Modular mine countermeasures will bring capabilities beyond LCS

The Navy is on track to expand its use of mine countermeasures beyond the Littoral Combat Ship platform by moving those capabilities to the modular force, according to a top expeditionary warfare official.

"We moved [MCM] to the modular force which means it's not matched," Maj. Gen. David Coffman, expeditionary warfare division director in the office of the chief of naval operations (N95), told reporters today following a Navy League event. He also noted the MCM module is interoperable with LCS.

"That's an interim to a future that is even more modular in the sense of putting them in multiple places," he said.

Coffman mentioned H-60 helicopters, unmanned underwater vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles and amphibious assault ships as potential platforms to receive MCM modules. He also said the MCM requirements office is involved with the Expeditionary Staging Base Lewis B. Puller (T-ESB-3).  

"They're not really alternate platforms. They're built to do it, they just weren't built perfectly to do it," he said.

The Navy has been experimenting with MCM capabilities on General Dynamics' Knifefish UUV and Textron's Common USV. Both of those vehicles are still being developed and tested, Inside the Navy previously reported.