The Gulf wars

From “Naval Minewarfare: Politics to Practicalities” by Captain Chris O’Flaherty, Royal Navy. (The writing of this publication was partially funded by the Guy Hudson Memorial Trust)

Gulf War I (Operations GRANBY (UK) and CANDID HAMMER (US) 1991)[i]

The Iraqis consider they have a long-standing claim to the territory of neighbouring Kuwait, based on their common heritage as part of the Ottoman Empire and common British imperial protection. Using an excuse that Kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil by ‘slant-drilling’ into Iraqi territory, probably coupled with a need to increase national revenues to pay for the recent Iran–Iraq War, on 2 August 1990 Iraq seized Kuwait by military invasion, securing formal occupation and possession by 8 August.

A series of UN Security Council resolutions denounced this act of aggression and territorial acquisitivity. On 25 August 1991 the UN Security Council authorised a maritime blockade against Iraq in support of resolutions prohibiting the import of weapons and export of certain goods, taking additional steps on 29 November 1990 by passing UNSCR 678 authorising the use of ‘all necessary means’ to uphold and enforce the original resolutions requiring Iraqi withdrawal.

A twenty-four-nation coalition was formed, under the Joint Forces Command of His Royal Highness General Khaled Bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, with United States General H. Norman Schwarzkopf as the Commander of Operation DESERT STORM, which was to be the military liberation of Kuwait.

The Iraqis assessed that the coalition would attack primarily through an amphibious assault originating in the Gulf of Kuwait. Focusing their defences on this threat, they dedicated four heavy divisions and seven infantry divisions to defend the coast. To seaward, they laid a barrier of naval mines in a 150-mile crescent-shaped defensive minefield around the Kuwaiti coast from Paylaka Island to the Saudi–Kuwait border. The six individual mined areas consisted of a mix of ground and moored mines, thus complicating coalition mine countermeasures efforts. In total, 1,270 mines were later identified to include 302 x bottom influence UDM, Sigell-400, Manta or KMD500 mines; 745 x LUGM 145 and MYaM moored mines; 141 x drifting mines and 82 x mines on beaches including both LUGM and MYaM mines which had broken free from their moorings, plus Al-Muthena drifting mines.

The coalition’s strategic level planning for the liberation of Kuwait developed a concept of an initial air and sea bombardment to degrade Iraqi forces both physically and psychologically before a primarily land assault which would skirt Kuwait and sever Iraqi resupply lines. Planning at this stage considered that a Division of US Marines could execute a feint amphibious landing, accentuating the Iraqi assessment of this viable course of action and thus tying down considerable numbers of Iraqi forces. The codicil added by General Schwarzkopf was that he wanted the Marines to actually thrust straight into Kuwait with an objective to tie down Iraqi forces, amplifying that he would ‘leave it to Walt Boomer [US Marines Commanding General] to figure out how he wants to do that, but it also gives him the capacity to come in from the sea with his amphibious forces.’ This course of action as a sideshow was unpopular with the US Marines, who wanted Operation DESERT SABRE to execute what would have been the largest amphibious landing since 1950 (in the Korean War); they thus lobbied accordingly to be allowed to deliver their amphibious blow.

At this stage naval mines were a significant factor in planning. On 18 January 1991 a small forty-two-mine minefield was laid by the US Navy off Kuwait but the loss of an A-6 aircraft involved in that operation, combined with no discernible reaction by the Iraqi Navy, removed the appetite for further US minelaying.[1] Looking at their enemy, coalition MCM planning was underpinned by an initial assessment that the Iraqis had only 800 mines available. Between 21 December 1990 and 5 January 1991 eight drifting mines were discovered meandering around the offshore oil fields in the northern Gulf, and on 13 January 1991 the commander of the US Navy’s forces in the Middle East, Rear Admiral William Fogarty, revealed that his forces had by then destroyed seventeen mines, including some that had been deliberately set adrift; he accordingly published a warning of the increased mine threat. Distracting many assets from other tasking, such as the use by minewarfare forces of surface attack helicopters to look for drifting mines, the primary mine countermeasures forces from both the UK and US Navies stepped up their efforts to mitigate this threat in the northern Gulf, with the US declaring Operation CANDID HAMMER to be the main MCM effort.

Mine countermeasures forces were at this stage finding many mines littering the seabed of the operating area, mainly new Iraqi mines but also some that were remnants from the Iran–Iraq ‘Tanker Wars’ of the 1980s. In order to allow some freedom of maritime manoeuvre intelligence assessments were made of the likely mined areas, with a line promulgated to all ships south of which they were assessed, by the intelligence community, to face a much diminished mine threat.

Operation DESERT STORM began on 16 January at 23:30 GMT with F-117 stealth bombers striking key targets in Baghdad, followed by coordinated allied air and cruise-missile strikes into both Iraq and Kuwait. The initial aim was to destroy Iraq’s military command, control and communications structures whilst also writing-down the Iraqi ability to launch Scud ground-to-ground missiles, which had been attacking Saudi Arabia and Israel.

A naval surface action on 29 and 30 January 1991 saw the decimation of the Iraqi Navy, with twenty patrol boats, tankers and minelayers chased, harassed and damaged or sunk. By 2 February 1991 ‘the Iraqi Navy was officially judged to be incapable of offensive action, having lost 143 out of 165 surface combatants either damaged or destroyed. On the same day, US Commander Norman Schwarzkopf met with naval and US Marine leaders, who estimated an amphibious landing could be ready in ten days, the time being that required for mine clearance and bombardment. However, Schwarzkopf noted that the mine clearance was required close to shore, within range of Iraqi artillery, and thus the risk to his forces did not seem worth the potential military gain.

The range of the large guns from the battleships USS Wisconsin and Missouri required mines to be cleared further offshore, allowing a Fire Support Area (FSA) to be created from which diversionary bombardment could be undertaken. Just beyond range of Iraqi guns, on 16 February 1991 airborne MCM forces from the US HM-14 based in USS Tripoli, alongside four US and four British minehunter/sweepers, commenced clearance of the required FSA, which was declared open for use on 23 February 1991.

All thoughts of an amphibious landing were however dashed on 18 February 1991, when USS Tripoli and USS Princeton both detonated mines whilst operating south of the assessed southern limit of Iraqi mining.

Both were proceeding with appropriate caution, with Princeton in a slow turn as she patrolled her air defence box. Just after a change of watch Princeton’s stern was rocked by a huge whipping bang which caused many lights onboard to go out, followed by a second explosion close to her bow. She had detonated two ‘Manta’ anti-invasion ground influence mines. Damage control parties quickly discovered a substantial crack from the waterline up the ship’s side, across the hangar, and back down to the opposite waterline; her stern was at real risk of snapping off. Innovative high-seas ship repairs bound the stern together using warps, with steel girders welded across the crack to provide reinforcement. Despite the incredible dedication of her warfighting teams to keep her in the air-defence fight over the next 30 hours she was cautiously guided out of the minefield by USS Adroit followed by US$24,000,000 worth of repairs – caused by two mines costing between US$10,000 and US$35,000 each. Her crew desperately wanted to remain at their duty station, up threat, but all by now had real doubts about her ability to perform as the whiplash had most likely distorted their carefully aligned radar and missile systems; she had suffered what is known as mission-abort damage, and was withdrawn from the conflict.

An even cheaper mine inflicted a more brief mission kill on the USS Tripoli; a US$1,500 device based on the 1908-designed Russian M-08 had brushed Tripoli’s hull as she slowly manoeuvred to launch her aircraft, which in a touching paradox, were mainly minesweeping helicopters. A 30-foot hole was blasted into her underwater hull. Superb damage control efforts contained the damage, but her manoeuvrability was severely constrained as any increase in speed beyond dead-slow would have seen incredible water pressure build up against surviving internal bulkheads, inevitably leading to their fracture and further flooding. She remained on station for five days, statically servicing her vital payload of mission-critical aviation, before she too was escorted away to undergo US$3,500,000 of repairs.

These two minestrikes effectively killed off any last hopes of the US Marine Corps being allowed to execute their desired 17,000-man landing, and a week before the main assault began they stopped lobbying for its inclusion. The British regarded this as ‘Iraq’s effective use of the mine – a relatively cheap weapon which is freely available throughout Third World countries’, with a graphic description of the effect being provided by General Schwarzkopf’s autobiography entry for 22 February 1991:

“I’d cancelled the Navy’s amphibious assault on Faylakah Island. Plans called for it to precede the ground war by two days, but the helicopter carrier U.S.S. Tripoli and the Aegis guided missile cruiser U.S.S. Princeton had struck mines, U.S. and British minesweepers had been unable to clear the area, and as a result the Navy hadn’t made it into position to launch the attack in time.”

Supported from the sea by the amphibious ships occasionally foraying towards (but not too near) the Kuwait coastline, a diversionary raid was instead executed by a six-man team of Navy Seal commandos who fooled the Iraqis into believing they were an invasion force of several thousand marines.

Ground operations commenced on 24 February 1991, supported by naval gunfire support from the recently cleared Fire Support Area. Kuwait was liberated on 28 February 1991, and on 3 March 1991 Iraqi officers handed over maps of minefields both in Kuwait and in the surrounding waters. Attention then turned to clearing the explosive remnants of war.

Post-conflict clearance forces were divided into seven task groups. Belgium led a combined Belgian, French and Dutch group of twelve minehunters and support shipping; a German group was formed of six minehunters plus two minesweeping drones and two support ships; the British deployed eight minehunters plus three support ships, staggered to allow roulemont; the Italians deployed three minehunters and a support ship; the US maintained five minehunters plus an Air MCM Squadron, almost all with multiple crews; and in their first deployment of naval forces to conduct a military mission since their 1950 operations in Korea, the Japanese deployed four minehunters plus two support ships.

Between 3 March 1991 and 20 July 1991 these nations conducted a closely coordinated mine-clearance operation. The revelation of their minefield plans by the Iraqis allowed considerable focussing of efforts, with analysis highlighting a coincidence whereby the mineswept approaches to Missouri’s Fire Support Area had passed between two Iraqi minefields, with the area itself inside the Iraqi defensive mine barrier.

By 12 March 1991 an economic lifeline had been created for Kuwait, with the British minehunter HMS Cattistock leading the first merchant vessel to enter the port of Ash Shuaybah since August 1990. However, the dangers of ceasefire-agnostic minewarfare continued to be brought home to commanders when, nearly a month after the end of formal fighting, USS Leader actuated a Manta ground influence mine whilst performing a check-sweep off the Kuwait coast. She suffered some damage, but was resilient enough to proceed under her own power to Bahrain for two weeks of repairs.

A welcome return to the mission also occurred on 11 April 1991, when USS Tripoli resumed her Air MCM support functions following repairs to her punctured hull. By 22 April, nearly two months after the ceasefire and after the sustained efforts of over thirty minewarfare ships plus shore-based diving teams, a second port in Kuwait was opened at Ash Shuwaykh. The full range of available mine countermeasures techniques had been employed in achieving this opening: mechanical wire minesweeping (mainly by helicopters); forward-looking sonar minehunting from ships; sidescan sonar minehunting from helicopters; influence minesweeping from ships, helicopters and drones; diver searches with hand-held sonars; and diver searches by human touch. Having achieved this successful opening of a second lifeline into Kuwait, the lead-through unit that had escorted the inbound convoy, HMS Brocklesby, the next day received an abrupt reminder of the ongoing dangers posed by remaining mines when her remote-controlled mine disposal vehicle was destroyed by contact with a fully primed, but married failure, LUGM 145 Iraqi mine.

By May 1991 bad weather and adverse sonar conditions were generating occasional delays, often accentuated by the heat of the Gulf causing stratified layers of water demarked by temperature or salinity and which are impenetrable by some sonars. Strong Shamal winds were then re-mixing the water but preventing minehunting until after they blew themselves out. But progress was still being made and to the considerable gratitude of the international community, on 20 July 1991 the Western European Union MCM forces issued an ‘Agreed Common Final Statement’ that their routes and areas had ‘been searched as practically as possible and, although the residual mine danger cannot be discounted, are considered safe for navigation.’ It went on to note that some areas had been searched but not to the necessary degrees of MCM clearance to allow unrestricted use, and that there was still a risk of drifting mines in the northern Gulf.

US and Japanese forces continued to raise clearance levels in their designated areas, finding more mines including some that were up to 2 miles away from their reported lay positions. They completed their operations on 10 September 1991, six and a half months after the end of the conflict. International shipping and the Kuwaitis once again had proper access to an economically vital area of the maritime commons.

Gulf War II (Operation TELIC – 2003)[i]

Following the use by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of chemical weapons during the Iran–Iraq War, international concerns had persisted that he would once again use these ‘weapons of mass destruction’ on regional or global actors.

The 1991 defeat of Iraq’s occupying forces in Kuwait had been carefully geographically limited. The UN approved mission had been to liberate that state, and the mission had been successful. In the twelve years that followed the United Nations was at the heart of monitoring Iraq for any signs of further aggression, including their possible possession and use of chemical weapons as well as documenting regular military actions by the Iraqi regime to suppress elements of their own population. This monitoring came to a head in 2003 when conflicting reports on the state of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes alarmed some world leaders, concurrent with reports of human rights abuses of Iraqi citizens.

The US, UK and Australia assembled a land-based force which would remove the threat of Iraqi chemical weapons by liberating the Iraqi people from their repressive leader. This force was to be supported from the sea, with ports in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia used extensively as maritime points of disembarkation. Plans were also developed for an amphibious assault onto the Al Faw peninsula along Iraq’s short coastline, with an objective to secure Iraq’s oil export infrastructure before it could be damaged by retreating government forces. This would allow the rapid reinvigoration of the Iraqi economy through oil exports, and thus the building of a new, less repressive, government.

The United Kingdom despatched an Amphibious Task Force centred on HM Ships Ark Royal and Ocean, both in their Helicopter Carrier role and with elements of 3 Commando Brigade embarked. Attached to this force were escort and support ships, plus a Mine Countermeasures Squadron of ships and divers. Concurrent with this deployment of ships, the British tasked their scientists to develop a ‘Shallow Water Influence Minesweeping System’, or SWIMS, which would use remote-controlled boats to tow magnetic and acoustic generators along the coast and in rivers otherwise too narrow or too shallow for conventional minesweeping to be effective.

In late January 2003 the survey ship HMS Roebuck and her Survey Motor Boat (known as ‘Batchelor’s Delight’) conducted night-time operations as far inshore as military necessity required, mapping the seabed close to the coast to allow naval gunfire support ships to close the shore and support the assault whilst, concurrently, assuring the area was free from mines. Minehunters scoured the seabed further offshore preparing other sea areas for the Helicopter Carriers. Meanwhile, every ship in the British Task Group maintained constant readiness in case of a minestrike; the memories of 1991 ran deep through everyone’s psyche.

To counter the known Iraqi threat of mines, the United States Navy also despatched mine-clearance forces including the Marine Mammal programme’s minehunting dolphins. Embarked in USS Bonhomme Richard they were flown from San Diego to the Middle East, where they were confined to their shipboard pens until needed to clear Iraqi harbours.

The assault commenced at 19:25 GMT on 20 March 2003. With their ship’s companies ordered to remain above the waterline – as much as possible – four warships closed the coast to provide naval gunfire support to marines being helicoptered ashore. Whilst ready for war, the ship’s companies were fatigued by their sustained operations in the mine threat area whereby sailors whose bunks were below the waterline had been ordered to live for weeks on end in temporary sleeping areas higher in their ships, whilst at all times wearing hard hats to protect their skulls in the event of a mine generating whiplash. They were now relying on the minesweeping attempts of a hydrographic survey ship to have detonated any mines in their area.

The following morning the coalition had their biggest minewarfare success of the campaign. A team from HMAS Kanimbla boarded the Iraqi tug Al-Rayiah, quickly followed by boarding a second Iraqi tug (the Jumariya) with a large barge alongside. Both Al-Rayiah and the towed barge had been converted as covert minelayers. Onboard Al-Rayiah were eighteen LUGM mines disguised by a cover consisting of a series of hinged and cut-off oil drums. Hidden inside the barge were twenty Manta and forty-eight LUGM mines, all ready to launch through covert stern flaps. These mines were thus prevented from being laid, which is the ideal outcome in mine countermeasures, although the presence of some ‘empty spaces on the mine rails highlight[ed] that the threat should not be underestimated.’

It was hoped that the rump of the Iraqi mining campaign had thus been thwarted, but chances could not be taken. British minehunters were despatched into the Kwar-Abd-Allah to search the main channel in preparation for the commencement of shipborne military resupply and the reopening of Iraqi commerce. In the bigger ships, it was wryly noted by some that ‘as [HMS] Chatham and the other NGS ships left the Gunline, outbound, the MCMVs were just entering the area to commence mine-clearance operations.’ With the liberating coalition keen to restore to the population a degree of normality through rapid provision of humanitarian aid, the importance of this minewarfare mission was duly highlighted by the UK’s regional naval commander who noted in his war diary that ‘strategic level pressure was applied to expedite the process’ of mine clearance in the Kwar-Abd-Allah.

The bed of the navigable channel was made of thick, soft mud, with seabed visibility reduced to almost zero by the churning current. The optical cameras on remote-controlled mine disposal vehicles were thus rendered useless, leading to a tactic of laying a mine disposal charge next to, or on top of, any sonar object that resembled a mine. Whilst expensive in ammunition, safety was paramount and four contacts by HMS Ledbury produced high order sympathetic detonations, indicating the presence of high explosives. This tactic against any potential mine threat was validated when a helicopter search of the banks of the channel, conducted at low tide, identified three Manta-shaped anti-invasion mines peeking out above the water.

The minewarfare ships also proved their combat flexibility, becoming intimately involved in the search and recovery of two Sea King Airborne Early Warning helicopters which had collided in mid-air on the morning of 22 March 2003. Providing divers and seabed searching sonars, the ships and personnel of the minewarfare community recovered the bodies of the aircrew and the majority of the wreckage, despite the ongoing war around them.

Concurrent with their salvage tasking, the focus of minewarfare operations remained to maximise safety for the vessels required to berth in the port. Alongside an Australian clearance diving team, the US Navy’s marine mammals were flown from their at-sea staging base into the port where pens had been set up to allow them to prepare for their riverine mission. By this stage the dolphins had been cooped up for nearly three weeks, far longer than on any exercise; dolphins have moods that resemble those of many mammals and being confined to a small pen piqued one dolphin, ’Katrina’, into willingly conducting her pre-mission activities but then going Absent Without Leave upriver as soon as she was craned into the water. The whole river system was heavily polluted and thus there were no fish for her to feed on, and after three days she reappeared at the liberated jetty, slightly emaciated and begging for a treat. Other dolphins were more cooperative, identifying multiple seabed objects for diver identification and disposal.

The threat of Iraqi mines was reinforced on 23 March 2003 with the discovery in port of five pilot-type boats and dhows with mines still onboard. Minehunting operations continued in the river and by 27 March 2003 a channel had been searched from the northern Gulf to a jetty in Umm Qsr. The probabilities of effective mine clearance were briefed up the chain of command, but the final decision to use the channel came down to one simple question: referring to the designated supply ship, the Amphibious Task Group Commander asked his minewarfare officer, ‘Would you stand on the foc’sle of that ship tomorrow morning?’ The answer from the minewarfare specialist, based on the huge trust implicit among minewarfare professionals, was ‘Sir, yes.’ The Commander duly gave his authorisation for the transit, which RFA Sir Galahad made successfully on the morning of 28 March 2003. After two days alongside, on 30 March 2003 she was escorted back down of the river with the Commanding Officer of the lead-through ship – HMS Grimsby – noting that en route they ‘passed [HMS] Blyth in the Kwar Al Shityanah while she was counter charging two Mantas she had found on the shoreline’ witnessing the detonations which brought ‘pale faces and renewed concentration.’

In a classically executed cumulative MCM operation the mine threat was progressively reduced. The relief from the mine threat thus provided to other ships in the force was greatly appreciated, as noted by one Commanding Officer: ‘With the first stage of Mine Clearance Operations complete, the Mine Danger Area had been reduced to the waters of the KAA [Kwar-Abd-Allah] and as a result we were now operating in Mine Threat White, consequently personnel will be allowed to sleep in the messdecks below the waterline.’

By May 2003, the situation on the coast had stabilised (even through the situation ashore remained threatening due to the emergence of insurgents). Having certified as safe sufficient water space to allow renewed Iraqi commerce, especially oil exports, the minewarfare ships were redeployed away from the northernmost areas of the Gulf. However, some mine danger areas remained in force both from this conflict and from the war in 1991.

Between 6 April 2008 and 7 May 2008, the deployed British Mine Countermeasures Commander in the Arabian Gulf commanded a multinational operation to search twelve Mine Danger Areas (MDAs) off Kuwait and Iraq, with an aim to allow their redesignation as ‘Former Mined Areas' (and therefore safe for vessels to use as anchorages). Overseen by the US Navy’s Coalition Maritime Force Commander, Focussed Operation ARDENT

REMEDY (FOAR)[1] saw a multinational task group formed consisting of twenty-two vessels and almost 700 personnel representing Iraq, Kuwait, the United Kingdom, and the United States, who all conducted intensive minewarfare search and survey operations within the twelve extant MDAs. With the exception of one potentially mined area that overlapped with Iranian Territorial Waters (for which there was no diplomatic permission to conduct mine clearance), this operation finally concluded the naval mine-clearance efforts required following intermittent conflict and minelaying in this region spanning the Tanker Wars starting in 1980 to the Second Gulf War in 2003.

[1] This operation also had the UK designation ‘Operation TECATÉ’.

Find out more about modern Minesweepers, Mine Hunters, Diving Teams and ongoing operations here.