Navy: Mine Countermeasures Mission Packages to Be Available for Vessels of Opportunity

The expeditionary sea base ship USS Miguel Keith (ESB 5) conducts flight operations during Exercise Noble Vanguard. ESBs are likely vessels of opportunity for mine countermeasure packages. *U.S. NAVY / Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Gregory A. Pickett II*

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy’s mine countermeasures mission packages will be available not only to littoral combat ships but to other vessels and units, a Navy official said.

Capt. Mike Egan, branch head for mine warfare in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, speaking May 24 in Monterey, California, at the 2022 International Mine Warfare Technology Symposium of the Mine Warfare Association, said the MCM mission package is on track to achieve initial operational capability in the fall of 2022 and the Navy plans to procure a total of 24 packages.

The Navy plans to equip 15 Independence-class littoral combat ships with the MCM mission package, which will leave an additional nine mission packages for use elsewhere.

Egan said those excess mission packages won’t be sitting around in a warehouse.

“We’re going to put them on vessels of opportunity, put them ashore, we’re going to integrate them into ExMCM [expeditionary MCM] companies to use those and try to make sure [to] step up MCM capability to be expeditionary, to be scalable [and] modular,” he said. “That’s where we’re headed.”

The Navy’s expeditionary sea-base ships, which already host MCM forces, are considered likely vessels of opportunity for an MCM mission package. These ships host MH-53E MCM helicopters and mine-hunting craft and unmanned underwater vehicles.

The Navy has commissioned three Lewis-B. Puller-class ESBs and has two more under construction.