Navy rethinking mine-warfare strategy: mine countermeasures to shift from destroyers to high-speed catamarans.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.

The Navy's new submersible mine hunter, scheduled to be deployed in 2005 on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, will be tested on a high-speed catamaran as early as next year.

The Navy will take advantage of these tests to see if it can find a new home for the Remote Minehunting System. Even though the official plan remains to deploy the RMS aboard destroyers, the surface-warfare community has complained that the mine-hunting equipment takes up too much space and labor, draining resources from combat functions. Typically, the mine-sweeping and hunting missions have been conducted by dedicated ships.

The RMS is just one among other mine countermeasure systems that the Navy will test on a fast, ferry-style vessel to be leased this fall.

The Navy expects to lease a so-called High Speed Vessel Experimental Craft 2 (HSV-X2) in October, so it can begin testing the ship's potential mine-warfare capabilities. The vessel also will serve as a platform for other experiments by the Navy Warfare Development Command, the Navy Mine Warfare Command and the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

In a mine-warfare role, the HSV will be a surrogate command-and-control ship, a mission that used to belong to the USS Inchon. The Inchon was decommissioned in June.

In addition to the RMS, the Navy also would test aboard the catamaran the Long-Range Mine Reconnaissance system, which was designed to be deployed from attack submarines. "We are looking at the feasibility of deploying them and employing them from a high-speed vessel craft," said Rear Adm. Robert Sprigg, head of the Navy Warfare Development Command.

The HSV is an attractive platform, because it offers an uncluttered environment to test technologies, he said in an interview. The ship is an "open-box," where pre-packaged systems can be rolled on and off, depending on the mission need. "It's very flexible," he said.

The Navy already has been conducting experiments with the HSV-X1 catamaran, called the Joint Venture (National Defense, April 2002). The U.S. Army leased the HSV-X1 for multi-service experimentation, under a two-year, $20 million agreement with the ship's manufacturer, Incat, of Australia. Another catamaran was leased from Austal, another Australian firm, for testing by Marines in Okinawa, Japan.

For the HSV-X2, the Military Sealift Command is soliciting proposals from contractors and expects to award a lease contract in October.

The HSV is a modified car ferry. The U.S. military services plan to...