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Anonymous03/13/26, 20:07No.64966789LCS, MCM, and the USN
Setting aside all the shitposting about the class for the moment, do people think the LCS is actually capable of carrying out the MCM mission if there is actually call for it (an obvious contemporary example is Iran mining the Strait)?
Assuming your answer is "no," do you think the Avengers would do a better job? Either in their current state or back in their "prime."
Additionally, what are the general opinions on the MCM capability of the USN? Is this even a capability that is still as important as it used to be, or is it going the way of CAS and the A-10 and being slowly sidelined?
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Anon03/13/26, 20:40No.64966921
Alright, well, I was hoping for some kind of discussion. I'm going to bump with another interesting picture in the hope someone who originally missed the thread wants to join in.
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Anon03/13/26, 20:44No.64966933
you said no shitposting allowed, this is what you get.you might have done better if your op image was one of those anime sexy boat women things too just fyi.
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Anon03/13/26, 20:47No.64966949
Cannot defend itself and does everything with a satellite operated drone....
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Anon03/13/26, 20:47No.64966950
Why don't we just flood the Straight with a thousand Littoral ships?
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Anon03/13/26, 20:55No.64966977
Honestly I wish I knew more to discuss this matter further because it seems interesting but I'm not enough of a boatfag to speak authoritatively. Speaking from purely baseless conjecture though I don't think naval mines will go extinct anytime soon. Mines are cheap, unjammable, and just an easy way to restrict enemy mobility on land so I fail to see how that doesn't apply to their naval counterparts. So to answer your second question, yes minesweepers are still just as important as they've ever been. To your first, I don't know enough about the LCS or the Avenger to answer
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Anon03/13/26, 21:07No.64967026
I hope so because pulling the Avengers seems like a badly timed move, unless it was determined they were too vulnerable to act by themselves and the Navy didn't want to attach escorts to them.
The LCS were a mess at the start but they have been given some neat toys more recently. They're already doing light shore attack and air defense, so if the anti-mine package works then that would be another plus. They could also be directly engaging the vessels going out to lay them. Which is another issue: how many ships/subs does Iran still have and how many mines can they put out?
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Anon03/13/26, 21:20No.64967057
The LCS is a good mine clearer in that it doesn't have to get so close to the mines but it's slow and we only have three that are equipped for mineclearing. Ideally I'd hope they take lessons learned from LCS mineclearing ops and use them to make a better dedicated ship for it.
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Anon03/13/26, 21:23No.64967062
>but it's slow
?????????????????????
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Anon03/13/26, 21:38No.64967099
Looking at Wikipedia just to see what minesweepers are actually in service, and there aren't as many as expected.
Seems not many navies are prioritizing it because they would prefer anti-ship weapons to be aimed to avoid unnecessary casualties. And preemptively mining an area is taken as a hostile act anyway.
Only countries like Iran, Yemen, or their proxies seem to be interested in trying modern area denial like that. Because it suits their economic war goals in trying to frighten civilian shipping. So mine removal in this conflict is actually important, even though that alone might not convince companies to transit the strait.
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Anon03/13/26, 23:28No.64967439
>do people think the LCS is actually capable of carrying out the MCM mission if there is actually call for it (an obvious contemporary example is Iran mining the Strait)?
Yes, they might need protection from AShMs if Iran still has any left, but they're more than capable of minesweeping while defending themselves from speedboats and shaheds.
>Assuming your answer is "no," do you think the Avengers would do a better job? Either in their current state or back in their "prime."
Absolutely not, the Avenger class is an unarmed, wood-hulled scow that requires divers to jump into the water and disable mines manually. The LCSes are capable of detecting and disabling mines remotely without putting the ship or crew at risk.
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Anon03/14/26, 01:46No.64967907
>20+ years and a Jesus-Billion Dollars later
>the war it was designed for finally pops off and its a no-show
Is this the final humiliation for the navy's boondoggle?
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Anon03/14/26, 03:50No.64968273
The ESB is just the better tool for the job. As long as we can protect our sea dragons, the ESB can demine the whole strait.
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Anon03/14/26, 19:32No.64970094
It's important to understand that LCS does not sweep the mines itself like the Avengers could. It carries a helo and unmanned craft that detect and sweep the mines while the LCS stays over the horizon. The real question is whether the minesweeping "module" can do the job. While the module has reached IOC, Grok says that some of the key components and upgrades are still in development, including a new sonar and a magnetic/acoustic influencer for the unmanned surface vehicle.For Ye Olde floating WWI mines, you can just send a helo and shoot at them until they explode, even if the newfangled MCM module stuff isn't available and working. Bottom mines are a completely different story; you basically have to either trick them into going off, or somehow deliver an explosive device right next to them and physically destroy them. The only solution LCS has is the Archerfish, which is in production right now. Casual searching didn't tell me what the LCS ships in the Gulf right now do or don't have. And, of course, none of this stuff has been really tested.So, the answer is... maybe?
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Anon03/14/26, 23:21No.64970729
>Additionally, what are the general opinions on the MCM capability of the USN? Is this even a capability that is still as important as it used to be
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-isnt-sending-minesweepers-to-middle-east-pm-takaichi-says
Yes, it's important and the US capability is shit. Japan is one of the only western aligned nations with a decent mine warfare force and the US has asked them to send minesweepers to basically every modern conflict that the US had a hand in
>Korean war
>Vietnam war
>Iran-Iraq war
>First gulf war
>Second gulf war
>GWOT
Now 70 years on from the Korean war, the US is still asking Japan to do minesweeping operations because apparently its impossible for the US or any expeditionary allies to maintain any kind of mine warfare force. Meanwhile Japan is actively commissioning multiple minesweepers a year, maintains multiple MCM command ships, and actively build MCM as one of the primary roles of the Mogami's. It's so insanely retarded to completely neglect mine warfare and then think one of the main countries that doesn't want anything to do with the sandbox will just be chomping at the bit to send minesweepers at a moments notice.
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Anon03/15/26, 01:12No.64971044
Most USN mine clearance is done by a single squadron of USN CH-58s. Those guys are great but that's literally all our capability. Shit we retired the herons what like 28 years ago? More money for the marines and air force though.
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Anon03/15/26, 02:44No.64971290
Easy to just shrug your shoulders in peacetime military, then oops our brand new minesweepers don't workAnd their whole mission is performed by the single helicopter they carry?
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Anon03/15/26, 04:16No.64971583
Not exactly on topic, but if that Seaway vessel can carry four Avengers, can a civilian cargo ship like the Universe-class container ship (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe-class_container_ship), carry non-M1 main battle tanks like say, T-72s?
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Anon03/15/26, 09:26No.64972119
>do people think the LCS is actually capable of carrying out the MCM mission if there is actually call for it (
yes, but very expensively
>do you think the Avengers would do a better job?
no, they have a worse self-defence fit, cmon man, that's fucking obviousMCM at sea, like MCM on land, is going to be a job done after raping every artillery, drone and airstrike capability the enemy has
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Anon03/15/26, 10:55No.64972289
wasn't "fighting iran in this region" exactly what the LCS was designed for? What's it good for if it can't do that?