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The Royal Australian Navy is currently in a transition period for sea mine clearance as it moves from crewed to uncrewed systems, according to new comments from Chief of Navy vice admiral Matt Buckley.
Vice Admiral Buckley made the comments during a press conference unveiling new payloads for the Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle; such as 12-deployable sea mines, logistics caches and launched swarms of Altius uncrewed aerial vehicles.
The Chief of Navy and Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy attended the event with Professor Tanya Monroe, head of Defence Science and Technology Group, at Anduril Australia’s factory in Sydney on October 19.
Vice Admiral Buckley confirmed that the Navy is progressing towards a more autonomous system focused mine clearance format.
“A little bit like we're doing with the Ghost Shark and autonomous systems, we’re in the middle of a transition now between crewed and uncrewed mine countermeasures,” he said.
“The whole concept now that we’re taking forward is that we actually don’t put the ship into the minefield, we use a various array of craft to deploy autonomous systems to be able to defeat the mines, whether they're mines that we've proactively put in place or mines that perhaps others might use.
“Essentially it's a transition to autonomous systems, that's consistent with what's going on elsewhere in the world at the moment, particularly with our AUKUS partners and NATO allies.”
The demining capability of the Royal Australian Navy has been drawn to the surface lately with concerns around the retirement of four low-magnetic-signature Huon-class minehunter vessels equipped with shock-resistant hulls, while HMAS Diamantina and HMAS Yarra remain the only two Huon-class still in active service.
In addition, military experts have indicated that the detection, neutralisation and clearance of naval mines around Australian waters could be a crucial factor during a conflict, determining whether Australian warships, submarines, amphibious forces and commercial shipping can safely operate from key ports and through contested sea lanes.
Internationally, alleged sea mining by Iranian forces in the heavily-trafficked Strait of Hormuz trade route has recently raised heightened concern about navies not being able to detect and clear mines effectively.
Of additional note to the conversation, speculations persist that the People’s Liberation Army Navy, controlled by US pacing rival the People’s Republic of China, is assessed to hold a vast array of sea mines, potentially in the tens of thousands.
“(The Navy’s demining ability) has been something that’s been talked about quite a lot. We still retain a mine hunting capability within the Royal Australian Navy through a combination of crewed and uncrewed platforms, that's a really important capability,” according to comments from Minister Conroy, at the meeting.
“Just because one particular class of vessel has been retired does not mean that we've lost that capability.”
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