command via a coded radio signal. Having moved away, the ROV is then directed on to other mines, or returns to its support vessel for reloading.

This MMCM “system of systems” will be controlled from a host ship or shore-based station via high datarate communications links to the USV. The USV’s own fibre-optic link to the ROV meets the RN’s wish to retain man-in-the-loop control of the disposal procedure.

The second strand of the RN’s development plan involves the design and construction by Atlas Elektronik of a prototype multi-influence (acoustic, electric and magnetic) sweeping system deployed from an 11 metre USV. A positive outcome is likely to see the system fitted to some if not all of the Royal Navy’s eight Hunt class MCM vessels.

USN experience

The cancellation in February of further acquisition of Lockheed Martin’s semi-submersible, diesel-powered Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV) has put a question mark over delivery of the Remote Minehunting System (RMS) modular mission package under development for the USN’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).

Further acquisition of Lockheed Martin's RMMV was cancelled in February, putting a question mark over delivery of the RMS modular mission package under development for the USN's Littoral Combat Ships. Credit: Lockheed Martin

Credit: Lockheed Martin

This capability is intended to replace the USN’s 11 1980’s-era Avenger MCM vessels and its Sea Dragon long-range minesweeping helicopters. No immediate alternative is in sight.

The 10 RMMVs already delivered to the USN will be upgraded for greater reliability and compete over the next three years with the Textron Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV), which is slated to join the LCS MCM package as a minesweeping vehicle, and the General Dynamics Knifefish UUV, which will join the package to detect mines resting on the seafloor and buried mines in high-clutter environments.

The mines will continue to be disposed of by divers, surface ships or by the MH-60S helicopters of the USN’s Airborne Mine Neutralisation System (AMNS), both of the latter currently utilising the BAE Systems Archerfish single shot mine disposal system.

Perhaps foreshadowing a future RAN option, the USN last year established several rapid-deployment Expeditionary MCM companies. These comprise REMUS 100 and REMUS 600 AUVs to search shallow and deep waters, a post-mission analysis cell to support the identification and classification of mines and underwater improvised explosive devices, and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) divers to re-acquire and neutralise identified mines.

Beyond that, the path of autonomous MCM, surface or subsurface, may well be determined by the countermeasures likely to be developed by miners to defeat the sensor and intervention vehicles.

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