The Navy turned its ‘little crappy ship’ into a mine hunter

After more than two decades of controversy, cost overruns, and early retirements, the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is finally doing one of the things it was originally intended to do: hunt mines.

Multiple Independence-class LCSs are now operating out of Bahrain, or are scheduled to arrive soon, with a full suite of mine countermeasure (MCM) gear. These ships, plagued at one time by hull cracks, represent the Navy’s latest attempt to modernize one of the oldest mission sets in maritime warfare.

The Navy has good reason to be concerned about mines. In 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts nearly sank after hitting an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf, prompting the launch of Operation Praying Mantis. In 1991, during the Gulf War, both the USS Tripoli and USS Princeton were damaged by Iraqi mi