The Royal Navy’s Mine Counter Measures force 1989-2005 (repost).

[Bernard Woolley]

The Royal Navy’s Mine Counter Measures force 1989-2005.

Introduction.
Today the Royal Navy has one of the largest and most experienced Mine Counter Measures forces in the world. Other navies rightly regard the RN as the leading navy when it comes to MCM capabilities and in general what the ‘Andrew’ does today other navies will do tomorrow. That is not to say that the RN will not look to see what it can learn from other MCM forces; it has notably adopted equipment and procedures from Australia, West Germany and France.

Being an island nation, the UK is very vulnerable to mining of its ports and while the Kreigsmarine’s U-boats never really came close to starving this country the magnetic mine campaign was, for a while at least, a greater danger to British shipping than any other. Thankfully the RN and wider MoD has generally remembered this lesson and while other parts of the navy have often suffered from ‘savings’ the MCM force has generally survived intact. In World War Three, as in the Last War, the RN’s MCMV were kept very busy keeping British ports, those of its allies and the sea lanes free of mines. Without the half century of investment in MCM capabilities Britain’s ports would have ground to a halt and the war been lost.

The MCM force as of 1989.
In 1989 the RN had a force of forty-four MCMV assigned to the 1st, 2nd 3rd and 10th Mine Countermeasures Squadrons. The 1st and 3rd MCM Squadrons were based at HMNB Rosyth, where the Commodore Minor War Vessels, had his H.Q. The 2nd MCM Squadron was based at HMNB Portsmouth. The RNR manned 10th MCM Squadron was also based at Rosyth, however its ships tended to be dispersed around the UK where the various RNR divisions were based.

The forty-four ships were made up of the following classes:

17 Ton Class
13 Hunt Class
12 River Class
1 Sandown Class (fitting out)
1 Abdiel Class minelayer & H.Q ship (paid off to reserve)

The seventeen Ton Class were assigned to the 1st MCM Squadron, the thirteen Hunt Class were divided between the 2nd and 3rd MCM Squadron, while the dozen River Class formed the 10th MCM Squadron, apart from HMS Blackwater, which was detached to the Fisheries Protection Squadron with a regular RN crew. However, in wartime she would return to the 10th MCM Squadron.

Built in the early 1950s as probably the largest single class of vessel built for the Royal Navy the Ton Class were by 1989 around forty years old, however they were still effective vessels. The class had proven to have been an excellent investment for the RN and the other navies that operated them. Around 120 Ton class had been built and had served in the MCMV and patrol role over the years; the total varies depending on whether HMS Wilton is included. Of the seventeen survivors thirteen were fitted out as minehunters, the remainder as minesweepers. The class also included the world’s first ‘plastic’ warship, HMS Wilton. The RN’s plan was to retire the Ton class over the next few years, replacing them with the new ‘Single Role Minehunter’, or Sandown Class. It was also planned that 1st and 3rd MCM Squadrons would be re-equipped with the Sandown Class, while the Hunts would be concentrated with the 2nd MCM Squadron.

The thirteen Hunt Class were in 1989 arguably the most sophisticated MCMV in the world, they were also the largest warships to be built from Glass Reinforced Plastic. Tests in the ‘60s and ‘70s along with experience of operating HMS Wilton had demonstrated that GRP was highly resistant to explosions and meant the ships had a very low magnetic signature. At something like £35 million pounds each at 1980s prices they were also very expensive, and this had driven their size.
While fitted out to act as both hunters and sweepers the RN generally preferred to operate them as hunters. Senior commanders would become increasingly reluctant to send very expensive and sophisticated warships into a minefield. The sweeping capability would eventually be mothballed with sweeps stored ashore.
The Hunt Class, like the Ton Class before them, would prove to be excellent investments. The vessels first demonstrated their worth in the aftermath of the Falklands War and would go on to prove highly effective at clearing mines during the Iran-Iraq War and the 1990-1991 Gulf War. During the 1990s the class would be constantly updated to keep abreast of the mine threat and by 2005 they had a new sonar suite and anti-mine ROV capability. Being made out of GRP the class also has a great advantage of no corrosion to the hull and it is likely that the Hunts will remain in service for quite some time yet.

The twelve strong River Class were far simpler vessels than the Hunt Class, being built of steel and being based on a commercial oil rig support vessel. While steel is not normally used for MCMV, unless it is the very expensive non-magnetic variety, this was not a handicap for the Rivers. They were designed to use the Extra Deep Armed Team Sweeping (EDATS) system in deep water to destroy the Soviet ‘Cluster Bay’ ASW mines that would be placed on the bottom. The ships would operate in pairs or groups of pairs in formation with the EDATS sweep following the contours of the bottom to cut mines from their moorings. The mines would then be destroyed on the surface by gunfire. The EDATS sweep was also capable of influence sweeping, where it would make noise to simulate a high-value target, generally a NATO submarine.
While the 10th MCM Squadron was based at Rosyth, apart from HMS Blackwater, the ships were assigned to support individual RNR Divisions. They would generally spend much of their year detached to the divisions’ locations training RNR sailors. While generally excellent ships in the role they had been designed for by the early 1990s the RN had become to believe that they were essentially rather limited ships and began to decommission some of the class, selling them abroad. Of the eight ships that remained in RN service four would be assigned to the Northern Ireland Squadron with regular crews to act as patrol vessels. The remainder would enter ‘active reserve’/extended readiness. The NI Squadron ships would retain their MCM capabilities and had the benefit of now being based in one of the most important locations needing their services in wartime – the Clyde. In the longer term the RN planned to replace the River Class with Sandown Class vessels, which it believed were more than capable of hunting the mines the Rivers had been built to sweep, or if necessary sweep them using the ‘SWIMS’ system (see below).

What would become the ‘Single Role Minehunter’ had started as the ‘Utility Mine Hunter’, a cheap ship which would have had a short-fat hull with many of its equipment in standard containers on the main deck. The UHM design had many advantages and could have been built in some numbers. Basic hulls could even have been pre-positioned abroad and been made operational by simply flying out the necessary containers. Interestingly the initial idea had been to build a cheap minesweeper to relieve the Hunt Class for hunting duties, however the power needed to pull a sweep was found to preclude any ‘cheap’ design.
When the MoD got hold of the UHM they added a new cannon, sonar and various other ‘bells and whistles’ and the design became the Sandown class ‘Single Role Minehunter’. Arguably while the UHM was an excellent design and a good idea the RN really needed what became the Sandown. In 1989 only HMS Sandown herself was anywhere near completion, entering the final stages of fitting out. However, the RN planned to order enough of the class to completely replace both the Ton and River Classes; Saudi Arabia had also placed an order for six vessels. Interestingly the Saudi ships would be equipped to also act as sweepers. The Spanish Navy would also operate the Segura Class, which was based on the Sandowns. [NOTE 1]

HMS Abdiel (N21) was the RN’s only dedicated minelayer, a capability in peacetime used for training, however in wartime she would be capable of laying defensive minefields if necessary, although the RN’s stocks of mines was generally limited to some Second World War era mines and the submarine laid variants of the Stonefish. She was also equipped as an MCM Command ship and it was in this role that Abdiel had deployed to the Persian Gulf with Hunt Class from 3rd MCM Squadron. In 1988 she was relieved in this role by the survey ship HMS Herald and returned home to be paid off into reserve. While she would be retained in reserve for a few years she was finally decommissioned in 1992, her role as a command ship taken over by ships from the survey fleet. Her minelaying role was handed over to the ‘Castle Class’ OPV and vessels from the RMAS.

Developments 1990-2005.
During the 1990s the RN’s MCM force would transition to being mainly equipped with the Hunt and Sandown Classes. The later would continue to effectively roll off a production line as the navy sought to make them the back-bone of the MCM force. Meanwhile developments were taking place that would add a radically new type of MCMV to the RN.
In the 1960s and 1970s the RN had extensively trailed hovercraft in a number of roles, including that of mine-warfare. The eventual results of those tests had been a brief period of operating hovercraft as patrol vessels in Hong Kong and the introduction of the Griffon Class to the Royal Marines. However, the idea of using them as MCMV never quite went away. Indeed, at the end of the 1990s when Hoverspeed decided to withdraw its SR.N4 ‘Mountbatten’ class hovercraft the RN decided to acquire them and convert them to act as prototype MCM(H). Fortunately an MCM(H) design based on the SR.N4 already existed and it proved relatively easy to turn the ‘Mountbatten’ Class into the Stork Class. Equipped with all of the same MCM equipment as the Hunt Class the Storks rapidly proved that an MCM(H) could be highly effective, both as a hunter and in the route surveillance role where they would pull two side-scanning sonars and essentially find where mines were and were not. However within a couple of years the age of these vessels began to tell and they became increasingly unreliable, all but one of them reducing to reserve at Faslane. Only HMS Bittern remained in commission, being used as a general runabout between Faslane and Northern Ireland. [NOTE 2]

While the Stork Class had been undergoing testing an updated design based on the SR.N4, the Black Swan Class, had begun construction. Incorporating lessons learned with the Storks, for example they used more modern, more fuel efficient gas turbines and incorporated jacks to facilitate servicing on beaches, the class entered service between 1999 and 2004. There had been a brief controversy in the navy as to whether the MCM(H) should be designated low-flying aircraft or fast warships; indeed the craft operated by the Inter-Services Hovercraft Unit in the 1960s and 1970s had both aircraft serials and warship pennant numbers. In the end the Fleet Air Arm made it known that it was not very keen on the idea of something the size of the Black Swan Class being designated as aircraft as it might mean they would end up being paid for out of their budget, which settled the issue.
One issue identified during the testing of the Stork Class was that they were very loud and therefore not popular neighbours with either their service colleagues, or the public. Indeed it is said that submariners at Faslane complained that they could still hear the Storks when they were well out to sea and had submerged (it is suspected that this story is apocryphal but reflects wider attitudes to the MCM(H)). With this in mind the RN chose to base the new 12th MCM Squadron at Pembroke Dock in West Wales. This not only reduced transit times to the Western Approaches and Irish Sea, but was also driven by lack of space at Devonport, Portsmouth and Rosyth, and also kept them away from major population areas, thus keeping complaints from the public to a minimum. Indeed very quickly the locals around Pembroke Dock began to take a pride in ‘their’ squadron.

The Black Swan Class were soon to prove their worth, assisting the Hydrographers by carrying out surveys of the Irish Sea and Western Approaches with their side-scanning sonars, a tasking that not only helped to update charts but was also good training for one of their wartime roles. The class also assisted the HM Coast Guard and RNLI in rescues on a number of occasions, being capable of reaching a casualty faster than anything other than a helicopter and without the same weather restrictions.

The basing of the Black Swan Class in West Wales was to reflect another change in the basing of RN minor warships. From 1999 onwards the RN started to forward deploy small composite ‘squadrons’ of patrol ships and MCMV to Peterhead, Tilbury and Hull, having decided that the three regular MCM Squadrons and the Fisheries Protection Squadron spent far too much time in their home ports away from public eye. This not only improved coverage of the vulnerable East Coast ports but also increased RN visibility in parts of the country away from its traditional heartlands. The basing of fishery patrol vessels in the ports with the vessels they protect has helped engender a feeling of respect, as the fishermen increasingly feet that they were protected by ‘their’ ship, and not harassed by the government, as was a frequent complaint previously (although in Scottish waters the Scottish Fisheries Protection Service retained primary responsibility for their task). Individual MCMV and patrol ships would regularly rotate in and out of these composite ‘squadrons’ so as many of them as possible got to know these ports and made contact with the men of the fishing fleet, something that was to bear fruit a few years later. RN sailors were often invited to spend a few days aboard fishing boats learning how they operated and the invitation was returned by the navy to their fishing colleagues. It became quite common for MCMV and patrol ships to return to port with a cargo of fish given to them by the boats they had encountered on patrol.

New equipment.
In 1990 the primary MCM equipment of the three classes in service were various sweeps, including the Oropesa Sweep, and the French designed PAP 104 and 105 anti-mine ROV. This ROV was capable of identifying tethered and bottom mines and placing a charge to destroy them, or cut the mooring wire so that the mine would float to the surface to be destroyed by gunfire. The PAP 105 would soon in effect become the ‘main armament’ of the Hunt and Sandown classes and would also be employed in time by the Storks and Black Swans. Even though the PAP 105 was a very effective ROV and would continue to be used by a number of MCMV the RN began to introduce a more modern ROV from 2001 onwards, the West German designed Seafox. This came in three versions – the Seafox-I, which was equipped to inspect suspect objects, Seafox-C, which was a ‘fire-and-forget’ anti-mine variant with a 1.4kg shaped charge warhead, and a training version. The great advantage of Seafox-C over the earlier PAP 104/105 was that an MCMV could rapidly deal with several mines at once, greatly speeding up clearance.

One other piece of equipment the RN introduced in the late 1990s was the appropriately named ‘SWIMS’ (Shallow Water Influence Minesweeping System), which included elements of the Australian Minesweeping and Support System emulation sweep (AMSS). SWIMS and its Australian parent AMSS were capable of emulating almost any vessels that the operator chose, so long as its acoustic and magnetic signature were on record. While the RAN would use a variety of ships, including its fleet of Auxiliary Mine Sweepers (AMS) the RN would use remotely controlled Combat Support Boats to tow ‘SWIMS’. This would allow Hunt or Sandown MCMV to sweep minefields without actually entering them, something the West Germans had been doing with their ‘Troika’ system for many years. To demonstrate how effective ‘SWIMS’ was in even the most challenging conditions in 2002 the RN chose to carry out a demonstration sweep off one of the entrances to Scapa Flow in Orkney. For some reason, possibly because the operator was bored, the two ‘SWIMS’ systems being used were set to emulate a Second World War era destroyer escorting a Queen Elizabeth Class battleship. Those observing the test were somewhat surprised when ten minutes into the test there was a massive explosion aft of one of the CSB, which carried on with its sweep, demonstrating the robustness of the sweep. It was later determined that the offending mine had been laid by the Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine sometime in the 1940s and had been patiently waiting for a target that fitted the magnetic signature of a warship from that period. By 2005 most RN MCMV had the Seafox ROV and all carried ‘SWIMS’.

Minesweeping and the Auxiliary Minesweeping Service.
In 2001 with it being clear that the world situation was deteriorating the RN undertook a review of its MCM capabilities. While it was satisfied that it had a highly effective hunting capability the review expressed concern that there were very few dedicated sweepers and all of those had a specific task to perform. The review noted that in wartime there would be a need for simple, relatively cheap vessels to carry out regular sweeps of naval bases and commercial ports. While the existing MCMV were capable of this role with either their own sweeps or SWIMS it was not considered cost-effective to use hugely capable (and expensive) vessels in this job. The review noted that the RAN planned to use a fleet of Auxiliary Mine Sweepers (AMS) operated by the RANR to carry out this job, thus freeing up its more sophisticated MCMV for other tasks and overseas deployments. The RN thus despatched a fact-finding mission to Australia to explore how the AMS would use the AMSS to keep Australian ports open.
The result of the mission was that the RN procured the full AMSS system, which became ‘SWIMS-B’, the original system being retrospectively designated ‘SWIMS-A’.

It was rather fortunate that the RN still had the trawler Northella, which had previously operated as a minesweeper during the Falklands War, under charter for navigational training. This charter was about to expire when ‘SWIMS-B’ was procured and was hurriedly extended to allow her to test the system under British conditions. With a few minor modifications ‘SWIMS-B’ was found to be highly effective and most of the systems were placed in storage for a ‘rainy day’.

However, ‘SWIMS-B’ would not be any use without suitable vessels to tow it. For many years the RN had maintained a list of suitable vessels, mainly trawlers and Oil Rig support vessels, which could be converted to minesweepers and danlayers in the event of war. It was now that the informal contacts that been made with the fishing industry bore fruit. The RN’s MCM force was able to make formal approaches to the skippers and owners of suitable trawlers about using them as minesweepers. With the pride an affection that the fishermen now had for ‘their’ ships they responded very positively, most holding the attitude that they ‘owed’ the RN the favour of helping them when they needed. There was no way with all of the other pressures on it that the RNR would be able to man the trawlers that would be requisitioned in time of war, instead the fishermen were asked to man their vessels, which on the whole they agreed to. To formalise their position the trawlermen were enrolled in the RNR as ‘sponsored reserves’, their skippers being given reserve commissions as sub-lieutenants and lieutenants, RNR, depending on age and experience. Trawler skippers were soon seen proudly wearing RN peaked caps with their usual attire. Trawlers and oil rig support ships assigned to the AuxMSS also flew a blue ensign, rather than the traditional ‘Red Duster’, a right conferred on a ships master if he was an officer in the RNR. As the trawlermen were solely enrolled in the RNR for the minesweeping role they were not expected to take part in normal RNR training. They were exercised in the sweeping role regularly in the few years left of peace and quickly demonstrated an aptitude for using ‘SWIMS-B’.
In peacetime the collection of trawlers and oil rig support vessels that had been assigned the role of minesweeping and marking swept channels was designated the Auxiliary Minesweeping Service. The AuxMSS was allocated an official crest, which its ships proudly wore; the crest and variations of it also appeared on a number of unofficial items, including t-shirts, fleeces and mugs. On Transition to War the AuxMSS would become the 11th MCM Squadron, which had last been activated to operate five requisitioned trawlers in 1982. In practise the variety of vessels of the AuxMSS tended to be controlled at local port level and the staff of the 11th MCM Squadron were used along with those of the 3rd and 10th to command UK based MCMV.

When Transition to War was announced signals were sent out to the variety of vessels of the AuxMSS. Their skippers opened sealed orders that were kept in safes aboard and proceeded to the ports that they had been assigned to. There they were fitted out as minesweepers with the ‘SWIMS-B’ system, or as danlayers, and had small-arms installed (use of small-arms had been one of the few parts of ‘normal’ RNR training that the AuxMSS had gone through). Once operational the AuxMSS began its job, very quickly sweeping up some very clearly Soviet laid mines. With the critical world situation the government chose at that moment to not reveal that these mines had been found.

The MCM force as of 2005.
The RN MCM force was slightly larger than it had been in 1989, numbering fifty-four vessels in five classes as follows:

13 Hunt Class
8 River Class
17 (+3) Sandown Class
4 Stork Class (3 in reserve)
12 Black Swan Class

The thirteen Hunts were now all assigned to the 3rd MCM Squadron, based at Portsmouth, the 17 Sandown were split between the 1st, 3rd and 10th MCM Squadrons at Rosyth and the 8 Rivers were split between the Northern Ireland Squadron and 10th MCM Squadron. The three Stork Class laid up at Faslane were not assigned to a squadron, while the fourth, HMS Bittern was attached to the Northern Ireland Squadron. The twelve Black Swan Class were assigned to the 12th MCM Squadron at Pembroke Dock. While they were not dedicated MCMV mention should also be made of the RN’s survey ships, which were equipped to act as H.Q ships for MCMV. As of 2005 the survey fleet included the following ships that could support MCM operations:

1 Scott Class
3 Echo Class
1 Roebuck Class

The RN’s medium-term plan for its MCM force was to continue to build Sandowns until there were enough to completely replace the remaining River Class, allowing for the complete re-equipment of the 10th MCM Squadron. It was also recognised that it was likely that the Northern Ireland Squadron would soon be able to stand-down, freeing up four vessels for re-assignment to the RNR. In the longer-term the RN was studying whether the role of MCMV could be combined with that of patrol and survey vessel. With the growth of unmanned MCM vehicles the parent ship no longer needed to be able to operate from within a minefield, indeed the RN had in 2004 demonstrated that a Type 23 frigate could operate the ‘SWIMS-A’ system effectively. However, as the survey and patrol fleets are relatively young and the MCMV fleet having the advantages of longevity that GRP confers it is not clear when any combined replacement would enter service.

The MCM force at war.
The RN MCMV’s war started on 14th April 2005 more than a week before hostilities broke out and did not end with the armistice. Indeed, the force is still dealing with the legacy of the war. As soon as mobilisation was announced the MCMV began to deploy to their designated war stations – for the 1st MCM Squadron this was the fjords of Norway where its staff would take command of the NATO Mine Warfare Force. The 2nd was taking its turn commanding the RN’s MCMV in the Persian Gulf and would soon also take command of USN and RAN vessels. The 3rd, with HMS Scott serving as command ship deployed to Gibraltar and were soon busy keeping the vital eponymous straits clear of mines. This left the 10th, 11th and 12th in Home Waters. In accordance with pre-war planning the staffs of these squadrons took command of whatever mine warfare assets happened to be in the sectors they were assigned to cover.

The Home Waters based MCM Squadrons were assigned the following areas:

10th MCM Squadron – the North Sea as far south as the estuary of the River Tees, and north to cover the waters around Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, before continuing south to the Clyde Approaches and the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland.

11th MCM Squadron – the remainder of the North Sea, English Channel as far west as Land’s End and the Scilly Isles.

12th MCM Squadron – the rest of the Western Approaches and the Irish Sea as far north as the North Channel.

When the Republic of Ireland became a belligerent, these sectors were altered slightly to add the Irish coast to them the 11th taking on some of the area in the Western Approaches previously assigned to the 12th.

Almost from Day One of mobilisation the MCMV brought up a number of what were clearly Soviet mines in both British and Norwegian waters. As observed above the British government chose to keep this fact secret, something complicated by the fact that a BBC crew filming the series Trawlermen happened to be aboard a Peterhead based AuxMSS trawler that brought up a mine. After some too and fro between Downing Street and the Chairman of the BBC the Corporation agreed to keep the story of the mine secret so long as they were guaranteed an exclusive when the time came for the news to break. Examination of these mines showed that they had been set to go active after a certain date, which NATO took to be the planned day for the opening of hostilities. Quite why the Soviets took the risk of laying mines in British territorial waters in peacetime is unclear, but it seems they underestimated how rapidly the RN would assemble its MCM forces and perhaps they underestimated the abilities of the MCMV themselves.

The majority of the MCM Force’s war was unglamorous but dangerous – the Hunts and Sandowns dealt with a variety of sophisticated and simple mines. That none were lost is a testament to their crews and design of the ships themselves. The Black Swans were kept busy in their route surveillance role, and on occasion inadvertently ‘sweeping’ acoustic mines. The Rivers and the AuxMSS kept up an unceasing patrol of river estuaries and port approaches using the EDATS and ‘SWIMS-B’ sweeps. Here there were casualties as the Soviets added anti-minesweeper mines to their fields. HMS Dovey was lucky to only be badly shaken by one such mine she encountered in the Clyde Approaches, several of the AuxMSS were less lucky, a number of trawlers and oil rig support vessels being sunk, generally with heavy losses of life.

The sailors of the MCMV took attacks on their AuxMSS colleagues very personally and did their utmost to help hunt mines that posed a threat to the sweepers. They were also very impressed by the stoic dedication to their task that the one-time trawlermen and oil workers showed. Losses of ships did not once bring a halt to sweeping operations and no British port was closed for any length of time. It was probably quite fortunate that none of the crews of the Soviet vessels that laid the mines even fell into the hands of the RN and RNR MCMV crews, so angry were they at the deaths of their AuxMSS colleagues.

Conclusion.
The MCM Force is, more than a decade after the war, still something of a ‘Forgotten Fleet’, its achievements and bravery unsung. However, without these small ships none of the other larger more glamorous warships could have done their jobs, not to mention that no merchant vessels would have been able to deliver their cargoes. Fortunately, the navy itself did not forget the bravery of the MCMV and AuxMSS, with those working in mine countermeasures being amongst the most highly decorated group within the British armed services.

Due to the popularity of the TV series Trawlermen the work of the Auxiliary Mine Sweeping Service was better known amongst the British public. The BBC had started the series with the intention of following a number of trawlers in their day jobs. As fate had it all of the vessels chosen were members of the AuxMSS and the camera crews caught both the Transition to War and much of the AuxMSS’ wartime service. Emphasising the danger the vessels faced was the fact that one film crew was killed along with the men of F/V Ocean Venture when she was blown up. One of the on-board cameras survived, but the footage it captured has never been publically shown.

As observed at the beginning of this work the end of hostilities did not lead to the end of the work of the MCM Force or lead to much of a reduction of the dangers they faced. The AuxMSS would continue sweeping their assigned beats for a month after the war until enough RN MCMV returned to Home Waters and they were released to their day jobs. In recognition of its brave wartime service the Queen conferred a Royal Warrant on the AuxMSS in 2006, it becoming the Royal Auxiliary Mine Sweeping Service (RAuxMSS).

Today the RN Mine Counter Measures force remains the envy of other navies and remains hard at work around the world. With the lessons of World War Three behind it the Royal Auxiliary Mine Sweeping Service is still exercised once or twice a year, both in British waters and those of her near neighbours. Since the war a number of other navies have followed the Australian and British lead and have formed auxiliary mine sweeping units based on their fishing fleets, or using sweepers based on trawlers.

In retrospect, however, it may be that World War Three was the zenith of the sophisticated specialist mine warfare vessel. It had already been demonstrated before the war that a frigate could control the ‘SWIMS-A’ system and during the war Combat Support Boats using it were also controlled from the shore. The successor to the current system, ‘SWIMS-C’ is in the development stage, incorporating a number of improvements to the sweep itself as well as using a semi-autonomous vehicle to pull it. The future Type 26 ‘City’ Class frigates have been designed so that they can carry at least two of the ‘SWIMS-C’. The RN is also investigating the proposed ‘SWIMS-D’, which would be similar to the current B model, but also pulled by a larger semi-autonomous vehicle. As observed above it is also likely that the existing MCMV, patrol and hydrography fleet will be based by a single hull design capable of being configured to meet whatever role is needed.

In the future it seems that robots, rather than expensive ships and priceless sailors will carry out mine warfare. Perhaps that is as it should be.

*

1) DK Brown discusses the design process of the Utility Mine Hunter and the Sandown Class in Brown, DK & Moore, George, ‘Rebuilding the Royal Navy – Warship design since 1945’ (London 2003), pp.142-143.

2) See Brown & Moore, pp.140-141. Brown also discusses the MCM(H) in Brown, DK, ‘The Future British Surface Fleet – Options For Medium-Sized Navies’ (London 1991), pp.152-157.