As President Donald Trump warns Iran against using mines to threaten oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy’s specialized minesweepers are anchored thousands of miles away in the United States and have no plans to use them if a war rages on.
As U.S. natural gas prices continue to soar, Trump told The Truth Society on Tuesday that Tehran “immediately” clear all mines it has planted in vital shipping lanes and do so “immediately” to prevent the Iranian military from suffering “consequences… of unprecedented proportions.” The warning came after multiple news outlets reported that Iran had begun mining in the strait. The strait is a narrow waterway that provides the only access to the high seas from the Persian Gulf.
He also threatened to use drone strikes to “permanently eliminate any ship trying to mine mines in the Strait of Hormuz,” and minutes later boasted in another post that he had struck 10 Iranian “inactive minelayers.”
But it is unclear to what extent the United States now has a reliable capability to search for and clear any mines that have been deployed or subsequently dropped in the strait, now that the ships the U.S. Navy has relied on for decades for this purpose have been cleared from the Persian Gulf region.
On Monday, a large cargo ship M/V sea hawkwas spotted arriving in Philadelphia with the quartet the Avengers--class mine countermeasures ship stationed at the U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and served as the Navy’s frontline deterrent against mining operations in the Middle East until last fall, when the last ship, the U.S. Navy Destroyerretired.
Just weeks before President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes against Iran, four Avengers-class minesweepers were removed from U.S. bases in Bahrain (X/@WarshipCam)
Four wood and fiberglass containers, including destroyer, U.S. Navy sentinel, U.S. Navy dexterity, and the U.S. Navy gladiator, Built in the 1990s, the class of ships was built in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was first deployed to the Persian Gulf region during Operation Desert Storm.
Over the next four decades, the United States forward-deployed minesweepers in Bahrain to deter the use of mines in the Gulf, out of concern that Iran could use the minesweepers to effectively block the narrow choke point through which a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes each year.
But with his retirement in September, this long period of service came to an end. destroyer, only four left the Avengers-An active-service class ship, its home port is Sasebo, Japan.
Even as tensions between the United States and Iran have continued to rise over the past few months, the Trump administration has continued with plans to bring the vessels back to the United States for disposal in January of this year, with a contract to transport the semi-submersible cargo ship from Bahrain to Philadelphia in January.
Photos released by the Pentagon on January 21 show sea hawk Carrying four decommissioned minesweepers and escorted by the US Littoral Combat Ship Canberra – A class of beleaguered ships that the Navy is rushing into service to replace minesweepers.
The cargo ship, carrying four decommissioned minesweepers, is escorted by the USS Canberra, a littoral combat ship that will be responsible for clearing mines in the Strait of Hormuz if needed (U.S. Navy photo)
It arrived in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the same day Iran reportedly began laying mines.
According to the Navy’s own press release, independent-class Canberra It is the first ship of its kind to be equipped with a mine countermeasures mission package and is designed to replace the Avengers--class minesweeper and found a purpose as a Littoral Combat Ship, a ship designed to operate in shallow, coastal waters with a minimal crew.
The decades-long Littoral Combat Ship program has been plagued by cost overruns and questions about the ships’ viability in a combat situation, but it has been reported that U.S. Naval Academy News The U.S. Navy canceled plans to decommission them, opting instead to repurpose them for mine clearance work and support ships for unmanned systems.
When asked whether a single Littoral Combat Ship equipped with a minesweeping equipment package would be enough to replace four dedicated minesweepers, a U.S. defense official told reporters The Independent: “We do not discuss the operating status of our assets or speculate on future operations to protect operational safety. “
But Matthew Buckley, a former U.S. Navy pilot who served for a significant period in the Middle East in the 1990s, tells us independent The U.S. airstrikes against Iran are likely in execution of a long-standing plan to eliminate the need for minesweepers by eliminating Iran’s ability to lay mines.
“When I was flying combat sorties to Abraham Lincoln in the mid-90s, you know, we were flying a southern surveillance no-fly zone mission over Iraq. Guess what we were doing during the shutdown? We were planning strikes against Iran… One of the big strikes I planned was against Iranian mining facilities deep in central Iran,” he said.
he added the Avengers-Class ships may not necessarily be able to clear potentially deployed mines at all times because they are “not built for dynamic environments.”
“Obviously, the Littoral Combat Ship does have its problems, but it does have a lot of weapons, and it’s more suited to combat and littoral… mine clearance,” he said.