Page 565 - The ROV Manual - A User Guide for Remotely Operated Vehicles 2nd edition

564 CHAPTER 21 Practical Applications
time using the ship’s MCM sonar, send out the vehicle (while tracking it with the ship’s sonar) to verify the target, and plant the charge. Once the charge is planted, the vehicle is retrieved and the charge (previously installed by the vehicle on the mine) is then acoustically detonated. This will, hopefully, destroy the mine by either sinking it (thus placing it outside the path of ship- ping), destroying its detonation capabilities (i.e., damaging the detonation mechanism or flooding the mine casing with seawater, thus rendering the explosive charge inert) or setting off the mine’s warhead while maintaining a safe distance. Disarming a live sea mine is an EOD function.
An older technique of floating the moored mine has essentially disappeared. With this method, the ROV or diver attached an explosive charge to the cable of a moored mine to sever the mooring, thus floating the mine to the surface. The mine was then destroyed with small arms fire or with the deck gun. However, the last scenario any ship captain wants is to have a mine floating somewhere on the surface. Even if the mine could be located, the mine could be lost while floating to the surface, thus exacerbating the problem. Therefore, the best mission plan is to destroy the mine in place.
To neutralize the mine in place without “cooking off” the mine’s warhead, two basic techniques are used: (1) shaped charge/projected energy or (2) projectile. The shaped charge, while probably destroying the mine, definitely destroys the vehicle. Once the vehicle (and, hopefully, the mine) has been destroyed, the mine must be reacquired to verify that it has been neutralized (a painfully tedious process after the bottom has been stirred from the explosive charge). The projectile method allows the vehicle to be reused repeatedly, thus saving the time to reacquire the target for battle damage assessment as well as the repeated transit time for the vehicle from the launch platform to the minefield.
The long chess game of mine disposal ends when the mine has been positively characterized as inert. Under the one mine/one vehicle concept of operation, the mine must be reacquired after the mine neutralization vehicle warhead discharge to conduct a battle damage assessment to verify elimination of the threat. The time and cost for the operations platform to reacquire the target is significant and may vastly outstretch the cost of the mine neutralization vehicle itself. Clearly, a reusable vehicle is preferable to an expendable vehicle from a cost and time perspective.
The change in the mine neutralization method, from explosive charge to projectile, may provide the following benefits:
• Lower environmental disruption, allowing for increased stealth
• A range of sizes available to fit the mission requirements
• Reusability of the vehicle
• Long loiter time in minefield, reducing vehicle transit time to operations area
• Immediate muzzle reload with automatic rifle mechanism
• Rapid magazine reload upon retrieval of the vehicle
• Lower risk from possible sympathetic discharge of the mine’s warhead
• Environmentally friendly method of mine neutralization
• Immediate battle damage assessment after delivery of the projectile to the mine
• More operational use and training due to reuse of the vehicle
• Built to standard communications protocols for rapid platform switching
• A range of weapons attachable to the vehicle, allowing scalable response
• Lower cost structure to expendable mine neutralization vehicle
• Rapid prototyping with COTS components.