US New Generation of Air Dropped Naval Mines

[bobbymike]

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/get-ready-china-russia-american-super-mines-are-coming-14120

But when a high-altitude B-52H bomber dropped a Quickstrike naval mine on September 23, 2014, something extraordinary happened: instead of falling into the sea below, the mine glided to a splashdown 40 nautical miles away. The reason? The mine had wings.

It was a hybrid weapon, a combination of a Quickstrike mine and JDAM, or Joint Direct Attack Munition, the clever concept that attaches fins and GPS guidance to conventional “dumb” bombs, thus turning them into cheap guided bombs. This Quickstrike mine had been fitted with JSAM-ER, which slips actual wings on to the weapons, enabling it to glide long distances. The new weapon, designated GBU-62B(V-1)/B Quickstrike-ER, has a range of 40 nautical miles when launched from 35,000 feet.

 

[TomS]

Long overdue. The Navy has been talking about this idea since at least 2000/2001.


The full paper is here:


http://www.au.af.mil/au/afri/aspj/digital/pdf/articles/2015-Mar-Apr/V-Pietrucha.pdf


The one drawback is that the base mine for this the Mk 62 Quickstrike, which is just a Mk 82 500-lb bomb with a mine TDD attached. So it's not exactly the biggest bang you could get out of this sort of system. Purpose-made bottom influence mines tend to more HE and the larger ones have as much as an order of magnitude more.

 

[SpudmanWP]

The JDAM-ER wing kind can be used on any JDAM, up to the big 2k bombs.

 

[TomS]

I'd really like it to work on the Mk 65 Quickstrike, which is a 2,300-lb thin-wall type that is not based on an aerial bomb. But that might be too much to ask for.

 

[lastdingo]

Self-deploying long-range (>50 nm) mines based on slow-moving electric torpedoes are more of a "super mine" than a simple bottom mine.
Their deployment won't be noticed, their point of impact cannot be read out of radar logs, and when a narrow path was cleared by minehunters the self-deploying naval mine can relocate into that supposedly safe lane.

Something like gliding Quickstrike may be fine for closing a harbour entrance for a few hours or days, not so much for a general mining campaign.

 

[TomS]

Yes, losing the Improved Submarine-Launched Mobile Mine-- a Mk 48 propulsion stack with two mine warheads -- was a major hit. (The money all ended up in Afghanistan for counter-IED work.) But the prep time to get a submarine minelaying mission in place is a bit of an issue -- lose a week or so to get a sub off patrol, reloaded with mines, and then back to the target area, all to lay at best 30-40 warheads. A single bomber sortie flying from CONUS can lay down at least that many mines in a day.


A powered version of Quickstrike might be more useful. From the article I linked above:

Powered Standoff


Quickstrike-ERs are launched from medium to high altitude and glide to their destination. With this weapon, mine laying in the vicinity of long-range SAM systems can be conducted only by low observable aircraft or at some distance from the threat. Adding an engine to Quickstrike-ER expands the employment envelope, especially in defended airspace. Raytheon demonstrated the feasibility of doing so by fitting a TJ-150 turbojet from the miniature air-launched decoy into an AGM-154C1 joint standoff weapon, extending the range from 70 to 260 nm. Similarly, Boeing has performed a wind tunnel test of a powered JDAM-ER using a compact turbojet. Called a powered JDAM (P-JDAM), the proposed system is expected to have a range of well over 100 nm when launched from medium altitude. With this kind of distance, a powered Quickstrike (Quickstrike-P) could be launched from beyond the limits of most long-range SAM systems.


Increased standoff is not the only benefit of a powered mine. An engine allowing the weapon to maintain level flight makes a 40 nm low-to-low shot possible, permitting the shooter and the weapon to remain below the radar horizon up to release, even over water. Assuming a mast-mounted radar (such as a Type 381 Sea Eagle) at a height of 80 feet, an ingressing aircraft at 500 feet remains below the radar horizon until 38 nm. For the weapon itself, if it can fly at an altitude of 50 feet above the water, it will not break that same radar horizon until 20 nm.31 For a surface-mounted radar, the horizon closes in to 12 nm or less. This low-flight capability would allow a Quickstrike-P to come very close to defended targets without risk of intercept—and in some cases, without risk of detection from a surface threat.

You could also mix in mines with a conventional JDAM attack in a port, for instance. It would take a pretty diligent post-strike analysis to determine that half the inbound "JDAMs" ended up in the harbour intentionally, not due to a mission planning mistake or equipment failure.

 

[aonestudio]

B-1B Lancers Support the U.S. Navy Live-Fire Mine Exercise

Load crew members from the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron transport a Mark-65 Quickstrike mine at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., Aug. 24, 2022. The Quickstrike is a family of shallow-water, aircraft-laid mines and the Mark-65 is a 2,000-pound mine used against surface and subsurface craft...

www.dvidshub.net

(U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Quentin K. Marx)

 

[jsport]

Launch Mines from the Stratosphere

Mine Warfare Essay Contest—Second Prize, Sponsored by the Mine Warfare Association. The Navy and Marine Corps must consider balloons for mine warfare.

www.usni.org