This is good information.
I found it silly to think we didn’t have a way to clear mines since we don’t have many ships officially called “Mine Sweepers”.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat and we know all of them, while using our brains to come up with even more ways.
Plastic hull or wood mine sweepers are 20th century tech and are obsolete.
We have UUVs from virtually any platform well outside the area of influence of the mine field now. You don’t send men into a mine field you send drones in the 21st century my guy.
We have sub launched and recovered UUVs every one of them was designed with laying mines and anti missions from day one it is why they exist.
There is at least one SSGN in the Med the Ohio she would need to cross the Suez which she has before to get to the Red Sea, but we assuredly keep another SSGN in the Indian Ocean at all times or the South China Sea near Taiwan. She could easily be under the straight clearing mines with her seahorse and other UUVs and let’s not forget dual dry dock lock out chambers and up to 110 UDT team divers on board and no one would know she is there.
Same for the Jimmy Carter and her DDS and we have a slew of 688I and Virginia boats that are DDS compatible every one of them can covertly launch and recover UUV and UDT divers for anti mine work. The Navy also publicity released they can deploy and recover UUVs from regular torpedo tubes off any boat remember every UUV was from the beginning a mine laying and mine killing machine it’s why they exist.
The Navy and the Brits even went so far as to prove the current MCM teams can operate off any vessel of opportunity with a simple hoist to lower and raise the UUVs every ship this side of 100 tonnes DWT has a standard marine hoist for lifeboats every single one.
Those Burkes were a political message the path was cleared from below for sure.