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Powerful Solar Storm Likely Detonated Sea Mines During Vietnam War By Brett Carter | November 9, 2018 3:46 pm Solar flares captured on sun. (Credit: NASA/SDO)On Aug. 4, 1972, the crew of a U.S. Task Force 77 aircraft flying near a naval minefield in the waters off Hon La observed 20 to 25 explosions over about 30 seconds. They also witnessed an additional 25 to 30 mud spots in the waters nearby.Destructor sea mines had been deployed here during Operation Pocket Money, a mining campaign launched in 1972 against principal North Vietnamese ports.There was no obvious reason why the mines...

Northrop Grumman Corporation and the U.S. Navy have begun the next phase of the flight test program leading to the "final exam" Operational Evaluation and potential approval next year for full-rate production of the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS). The Navy is conducting the Developmental Flight Test-IIE (DT-IIE) program from its Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division site in Florida. The first flight occurred on June 8. ALMDS is an airborne mine countermeasures system, one of several systems in development by Northrop Grumman to address the threat posed by mines to U.S. and allied ships. ALMDS uses its pulsed...

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young on Monday suggested that the 1,200-ton corvette Cheonan may have hit an old North Korean mine before it sank in waters near the de-facto maritime border in the West Sea on Friday night. "Neither the government nor the Defense Ministry has said that there is no possibility of North Korean involvement," Kim told the National Assembly's Defense Committee. "We need to reach a conclusion after looking at all possibilities." Kim said one of them is that an old North Korean sea mine drifted into the area. "North Korea brought in about 4,000 sea mines from the...

A mysterious blast that tore a South Korean warship in half might have been caused by a mine dating back to the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul’s defence minister said Monday. Forty-six sailors are missing after the Cheonan, a 1,200-tonne corvette, sank in the Yellow Sea Friday night near the tense disputed border with North Korea, in one of the country’s worst sea disasters. The area was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002, and of a firefight last November. But Seoul officials say there is no evidence so far Pyongyang attacked the Cheonan. Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young...

Experts speculate on largely three possible causes for the explosion of the 1,200-ton patrol ship Cheonan on Friday -- an explosion within the ship due to internal defects or malfunctioning, accidental collision with a reef or other objects, or an attack from an outside force. The possibility of an internal cause such as an explosion of parts near the rear bottom of the vessel where the explosion ripped a hole appears to be very low, according to an expert. "Personally, I think the possibility of an internal defect or malfunctioning is very low," Kim Tae-woo, vice president of Korea Institute...

Sea mines might have caused the tragic sinking of a South Korean naval ship, U.S. experts said Saturday, dismissing concerns over possible North Korean involvement. "I doubt that North Korea was involved in the incident," John Feffer, co-director of the Foreign Policy in Focus program at the Institute for Policy Studies, said. "It didn't seem to involve any artillery fire from the North." The 1,200-ton "Cheonan" sank Friday night (Seoul time) after a mysterious explosion that South Korean witnesses and military officials say split the vessel in two. Only 58 of the 104 crew aboard were rescued. The others are...

In a dangerous legacy of the world's deadliest conflict, 150,000 World War Two-era sea mines litter the Baltic Sea. The danger these bombs pose to a proposed gas pipeline has prompted Russia to hire the British firm Bactec International to clear the sea of unexploded ordnance. And for Bactec, that means it's time to bring out the robots. Bactec, which previously worked clearing mines from around the Falkland Islands, will use a specially designed robot to scour the ocean floor in search of the 70 bombs blocking the path of the pipeline. When the robot finds a mine, a surface...

The U.S. Navy, which has long avoided dealing with it's greatest danger; naval mines, believes it has found the answer. Instead of the current system, where a small force of mine clearing ships and helicopters are kept in readiness at a base in the United States, new mine clearing equipment will be on warships at all times. Currently, it can take days or weeks to get mine clearing equipment to ships overseas that need it. For more intense mine clearing, the current two dozen mine hunter ships will eventually be replaced by LCS (Littoral Control Ships) carrying mine hunting and...