The US Navy Scrapped Its Minesweepers Weeks Before a Mine Warfare Crisis. Here's How.

The US Navy's Mine Countermeasures Squadron 7, based in Bahrain, operated four Avenger-class minesweepers: USS Devastator (MCM-6), USS Dextrous (MCM-13), USS Gladiator (MCM-11), and USS Sentry (MCM-3). They were the last dedicated mine countermeasure vessels in the US fleet. The final decommissioning ceremony for USS Devastator was in September 2025.

Weeks later, Iran began mining the Strait of Hormuz.

The timing is not a coincidence in the sense that Iran planned it around the decommissioning. It's a coincidence in the sense that institutional procurement decisions made over 15 years created a capability gap at exactly the moment the capability was needed. The Navy didn't lose its minesweepers to enemy action. It lost them to PowerPoint slides.

How did this happen?

The LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) program was supposed to replace everything. The Navy conceived LCS in the early 2000s as a modular warship that could swap mission packages: anti-submarine, surface warfare, or mine countermeasures. One hull, three missions. The mine countermeasure module would replace dedicated MCM ships with a system that was newer, faster, and (theoretically) more capable.

The MCM module included the AN/AQS-20C towed mine-hunting sonar, the Knifefish unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), the AN/DVS-1 Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis (COBRA) system, and the AMNS (Airborne Mine Neutralization System).

The DOT&E (Director of Operational Test and Evaluation), the Pentagon's own independent testing office, reported on the MCM module every year. The reports read like an autopsy.

The AN/AQS-20C "did not demonstrate the ability to detect, classify, and identify mines in operationally representative conditions." The Knifefish UUV "experienced reliability issues" (it kept getting lost). System availability was approximately 30%. The program came in 70% over budget. The module was declared IOC (Initial Operational Capability) despite failing its operational tests, a bureaucratic maneuver that allowed the Navy to claim the capability existed while knowing it didn't work.

The Washington Institute assessed that clearing Hormuz would require 16-20 MCM platforms operating continuously. The US has approximately 3 LCS ships with partially functional MCM packages in the Gulf. Allied contributions (UK Hunt/Sandown-class, French Tripartite-class) bring the total to perhaps 10-14. Still short. Still relying on systems that failed operational testing.

Why didn't anyone stop this?

Because the procurement system rewards programs, not capabilities. The LCS program had Congressional sponsors in states where the ships were built (Wisconsin and Alabama). Canceling the MCM module would have required admitting the LCS was failing, which would have threatened the entire program, which would have threatened jobs in those states. So the module continued through test failures, budget overruns, and DOT&E warnings, arriving at IOC with a system that couldn't find mines.

The Avenger-class ships were old. Commissioned in the 1980s and 1990s, they were wooden-hulled (to avoid magnetic mine triggers), slow, and maintenance-intensive. The Navy's argument for decommissioning was reasonable in isolation: these ships are past their service life, and the replacement is coming. The replacement wasn't ready. The Navy decommissioned anyway.

Admiral James Foggo (ret.), former commander of US Naval Forces Europe, warned in 2023 that "the Navy's MCM capability is at its lowest point since the end of the Cold War." He was right. Nobody in a position to act listened.

The British made the same mistake with convoys in 1917. They knew U-boats were sinking merchant ships faster than they could be built. The institutional solution (convoy escort) was resisted for years because it required reorganizing the entire merchant marine system. Thousands of sailors died while the Admiralty debated organizational charts. The parallel isn't exact but the pattern is identical: institutional inertia kills capability.

What's the fix?

There is no near-term fix. You cannot build minesweepers in weeks. The MCM gap will persist through this war and likely through the next one.

The Navy is investing in next-generation MCM: autonomous UUVs (unmanned underwater vehicles), improved sonar systems, and coalition capabilities with allied navies. Programs like the Barracuda (Textron's Common Unmanned Surface Vessel, CUSV) and the upgraded Knifefish are in development. They are years from operational deployment.

The interim solution is allies. The UK has 6 Hunt-class and 7 Sandown-class mine countermeasure vessels, the largest MCM fleet in NATO. France has Tripartite-class MCM ships. Belgium and the Netherlands jointly operate the new mine countermeasure vessel program. Japan has one of the world's most capable MCM fleets (32 vessels). These allies are contributing to the Hormuz clearance effort, but coordination, interoperability, and political will limit the total available capability.

The deeper fix requires the US to accept that not every mission can be performed by a single modular platform. Dedicated minesweepers exist because mine warfare is a specialized discipline that requires specialized tools. The LCS experiment proved that modularity has limits. Some capabilities are too critical to depend on a module that doesn't work.

The four ships decommissioned in Bahrain cost approximately $100 million each to build 30 years ago. The mines that closed Hormuz cost $1,500 each. The cost ratio between the weapon and the counter-weapon was already absurd. Eliminating the counter-weapon entirely was an act of institutional self-destruction that Iran exploited within months.

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FAQ

Could the Avenger-class ships have been kept in service?

Yes, with investment. The Navy chose to retire them rather than fund life-extension programs because the LCS MCM module was supposed to replace them. The ships were in poor material condition by 2025, but "poor condition" and "non-functional" are different. A working minesweeper in poor condition is infinitely more useful than a non-functional module on a working ship.

Are allied MCM ships effective in Hormuz?

The UK Hunt/Sandown-class are proven mine hunters with decades of operational experience. French Tripartite-class ships are capable. But the Strait of Hormuz presents unique challenges: deep-water EM-52 rocket mines that traditional MCM can't reach, triple-influence mines that resist conventional sweeping, and an adversary that can re-mine from shore-based rocket launchers faster than the mines can be cleared. Even the best MCM ships face a clearance timeline of years under contested conditions.

Who benefits from the MCM gap?

Textron (CUSV autonomous vessel), RTX (sonar systems), Northrop Grumman (airborne mine detection), and L3Harris (underwater sensors) are all positioned for the next-generation MCM procurement. The irony: the companies that benefit from fixing the gap are some of the same companies whose earlier systems failed to prevent it.