Carnal Reason

High tech:

Traditionally, minehunting has been the purview of small, slow ships equipped with sonars and magnetic mine detonators. The ships would spot the mines and clear them themselves or call in divers to disarm them. In recent decades, modified helicopters towing special sleds have joined the fray — and so have highly-trained dolphins working with Navy handlers. Additionally, from 1996 to 2002, a former amphibious assault ship served as a mine warfare command vessel. (It has been replaced on an experimental basis by a catamaran of commercial design.)

While effective against large, dense minefields in predictable places — such as those planned for the U.S. seaboard by the Soviet Union during the Cold War — traditional forces are too slow and flimsy for rapid deployment to unfamiliar waters to counter more mercurial mine threats.

The Navy’s solution is to integrate minehunting systems onto its large, fast Arleigh Burke -class destroyers and the future fleet of nimble LCSs (and, eventually, Virginia -class submarines) while transitioning the airborne counter-mine force from oversized Sikorsky MH-53E Sea Dragons to smaller Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawks that can fly from the surface ships’ heaving decks.

Several Burke destroyers have been fitted with the Lockheed Martin AN/WLD 1(V). Remote Minehunting System, or RMS, which Price describes as “a diesel [unmanned] system, with the bulk of its body underwater, that tows a side-scanned radar” for detecting mines.

Low tech:

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child’s neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. “In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. “Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”

Posted on August 26th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: war