The Royal Navy’s autonomous mine-hunting capabilities have taken a significant step forward with the successful trial of the uncrewed vessel, Apollo.
Conducted in Scotland’s Firth of Clyde, the trial marks a critical milestone in the Maritime Mine Counter Measure (MMCM) programme, a joint initiative between the UK and French navies.
The Apollo, a small autonomous vessel equipped with advanced synthetic aperture sonar for seabed scanning, was launched from the Defence Marine Services ship SD Northern River. This trial marked the first time MMCM equipment was integrated onto a commercial vessel, demonstrating the potential for using commercial platforms as operational bases for mine-hunting missions.
The MMCM programme, managed by the Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation (OCCAR), aims to provide both navies with world-leading autonomous mine countermeasure capabilities. Under this collaborative initiative, Apollo was developed by L3 Harris in partnership with Thales and delivered to the UK in 2021 as a concept demonstrator.
Following the successful trial, Apollo will return to Thales for further retrofitting and upgrades. The vessel is expected to join the Royal Navy in an operational capacity within the next 12 months. The total contract value for the programme is €430 million, with £184 million contributed by the UK. This investment supports over 200 jobs across the UK, including at Thales facilities in Somerset and Plymouth and within its supply chain in Portsmouth, Stonehaven, and Glasgow.
Leadership and Innovation in Maritime Defence
Andy Lapsley, Team Leader of Mine Hunting Capability (MHC) at Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), emphasised the significance of the trial:
“This trial successfully demonstrated the potential for the Maritime Mine Counter Measures capability to be deployed flexibly and at pace for the Royal Navy. It reflects years of dedicated effort and collaboration by the MHC team, advancing mine countermeasure technology and commercial platform integration.”
Commander Daniel Herridge, Commanding Officer of the Royal Navy’s Mine & Threat Exploitation Group, highlighted the innovation driving this programme:
“This has been another step in the paradigm shift of delivering Mine Counter Measures capability in a completely new way, harnessing technology and building on the skills of our people to deliver world-leading capability.”
So what hunts for mines for the commercial vessel to be safe to enter the area and deploy the boat?
A conventional MCMV could check for itself, could it not?
This. negate the mother, that is your MCM capability gone?
To find the mines the idea is to use a LIDAR on a helicopter or UAV like AMLDS than can be fitted to Merlin. They will then deploy USV and UUV from well outside any potential mined area. Hunts are just as vulnerable now to modern mines which are essentially torpedos lying on the sea bed. By the time a Hunts onboard sonar got any where near looking for a mine it would likely be dead. Hopefully the T32 will add a combat capable unit in addition to T26 that can also deploy such drones to high intensity conflicts, while the castle class can do the heavy lifting of providing long term clearing of mines without the need for the massive support infrastructure the hunts have.
But using barely armed small plastic boats is now a suicide mission for even low intensity conflicts.
These are also small ships completely unsuited to acting as a drone mothership which is what’s needed.
RFA Stirling Castle is an ex-comercial vessels unfortunately they recently laid her up due to lack of crew even though she was pretty much ready to go at the end of the day, but they laid her up.
The RN is a pathetic shadow of its former self ! Cut after cut after cut, when the shit hits the fan, those words again amd again we hear so mich off,.sorry we got.it wrong !!!
Except we have invested in possible the best all round MCM capability in the world that is now producing results. Do you have anything to back up your assertion of how shit the Royal Navy is or are you just trolling.
I be generally interested to see your analysis of how our MCM capabilities have diminished over time if you have something to share.
Could you list your base year or determining when the Royal navy was it shit so we can understand your metrics perhaps? 1945? 1805? 1776?
All of our contemporaries are retaining sizeable MCM fleets even with autonomous capabilities.
Either we know something no one else is privy to or it’s a desperate attempt to free up manpower / cash whilst hoping for the best.
Who is retaining and building single use MCM fleets? Everyone in NATO I know of is moving to off board systems.
Japan for one, developed from the Sandown class.
Let’s hope they can be in two places at the same time. I guess the bad guys will never mine 2 places.
Lucky we’re are part of the most powerful military alliance in history and every country on planet earth including China and Russia get upset about mines.
If your only scaled to do one military operation at a time which we are then you only need the ability to do one mine operation.
The US navy which has more money than god is also only capable of conducting one major anti mine operation at a time as well. Which is why like us they rely on Allie’s in a major conflict.
Europe including us has invested heavily in MCM.
Other articles state that there are multiple, independent, autonomous RN MCM systems in development/test. Hopefully final downselect occurs before remaining Hunt class are retired. 🤞🤞
Down select already done first of the new production systems are being delivered to the UK and France early 2025.
Was RFA Stirling Castle not procured to trial and work in this environment?
Yep, but she’s clearly not up to the job!
Actually she’s laid up for lack of crew, like most of the rest of the RFA, because they keep leaving due to the dreadful pay.
Inactive because of lack of crew. Crane was damaged, now repaired so could resume operation if crew can be found.
Stirling Castle should be RN Manned with the MCM crews left after loosing all them MCM hulls should be around and they could man it to the same standard for its intended role. If its due to go out to the Middle East Releave the Bay out there so it too can support the RM who have just lost their bug units. It of course requires some upgrades to ensure a degree of self defence (2 x 30mm’s as a minimum) etc. And what of the other promised units for the Flee? The Dutch, French and Belguim are showing us the way. Lets get it sorted ASAP as the RN used to be the lead in MCM but you have to get the kit to where its needed and supported and of course a degree of protection is always needed. Half a job comes to mind.