Navy to use underwater drones to help clear Iranian mines from Strait of Hormuz
The Navy plans to use underwater drones in the coming days as part of its new effort to clear Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command announced Saturday.
The strait is a critical maritime chokepoint for oil exported from the Middle East, and reopening it to more shipping traffic has been a top objective of President Donald Trump amid the shaky ceasefire between the United States and Iran that began a few days ago and paused Operation Epic Fury, the military name for the American war effort against Tehran that kicked off Feb. 28.
Last month, the New York Times reported that Iranian forces were using small boats to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz. On Friday, the outlet reported that the Iranians cannot locate all the mines they placed and lack the capacity to remove them, citing U.S. officials.
Centcom, which is overseeing Epic Fury and other American military efforts in the Middle East, announced in a press release Saturday that its forces had begun “setting conditions” for clearing the devices, stating that the guided missile destroyers USS Frank E. Peterson (DDG 121) and USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) “transited the Strait of Hormuz and operated in the Arabian Gulf as part of a broader mission to ensure the strait is fully clear of sea mines previously laid by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.”
In a statement, Centcom commander Adm. Brad Cooper said: “Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce.”
The press release stated that additional U.S. forces, including “underwater drones,” will join the clearance effort “in the coming days.”
The post didn’t identify the unmanned underwater vehicles that will be involved.
The Navy is investing in a variety of UUVs and other robotic systems as a means of increasing the sea service’s capacity and keeping sailors out of harm’s way.
One underwater drone that could potentially be employed for mine clearing operations in the Strait of Hormuz is the Knifefish, which was built by General Dynamics and is designed to be deployed off Littoral Combat Ships as part of the vessel’s mine countermeasure mission package.
“The Knifefish UUV provides the mine warfare commander with enhanced mine-hunting capability by detecting, classifying and identifying both buried mines and mines in high clutter environments,” according to a company website about the platform.
“Knifefish’s job is to detect, avoid and identify mine threats, reducing the risk to personnel by operating in the minefield as an off-board sensor while the host ship stays outside the minefield boundaries. Knifefish also gathers environmental data to provide intelligence support for other mine warfare systems,” per the website.
In 2023, the Navy declared that its new mine countermeasures mission package had reached initial operational capability,
“An integrated suite of unmanned maritime systems and sensors, the MCM MP counteracts mines in the littorals while increasing the host vessel’s standoff distance from the threat area. Embarked with the MCM MP, [a littoral combat ship] or a vessel of opportunity can conduct the full spectrum of detect-to-engage operations (hunt, neutralize, and sweep) against mine threats using sensors and weapons deployed from the MCM Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV), an MH-60S multi-mission helicopter, and associated support equipment,” the service said in a release at the time.
Last year, USNI News reported that the Navy had deployed the first two operational LCS mine countermeasure packages from San Diego with the USS Santa Barbara and USS Canberra.
A Centcom fact sheet on Epic Fury released a few days ago did not include Littoral Combat Ships among its list of assets that have played a role in the Iran war.
