Mine Warfare
Status of the Navy's Mine Countermeasure Capabilities and Plans Gao ID: T-NSIAD-89-13 March 9, 1989GAO discussed the Navy's mine countermeasure capabilities and plans, focusing on the status of systems established to clear U.S. ports. GAO found that: (1) as of January 1989, the Navy planned to spend about $1.7 billion for the development and acquisition of mine countermeasures ships, helicopters, and equipment; (2) the Navy replaced its 30-year-old minesweeping equipment with improved mine-hunting and neutralization ships, but design and production problems caused program delays and cost overruns; (3) the strategy for sequential port clearance depended on completed surveys of channels used to transmit between a port and the ocean; and (4) most of the ships scheduled to do Q-route surveys were employed in Persian Gulf operations.