UK's Royal Navy buys £13m mine-blasting robot boat The Royal Navy has acquired a search-and-destroy robot boat intended for destroying mines. A first for Britain's naval service, the roboat, built by German firm Atlas Elektronik's UK subsidiary, drives itself around the high seas towing three auxiliary boats fitted with electro-acoustic transmitters. The transmitters generate …
However, back in the day I was a field service engineer fixing PCs in Norfolk. One day I had a customer just like the gentleman in the clip, and he revealed he had recently come across a sea mine which had washed up on the beach.
"What did you do?" I asked, thinking he'd say he phoned the police.
"I 'it it with me 'ammer" was his reply.
""I 'it it with me 'ammer" was his reply."
Mt father's first command in the last Anglo-German misunderstanding before the current one was a minesweeper. I was surprised to learn that when you had rounded up the mines on the surface, correct procedure was to retire to a safe distance and shoot them with the object of causing them to fill with water and sink. They very rarely went bang.
Many WW2 minesweepers relied on rather primitive technology. At least this one doesn't require coaling.
Good thing the RN has some minecraft to keep it clear.
They might clear some of the mines, but given the narrow channel it wouldn't be a challenge to block the strait using well armed small boats, mini and full size subs and air, sea or land launched missiles.
But the weapon of choice would probably be a remote controlled fast attack boat loaded with explosives, which the Iranians and their proxy forces having been trialling for a year or two now, with some degree of success. Any large vessel won't be able to get out of the way of a fast attack boat even if they see it, so that then involves escort vessels (and for the Iranians, more targets).
They might clear some of the mines, but given the narrow channel it wouldn't be a challenge to block the strait using well armed small boats, mini and full size subs and air, sea or land launched missiles.
Indeed. Given the volatility of their cargo, I imagine the crews of any ships trying to head east would be *very* wary of anything with the potential to make flamey/explosiony things happen.
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@Robert Helpmann?? Howdy.
I could certainly try, but whether it would thought in any way entertaining by all is bound to be questioned for there's nowt as queer as folk.
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Why do we need this expensive follies when we can just send out pot smokers and their ilk in a rowing boat ?
That folly costs significantly less than a modern minesweeper, costs less to operate and nobody dies if things go wrong as they quite often do around large explosive objects.
First time I see RN buy something useful. Probably someone had the wrong drugs by mistake.
First time I see RN buy something useful. Probably someone had the wrong drugs by mistake.
Maybe. But that bit about "electro-acoustic pings than set off mines from a safe distance" seemed to negate the usefulness. If I were planning on mining shipping lanes, I wouldn't be wanking about with tricksy, "digital" mines that can be dealt with so easily, I'd be using good old fashioned magnetic, pressure and contact mines with precisely zero digital content. And I'd be making the casing and mooring rope out of plastic to make detection difficult (or just free float them, for top quality havoc and implausible deniability).
But what you really want in the face of this thing is a good mix of technologies. Some fancy-modern, others (possibly ancient and simple) that will elude this device.
I'd agree, but I think that the key point is that the developed world looks to technology as a means of doing more (or the same) with less. The obvious response is to use exactly that against them, by relying on the attacker to use expensive high tech against low cost disposable tech. Western defence planners simply don't get this, preferring to waste money on a handful of expensive complex and often vulnerable assets that lack flexibility for the types of action that seem credible - whether all out war between super powers, long distance military adventures in dusty lands, or containment of regional belligerents.
So in Iraq and Syria the RAF have to send out a £100m fast jet flown by a £16m pilot, and launch a £200k missile to take out a £5k insurgent pick up truck with a machine gun on the back. Likewise, attacking an aircraft carrier battlegroup these days would be a straightforward matter of using the cheapest missiles that the attacker can fire in volume and would be credible enough to attract a response from the missile defence escorts - those escorts often have advanced missiles,. but usually in limited numbers mounted in cassettes or canisters that can't be reloaded mid-engagement. So exhaust the 48 missiles on a Type 26, and the ship is useless - at which point the attacker launches the real strike missiles against the carrier. And whereas Western forces use large, complex and expensive platforms for almost all their weapons, the Iranians could exhaust the escort defences with missiles fired from cheap, disposable attack boats (that could be relatively invulnerable to mines set for a 4,000 tonne plus ship). Those initial missiles don't even need to be a capable threat to the ships - just big enough to look like an approaching anti-ship missile. So at say £100k per armed "decoy" attack, it costs the enemy a mere £5m to fully drain the resources of a £1bn out-turn frigate, and then it is open season on the £6-10bn carrier.
Western planners use the term asymmetric warfare for this, and study it at great length. But to judge by the equipment that is then ordered, you'd assume they'd never heard of it, and were still planning everything around bringing convoys of food and guns across the Atlantic in the face of a submarine peril.
In British strategic terms, the biggest threat posed to our national interests by sea mines is what would happen to the economy if a naughty state closed a vital UK imports sea lane using mines.
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Do we have any readers who have in the past found themselves sailing where a minesweeper doing its thing wants to go?
I'm guessing slightly more pressing issues than the finer points of various rules may have occupied their thoughts
'I wish I hadn't worn the whites today' - for starters
'So they'd probably rarely or never operate out of sight of a mother ship.'
I'd agree, I'd imagine the idea would be get the mother ship as close as you feel comfortable to the minefield and then deploy the robot mine hunter. If anyone wants to try hijacking a vessel engaged in actively hunting for mines do crack on...
Last time I looked, going North from Qatar will LAND you in Kuwait, Iraq or Iran, you have to leave the Persian Gulf first to get to Suez. That's why it's called a Gulf.
Oh! The Somali pirates are less of a problem nowadays because the French and an ex Royal Marine friend of mine have shot a lot of them.
I believe that the Russians and Chinese have been a little more forceful
Indeed. "We put them on a boat and let them go".
Err.. you forgot to mention that the boat was without an engine, 50+ miles from the nearest coast and half of them had holes in various places courtesy of the marine "rescue squad".
the technique of planting explosives in the sea to blow up passing ships has evolved a fair bit since the First and Second World Wars
Magnetic mines appeared during WW2.
Indeed. Most technological advances were done by the Germans in WW2. Little has happened since.
New materials, new electronics, etc - sure. But nothing revolutionary new and all of them are still vulnerable to the good old torpedo boat minesweeping method as used by both Russians and Germans in WW2. I am surprised that it has not been automated - it is a prime candidate for that.
"The transmitters generate pings that trigger modern digital mines at a safe distance from either the roboat flotilla or actual human-carrying shipping."
Is range-gate capture really that impressive? The flyboys have been doing it for years, and to things that are moving a damn sight quicker than a stationary mine...
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