I’m looking for factual answers here so I put this in GQ.
One of the biggest blunders, IMO, of this war was to delay the arrival of humanitarian aid immediately after the military push began. The food and supplies are supposedly ready to be distributed, but the relief ship can’t dock in the port until the mines are cleared.
Fine. But why does this take (or why has this taken) so friggin long? Can’t they clear one thin channel for ONE ship and deal with the rest of the harbor later? Aren’t there any mine detection and elimination techniques out there faster than combing every cubic inch of seawater?
Yeah, I know all about the dolphins. But is that really the best thing out there? I mean the rest of the military “toolbox” is in the Space Age, and minesweeping is in the friggin Aquatic Mammal Age.
So, what are they doing and why does it take so long? And could it have happened faster if they made it more of a priority?
Well, there’s an awful lot of water that needs to be searched. Not to mention mines can move, so you need to make sure you get all of them before you can allow a ship to go through the channel.
As for using the dolphins, well, it makes sense, really. They like the water, don’t have too many natural enemies, have no cables to get tangled in the mines, and can be paid in fish. You think clearing sea mines is a long process, you should see what it takes to clear landmines!
But was it a blunder? (sorry if this isn’t directly addressing the question). Assuming the harbour had been cleared first and ships docked on the first day what then? The ‘Coalition’ would still have needed time to clear a land route from the docks outward. As it is they’ve taken the time to do the job properly and we woudn’t be faced with the prospect of a supply ship going under because someone did a rush job. As for clearing one channel - they are expecting many ships not just one a week or something - they need to clear the whole area.
There are different types of mines in where they are located, how they detect targets and how they are detonated. Some are made of different materials. Some are moored on lines, some sit on the bottom and deploy charges at targets. Some sit on the bottom and are timed to release on a moor line at some point. They are set off by magnetics, acoustics, pressure, and in combination. Some are large, and some are rather small. If you’ve never seen one of the smaller onces you would be surprised at how little they are. Just like landmines, if they were even fairly easy to find and remove, there wouldn’t be much point to them. Mines aren’t used strictly because they blow things up, but because of the delay the enemy runs into to find and clear them. Think of a mine sitting on the bottom along with the rocks, plants, old wrecks, garbage, etc. Drop one mine and a couple thousand steel barrels at the same time. Which chunk of metal that you found on magnetics is a mine? Gotta check for which type of trigger somehow without blowing yourself up. Once you isolate a mine, what are you going to do with it? Now you have to check the blobs that could be cement filled plastic trash cans, or plastic mines.
Just like landmines, it basically is a grid by grid search to find them. Special ships or helos basically drag a decoy system that simulates the pressure, magnetics and frequencies of ships to detonate them. And even with GPS, that is a lot of ground to make sure that you have covered. Losing a guy to a landmine is bad enough. You don’t take chances with entire ships just to shave a couple of days.
I guess it would also have a lot to do with the cargo shipping owners , not wanting their ships to come into a port that has just been given a once over as far as mine laying goes.
Second reason may be that the US is doing its own insuring on the ships ,as loydds et al are not going to give you a quote for operating in a combat enviroment.
Last but not least , is that the moored mines were secured and removed within the last day or so , what remains are known as induction mines , that would sense the presence of a big cargo ship , probably via magnetic anomaly detection , or something to do with either the change in gravity or mass , not sure about the actual process.
You miss one mine, and you risk sinking a ship. In the channel. Which could prevent all other ships from entering, whether there are any remaining mines to be dealt with or not. Without being privy to any specifics, it appears to be a simple risk v gain situation in which the risk is simply too high. Besides, the mine laying operation on the part of the Iraqis may not be over. And I would hardly consider it to be a blunder.
You block the harbor with a sunken ship that hit a mine because you were rushing in aid, now that would be a huge blunder.