The Navy declined to provide data on how many practice mines were located during the two-week naval drill but did not dispute that less than half were found. However, a spokesman insisted that the figures do not tell the whole story and that the event was “‘not just about finding” the dummy mines.
“Numbers alone do not tell the story of IMCMEX’s effectiveness and success,” said Lt. Greg Raelson, a media officer with the 5th fleet, stationed in Bahrain. “We operated ships, helicopters, divers, and unmanned undersea vehicles with accuracy and effectiveness, confirming our ability to respond to maritime mine threats in the undersea environment. Because of this exercise, we were able to enhance partnerships and further hone the international community’s ability to ensure the safe and free flow of navigation.”
However, some analysts with extensive experience in evaluating Navy mine exercises say the rate of success in detecting practice mines is critically important.
“I would be surprised if the post-exercise analysis didn’t include some kind of a scoring mechanism of how well did we do against this set” of imitation mines, said Scott Savitz, a senior RAND engineer who, in a prior job, led Navy-contracted teams to analyze counter-mine exercises. The central point of a mine-hunting exercise is “to find them all, because in the real-world scenario you want to minimize the subsequent mine risk,” he said.
“You want to try to ascertain how well you are doing. You need a find a certain number of mines and a certain number of attempts to hunt or sweep them in order to get anything statistically meaningful,” Savitz said. “If we get zero or one or two, it doesn’t tell us much. It’s not granular enough.”
During the exercise, the military’s top commander of U.S. Naval forces in the Middle East stressed two key objectives for the drill: To practice working together with other countries, and to find simulated mines.
On board the USS Ponce, the command ship for mine hunting operations in the Persian Gulf, sailors practice using surveillance equipment. Watch this video to see the unmanned aerial vehicle called Scan Eagle land by snagging a cable with its wing. The camera in the aircraft feeds back video to sailors who watch for threatening boats.



The less-than-50-percent success rate in the exercise shows “it’s very difficult to detect shapes on the seabed and discriminate between rocks and other debris from the actual mines you are actually trying to go after,” Burke said. Well aware of the tall order involved, the Navy likely laid “10 shapes in order for the probability of finding at least one of them,” he surmised.
Meantime, U.S. naval forces are trying to build a wide coalition of foreign navies to show resolve in confronting Iran, he said.
“They are trying to get everyone — especially the partner nations that may not have a robust capability — to come away from the exercise feeling good about themselves for having accomplished something positive,” Burke said. “So it’s like seeding a lake for fishing. You put more fish in there than you expect your customers to catch, but you want them to all go away having caught a fish.”
That said, setting an objective of maximizing international partner participation “in and of itself is not bad,” Burke said, given a perceived political need to signal to Iran that the international community is determined to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Raelson, the 5th Fleet media officer, emphasized the collaborative military successes involved.
“Each ship, unmanned underwater vehicle and helicopter that was tasked with finding a practice mine in a particular geographic operating area did. The use of shapes enabled participants to use their individual capabilities in their three regional environments while proving interoperability, compatibility and information exchange,” he said. “It was not the intention to utilize the inaugural IMCMEX to validate effectiveness by assessing individual nations’ capabilities and nor would it be appropriate for us to comment too deeply on tactical performance.”
O’Donnell said the exercise appears to have been useful, but the United States and its military partners should look to future counter-mine drills to more fully prepare for real-world threats.
“All in all, I guess that the exercise was a success since so many nations participated and they were able to communicate with each other,” said the retired Navy captain. “Next time, though, I think they should do a better job of finding the drill mines that were there.”
Editor’s note: This is the last article in the series focusing on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s threat to mine the chokepoint. Watch the broadcast report here:
Hunting for Mines in Persian Gulf as Tensions Between Israel and Iran Build
And see previous stories:
Iran Watching as U.S. Military Launches Exercise in Strait of Hormuz
As Israel’s Threat to Bomb Iran Looms, U.S. Vows to Keep Aircraft Carrier Strike Group in Persian Gulf
Jellyfish, Sea Snakes and Beetles: The Challenges of Hunting for Sea Mines
上月美军在波斯湾举行30国联合军演，其中最主要的演习目的是防止伊朗封锁波斯湾，美军特意在特定的水域放置了29个水雷，结果三十国部队只找回不到一半的水雷。其中美军的“王鱼”扫雷潜艇表现令人失望。
哈梅内伊发来贺电，表示热烈庆祝以美军为首的多国部队在波斯湾的军演圆满成功。
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/us-navy-allies-find-less-than-half-the-sea-mines-planted-in-key-exercise.html


好腹黑

水雷深埋海底了

下次军演的时候请在船上贴上条幅“水雷无铜，盗之无用”。。。。

英文

求翻译

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