Sea Control - Sea Control 285 - Naval Mining and Undersea Warfare with David Strachan

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

Links1. "MEDUSA is U.S. Navy's Secret Mine-Laying Submarine," by David Hambling, Forbes, June 4, 2021.2. Chinese Mine Warfare: A PLA Navy 'Assassin's Mace' Capability, by Andrew Erickson, Lyle Goldstein, and William Murray, China Maritime Studies Institute, Naval War College, 2009.3. Hammerhead, Orca, SSGN, by David Strachan, Strikepod Systems, June 1, 2021.4. "Operation Eminent Shield: The Advent of Unmanned Distributed Maritime Operations," by David Strachan, CIMSEC, April 9, 2019.5. "Prepare For Autonomous Undersea Conflict," by David Strachan, CIMSEC, September 23, 2019.

Hey folks, Jared here. This week we have John Frerichs hosting. He's joined by David Strakin, a regular SimSec contributor to discuss the history and evolution of naval mining and undersea warfare. This episode was edited and produced by Alexia Bulagi. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec podcast network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pot of our own brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Support. Guten Tag, shipmates, and welcome back.

Today, we will discuss a June 2021 Forbes magazine article that discusses the future of offensive and defensive mining in the maritime domain. Today, as our guest, we have David Strand, who contributed to the article and regularly writes on the topic. David, can you please give a brief personal introduction? Sure thing. Thanks so much, Jared, and to everyone at Sea Control for the opportunity to be here. It's very exciting to be here to be able to talk about mine warfare. So I'm David Strand, and I'm a defense analyst focusing on unmanned undersea systems.

I do business as StrikePod Systems, where I imagine what I call micro-naval warfare, which is the application of increasingly small autonomous maritime systems to naval operations. In a nutshell, I guess you could say I help the defense, intelligence, and policy communities anticipate the threats and opportunities that these systems will present. David, thank you for that. And the article we're going to focus on today is entitled Medusa is U.S. Navy's Secret Mine-Laying Submarine. It was published in Forbes in June of 2021. I believe sea mines will and will continue to have to be a credible threat for decision makers on both sides of any future conflict.

The article is an easily digestible historical background of naval mining, in addition to what it could look like in the future. The article will be linked on the CIMSEC website, in addition to David's other writings on the topic. Before we begin, I'll remind the listeners that all opinions expressed are our own and not reflective of any institutions with which we might otherwise be associated. David, you briefly addressed it, but before we dive specifically into some of the mine warfare, what sparked your interest in this topic? So my main focus is unmanned undersea systems of all kinds, vehicles, sensors, weapons, platforms, and sea mines are definitely a part of that family.

They're an unmanned undersea system. And in fact, depending on your definition of autonomy, they're an autonomous one and a lethal autonomous one at that. They're smart weapons. They're able to sense, process data, and they're autonomous in that they're able to make decisions without human intervention. So for all the debate and concern regarding lethal autonomous weapons in air and land warfare, navies around the world have been deploying and countering lethal autonomous weapons for decades. I'm particularly interested in mine warfare given the kind of renaissance that's happening right now in that space in terms of research and development, and also what's really the convergence of mines and AUVs, autonomous underwater vehicles, and torpedoes. The convergence of torpedoes and mines has been underway for quite some time, beginning really during the Cold War.

And now with the development of AUVs, we're seeing the potential for mine warfare to really be revolutionized. And what were once called weapons that wait are now going to become mobile and even smarter. And so when you're talking about a weapon that could be quite effective or even decisive when it's a static weapon, imagine now what could be possible with mobility and greater autonomy. me. And also, I guess I'm fascinated because even though mines have played a pivotal role in armed conflict, for whatever reason, they just don't garner the attention or maybe even the respect that other aspects of warfare do. Mines aren't sexy, like hypersonics or tactical nukes, yet they're cheap and relatively easy to deploy. They're an incredibly effective C-denial weapon, and quite honestly, I think they could be decisive in any future conflict, hopefully in

deterring it. David, I want to follow up with an additional kind of angle on that, is at least usually in the U.S. military, undersea warfare is very secretive and hush-hush. You know, talking with some of the undersea warfare operators, it's difficult to get any sort of information out of them. So why do you feel it's important to discuss it more openly, and how are we able to do that? I mean, despite it being very opaque and secretive, undersea warfare plays an important an integral role in the naval operations of not only the United States, but our allies and partners as well as our adversaries. Russia and China and even Iran and North Korea all possess highly capable, if not formidable, undersea warfare capabilities. Russia and China both are aggressively

expanding their presence in the undersea with both manned and unmanned systems, and not only within the water column, but on the seafloor as well. And as sensor energy communication and autonomy continue to advance, there's going to be an ever-increasing adversary presence there. So we're kind of witnessing the birth of a new discipline of warfare, which is called subsea and seabed warfare, or SSW, a kind of broadening of undersea warfare to include operations on or originating from the ocean floor. And so this is being enabled by kind of a more commercial endeavor, which is being called the Internet of Underwater Things. And so just like we have the Internet of Things here on dry land, where virtually everything is network connected,

there will also be networks of connected devices under the surface of the ocean, like vehicles and sensors and energy stations and data transfer nodes, not only for defense purposes, but also for commercial and scientific ones. And this is going to allow more and more companies and organizations to access and operate in this environment. And so I think you're going to find that undersea operations in general are going to become a bit more commonplace and mainstream and out in the open due to the fact that there will be so many actors employing so many different kinds of systems. So the secrecy surrounding naval operations will, of course, continue. And I don't believe we're going to see any kind of like transparent ocean anytime soon. But I do believe

it's going to become increasingly challenging for navies to operate in this domain. So I think In light of all this, I think it's important to be, you know, kind of discussing undersea warfare, maybe more openly, and in a way that still preserves the secrecy and the integrity of the discipline. I appreciate that insight. And maybe to, you know, give our listeners something more tangible. Is there anything in recent naval history that you can provide some examples where maritime mining or this, you know, some of the new technology has been employed? Well, sure. So I think to understand where we are today with mine warfare, you kind of have to understand that they've been around for a long time. They really have been used in one form or another in nearly every armed conflict for the past, well, I don't know, two, two and a half centuries. They can be traced back to the 14th century where explosives are packed into wooden boxes and sealed with putty to create drifting mines. And this sort of similar technology was used by David Bushnell, who's best known for inventing the turtle submarine, by packing explosives into wooden kegs and floating them down the Delaware River to engage British ships in Philadelphia Harbor. During the Civil War, it was the same thing.

Wooden barrels of explosives were frustrating the Union Navy in Mobile Bay, which prompted, of course, the famous exclamation by Admiral David Farragut, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. And in fact, mines were called torpedoes back in the 19th century. And so moving into the 20th century, the Russo-Japanese War is sort of when mines became to be leveraged as a serious sea-denial weapon. And actually, there were so many mines used in that conflict that it prompted what is really the only codification of international law regarding mine warfare, which is called Hague Convention No. 8 of 1907, which is called Relative to the Laying of Automatic Submarine Contact Mines. And so moving into World War II, you see mines starting to take on a more strategic role. And when you have something like Operation Starvation, which was the use of thousands of airdrop mines to cut off critical shipping to Japan, it was so effective that some experts actually believed that had it been used earlier in the war, that the Pacific War might have ended sooner than it did. In the post-war period, you have mines being laid in Wonsan Harbor during the Korean War, which successfully delayed a UN amphibious operation in Vietnam, the mining of Haiphong

Harbor. Operation Pocket Money was credited with helping to force the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table. And during the late Cold War, we see mines being used in several short little crises in the Middle East, including Libya's mining of the Red Sea, and what was known as the tanker war, which was Iran's mining at the Persian Gulf, and that actually resulted in a mine strike on the USS Samuel B. Roberts, causing her to nearly sink and then prompting Operation Prey Mantis in retaliation. In Desert Storm, a rocky mine laying forced coalition forces to abandon plans for an amphibious landing, and mine strikes also resulted in severe damage to the USS Princeton and the USS Tripoli. So, by the way, in the post-war period, mines have either sunk or damaged more

U.S. warships than any other weapon. And so this is all to say that mine warfare has been playing a significant role in armed conflict throughout war and in history. But in the post-Cold War period, with no peer competitor, and with the U.S. pivoting to the war on terror and projecting power from the sea, the Navy's mine warfare capability fell by the wayside. And so a great power competition is back. And the reason why mines matter today is because with great power competition comes the possibility of great power conflict. And I believe that mines would almost surely play a pivotal role once again. And so here we are at the point of trying to develop a new offensive mine warfare capability in the U.S. Navy. So getting after the aspects of great power

competition, we've got a diverse international audience, but can you tell me more about the U.S. Navy's mine warfare capability and how it compares to some of the U.S. adversaries? Sure. So because, like I mentioned, you know, for the last 20 plus years, the U.S. Navy has been largely unopposed at sea. So without the threat of a large scale conflict with a peer competitor, there wasn't really a need to maintain or develop our offensive mine warfare capability, especially with so many competing budget priorities. And so it kind of fell into a state of atrophy. But in recent years, there's this kind of renaissance that's happening in mine warfare, both in mine countermeasures and in the offensive realm. At the moment, though, there are only two types of mines in the U.S. Navy's inventory.

The first is the Quickstrike, which is an airdropped bottom mine that's essentially a general-purpose bomb that's swapped out its fuse for a target detection device. There are three classes of the Quickstrike, a 500,000, and 2,000-pound. The 2,000-pounder can actually be fitted with a JDAM kit, Joint Direct Attack Munition Kit, which enables it to be airdropped from higher altitudes at standoff range and flown into the drop zone, which makes it much easier to seed minefields from the air while still enabling precision guidance. Otherwise, laying quick strikes could be a really dangerous endeavor because it requires an aircraft like an F-18 or B-1 or B-52 to fly low and slow, which would make it extremely vulnerable to enemy air defenses. And the second mine in the current inventory would be the submarine-launched mobile mine, or SLMM,

which is essentially an electrically-powered torpedo that's launched from a torpedo tube at standoff range and then transits to a programmed location and comes to rest on the seabed to act as a bottom mine. The SLMM was actually almost canceled, but was rescued by then-CNO Greenert. But the current status of the SLMM is somewhat unclear to me. It seems to be in the process of being improved or upgraded or even cannibalized for something called Medusa, which we'll get to in a minute. In addition to what's currently in the inventory, there are two mines under development, the Hammerhead and the Clandestine Delivered Mine, or CDM. The Hammerhead is kind of a reincarnation of a Cold War mine, which was called the Captor. It's basically what's called an encapsulated torpedo mine. It's an anti-submarine weapon that's moored to the seabed and designed to be clandestinely

deployed by a UUV. The line weight, and while using a range of sophisticated sensors to detect either the acoustic or magnetic or pressure signature of a passing enemy submarine, then launches a torpedo to engage it. We don't really know much about the CDM, but it seems to be a pretty straightforward bottom mine, a little bit smaller than a 55-gallon drum, and it's fitted with advanced technologies to enable remote command and control. Basically, you can turn it on and off with an acoustic signal from a remote location. It appears to be designed for delivery by UUV, possibly the ORCA XL UUV,

extra-large UUV, but it also has undergone testing with the Navy's large UUV, which is called Snakehead. And also, according to the recent DOD budget proposal, it could also be deployed by a vehicle called Medusa, which stands for Mining Expendable Delivery Unmanned Submarine Asset. The Navy actually refers to Medusa as a medium-class UUV, but based on its description in the budget, to me, it sounds like an improved SLMM, which has supposedly been in the works for while now, and which also has the capability to deploy two mines, with those mines being CDMs. As far as U.S. adversaries, estimates kind of vary in terms of the total inventory of sea mines, but it's pretty large. I've seen as many as a quarter million mines for Russia,

80,000 for China, 50,000 for North Korea, and between 3,000 and 6,000 for Iran. Now, many of these are fairly unsophisticated, either moored or drifting contact mines, or maybe somewhat unsophisticated influence mines, but they still can pose a huge threat. Russia and China both possess more sophisticated mines, like encapsulated torpedo mines, or what are called rising mine, and they're equipped with different kinds of sensors, acoustic, magnetic, and pressure. China may have as many as 30 different variants of sea mines in its inventory, and what's interesting about the Chinese is that they've really demonstrated a particular interest in mine warfare. And so we can expect that in any future conflict, mines will definitely play a significant

role in planned operations, People's Liberation Army, Navy. There's actually a really great resource out there on the subject by Andrew Erickson and Lau Goldstein of the Naval War College called Chinese Mine Warfare. So for any of your listeners who might be interested in learning more. It's really a worthwhile read. It was published in 2019. I'm sorry, 2009. But I believe it's still just as timely and relevant today, especially with regard to Chinese thinking on the subject. Thank you for that. And for the listeners, we'll link that Chinese mine warfare publication as well. As someone who's spent the majority of my time in the military fighting on the ground, you paint a fairly terrifying picture for going out on a boat. So I'm going to question

next time I'm offered the opportunity to go on any sort of maritime vessel. In the Forbes article, you discussed the Orca as well and other unmanned undersea mining capabilities. Can you explain that to the listeners and describe how they contribute to the fight? So the Orca is the U.S. Navy's extra-large unmanned undersea vehicle, or XLUUV. It's currently under development by Boeing and Huntington Ingalls with the first two vehicles, I believe, expected to reach the fleet sometime in 2023. I believe there are currently a total of five on order, but the expectation or maybe the recommendation is that the Navy may end up procuring as many as 50 or more. It's about 85 feet long, has a diesel electric power plant that enables a range of about 6,500 miles and an

endurance of several months. So it's basically an unmanned midget submarine designed to be launched from a pier or the well deck of a ship. And at least in theory, it could help augment the submarine force by enabling a more widely distributed undersea capability for things like ISR and ASW. But one of its core missions will be payload delivery using a large payload bay, which will carry and deploy a wide range of payloads to the seabed, anything from sensors or energy stations or mines and related infrastructure. It could also be used potentially as a logistics platform to clandestinely resupply expeditionary advanced bases or EABs. But apparently the initial mission for the XLUUV is the clandestine deployment of

ASW minefields. And in fact, the Hammerhead is specifically intended to be deployed by the ORCA. So back in June, I published a report called Hammerhead ORCA SSGN, which touches on the ORCA's mine landing mission and was inspired by testimony before the House Armed Services Committee by Vice Admiral James Kilby. During his testimony, Admiral Kilby made some comments about the Navy's XLUV program and how its initial mission was expected to be mine lane. He also made some comments regarding the challenges of the XLUV, and that got me to thinking that the Hammerhead might be delivered before the Orca is really mission ready. And so what happens if the Hammerheads are urgently needed, but the delivery platform is delayed? So I wrote about how they

could potentially be deployed from an SSGN, sorry, that's a guided missile submarine, using divers to deploy them from dry deck shelters, and also how they might be structured in kill boxes to maximize their effectiveness. So that report caught the eye of David Handling, who's a reporter and freelance journalist who covers unmanned systems, and he asked for some input on an article he was writing for Forbes on Medusa. So if you read the description of Medusa in the budget proposal, you really get a sense that this is a kind of a follow-on or next generation SLMM. It's 21 inches in diameter, like a heavyweight torpedo, and it'll be capable of long-range clandestine standoff operations. And so this program suggests to me that the Navy is

smartly hedging its bet on the XLUV by upgrading a proven effective platform to provide for some kind of standoff clandestine mine lane capability in the event that something needs to make it into the fleet before Orca and the Hammerhead are ready to go. It's not specifically meant to target submarines like the Hammerhead, which is what the Hammerhead is intended for, but it can certainly pack a punch in shallow water outside ports or in choke points and could really pose a dilemma for an adversary attempting to transit some of the narrow passages, say, for example, in the South China Sea, or attempting to cross the Taiwan Strait. So in theory, they could even be pre-positioned in international waters, as long as they're inactive, which would technically, at least

according to the U.S. interpretation, be within the bounds of international law. David, that's a great feed-in into the next question. You mentioned some of the concerns with artificial intelligence to your direction, but how does international law, as well as international perception factor into the deployment of mines? When it comes to sea mines, international law is pretty murky and unsettled. For the United States, there really are two sources of guidance on this. There's Hague Convention 8, which I mentioned earlier, and there's a publication called the Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, which is a joint publication of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and it is

more or less a compilation of generally accepted principles regarding the conduct of both peacetime and wartime maritime operations. Hague 8 pertains specifically to the use of sea mines during time of war and was written in response to the high numbers of mines laid during the Russo-Japanese War, like I mentioned, and the need to protect innocent shipping. And so even though it was put forth in 1907 and was written in the context of the technology of the time, which was floating or drifting contact mines, it still applies today. Haygate is pretty specific about how mines are to be deployed. For example, drifting contact mines or moored mines that break loose from their moorings are supposed to become inactive within one hour of being deployed. They cannot

be deployed off the coast or ports specifically to interdict commercial shipping. There are some other factors there as well, and there's a lot of room for interpretation with Haygate. In many ways, it's been overtaken by events, actually. Technologies and tactics have changed pretty dramatically, but it still serves as a legal framework for mine warfare today. The commander's handbook incorporates Hague 8, but it also goes into detail about peacetime mining operations. And for me, this is when things get really interesting, because when you read the passages on the peacetime deployment of mines in international waters, the handbook is pretty emphatic about the placement of armed mines being a no-no, right? But you need a pretty compelling

reason for doing so. But if a state does take that action, you need to provide public notification and you need to provide an on-scene presence to warn off innocent shipping. But when laying unarmed or what are referred to as controllable mines in international waters, those restrictions seem to go away. And in fact, the bar is set pretty low, only that they not unreasonably interfere with shipping. And since they're controlled and they don't pose a hazard to navigation, there's no requirement to provide notice. And so for me, it isn't hard to imagine scenarios where we could see mines clandestinely pre-positioned in international waters well in advance of the outbreak of armed conflict. The technologies available today, mines are fully

controllable, able to be laid while inactive, and then remotely activated should armed conflict arise. So I don't think it's particularly hard to imagine mines being pre-positioned in the South China Sea or in the approaches to Taiwan. I think it also has implications for places like Guam or the Arctic, the GI-UK gap, Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, or even the continental United States. But of course, if a clandestine minefield were to be discovered in international waters, even if it were technically within the bounds of international law, it would likely be perceived as a highly, highly provocative move, and there would surely be considerable political fallout, and any international legal arguments would most likely just be irrelevant. But

nevertheless, to the extent that the rules-based order still matters in maritime operations, and that international law has the potential to be used as both, you know, a sword and a shield, So I think it poses some really intriguing possibilities. Definitely more possibilities and more fear for me as I look at getting out on a boat and transiting any sort of water space. David, I'm going to combine a couple of questions, but what is the timeline to bring some of these capabilities to the warfighter? And what are the known challenges with regards to bringing these capabilities? use? So the Hammerhead RFP was released, I believe, in February of this year, and 30 prototypes are expected to be delivered sometime in fiscal 23. It's actually under what's called a maritime

accelerated acquisition, which streamlines the timetable and enables it to be fielded faster. The first ORCAs are also supposed to be delivered around the same time. So the timetables for both systems are pretty much in alignment. I imagine the hammerheads will be on time and on budget, given that there's already a foundation of knowledge there for encapsulated torpedo technology. And it'll just be a matter of integrating the advanced sensor communications and energy modules. Plus the effector, the Mark 54 torpedo is already in the inventory. The Orca, however, could face some delays, given that it's incredibly complex. And when you're talking about deploying a high-value unmanned system into contested areas, you really want to make sure that

this thing is working properly. And listeners may recall when the Chinese seized a U.S. Navy battlespace glider back in 2016, causing quite a bit of a diplomatic uproar. And that was a small, relatively benign AUV. So I imagine we don't want to have history repeat itself with the XLAUV. So the question then is, what if the hammerhead is not ready? Or what if the hammerhead is ready? I'm sorry, but the orca isn't. The Cold War captor had an airdrop version, but I'm not aware of any airdrop variant of the hammerhead under consideration. I suppose it could theoretically be deployed over the side of a ship in a similar manner to some commercial and scientific seabed infrastructure by attaching a drogue to slow it and stabilize its descent maybe, but of course that wouldn't be exactly clandestine. Or maybe it could be deployed from a torpedo tube. Something along those lines could be fashioned as well. But the Navy theoretically could have Medusa to fall back on, right? But there's still a runway of several years there. A prototype is expected this year, but a competitive award for production won't happen until 2023. So I'd say there's definitely a sense of urgency in fielding a next generation clandestine mining capability, particularly when there's so much talk of a potential forced reunification of Taiwan coming sooner than later. In terms of the challenges, the main challenges are technological. Communicating in the undersea domain is extremely challenging, although advancements are happening all the time. And along those same lines, navigation is also extremely challenging as there's no ongoing access to GPS in the undersea.

So for a platform like Orca, this can be solved by surfacing for a GPS fix, right? But for the SLMM or Medusa, which are meant to be launched and transit directly to a target location, this isn't exactly as straightforward. Energy is critical as well. The amount of energy consumed by sensor and processing systems in these mines isn't necessarily huge, but if they're going to be deployed for any real length of time or pre-positioned, there needs to be a reliable high-density energy source. The range of the Mark 54 torpedo is also a factor. So the manner in which hammerhead minefields are constructed

will have to take this into consideration. In my report, I proposed a variety of scenarios in which hammerheads are deployed in kill boxes to maximize their effectiveness. And obviously, the longer the range, the larger the coverage area of the kill box. For the ORCA, I'd say autonomy is absolutely the critical path, as it will be expected to operate clandestinely for very long periods of time in contested environments at an extreme depth without any human intervention. And of course, I'd say another challenge comes from Capitol Hill. I think Congress is pretty leery of pouring money into programs that have yet to really demonstrate any value to the fight. That's, you know, they're purely conceptual kind of still at this point in the game. And so I think that's, you know,

it's certainly been proven the case with the large USB program. And I imagine it'll also be the case for the XLUV as well, if things don't pan out in the timeframe that everyone's expecting. So David, if you could be CNO for the day and you could change one thing in the mining acquisition or employment of mines, what would you do or change or reprioritize? So it's interesting. When CNO Gilday entered on duty in 2019, CIMSEC actually put out a call for a very short, I think 500 word, were called Notes for the New CNO. And I submitted one entitled Prepare for Autonomous Undersea Conflict, where I laid out what I believe was the future of undersea warfare, which was the introduction of a wide range of unmanned, autonomous, attritable systems, and that this had the potential to give rise to a new form of conflict. I didn't explicitly refer to it as the future of mine warfare, but in hindsight, I guess that was essentially what I was writing about. And so I guess I'd say my recommendation is, it's kind of general, but along the lines of that note, and to the extent that the acquisition process is informed by anticipated threats, I'd say that we need to prioritize high numbers of redundant, attritable vehicles with swappable payloads that can be used in a variety of missions.

And I would also say that we need to keep focusing on the enabling technologies, communication, navigation, energy, and autonomy, and also to keep engaging private industry for ideas on how to bring these technologies to bear in naval operations. You know, there's a really vibrant ecosystem out there of marine robotics companies, as well as a lot of companies that specialize in the related technologies. So I would say to keep engaging these companies and make it as easy as possible for them to get their ideas in front of Navy decision makers. David, thank you. Unfortunately, that is all the time we have for today. Before we wrap, though, where can listeners connect with you on social media or on the Internet? And what are you working on next? First of all, thanks so much again for having me today. This is a really exciting opportunity. I would say so you listeners could reach me through my website, strikepod.com. I'm also fairly active on Twitter at StrikePod. I also operate a website called UUVBase.com, which provides current intelligence on UUVs and related technologies and also accesses, you can access some databases on platforms and research. In terms of what I'm working on next, I'm drafting a submission to the CIMSEC U.S. Naval Institute Fiction Contest, which I believe the deadline is maybe September 15th. And I'm also working on a tabletop war game called Subsea Command that simulates subsea and seabed warfare and autonomous undersea conflict. Thanks, David, and I look forward to seeing those subsequent products come out.

To the listeners, I highly recommend that you check out David's writing on both mining specifically, but also more broadly, micro-undersea warfare in general. Thank you for listening, and until next time, guten tag! Thank you. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to get out of here.