Mine Countermeasures - MCM

Dedicated MCMVs and Unmanned Vehicles

The naval mine is considered to be one of the most cost-effective naval weapons and represents a significant threat even to the most sophisticated warships. While originally equipped with a simple contact mechanism, it gradually became more advanced and now incorporates a range of smart detonators.

A wide variety of mine types is deployed today, and many of these are highly sophisticated. This makes correspondingly strict demands on mine countermeasures systems – demands that Kockums is perfectly equipped to meet. 

Comprehensive approach to mine countermeasures

Kockums all-embracing approach to mine countermeasures - MCM - technology has made us a leader in the field. The Landsort / Koster and Styrsö classes are dedicated and well proven countermeasures vessels (MCMVs), and both of them are made of glass-fibre reinforced plastic (GRP) sandwich material. This composite hull material has many benefits to offer, one of which is that it is entirely non-magnetic.

A non-magnetic composite hull is a distinguishing feature for many of Kockums naval surface vessels - also combatants. The fact that for instance the Visby class corvettes are made from composite carbon-fibre material, makes these vessels more suited than conventional steel vessel, to carry also MCM systems oboard - so called organic MCM capability.  

For extremely hazardous tasks, our remote controlled minesweeper - the SAM unmanned surface vehicle minimizes risks.

The MCM toolbox

The most common MCM techniques are minesweeping and mine-hunting, and the mantra to date has been: “hunt when you can, sweep when you must”. This means that while minehunting can be an effective means of clearing mines, external influences such as highly reverberant and high-clutter environments, mine burial, and stealthy mine cases can make minehunting ineffective, so minesweeping may become necessary. 

We at Kockums strongly believe that the importance of efficient MCM at all times will increase in the future. As the threat from naval mines is so diversified, our respons to this is therefore a wide variety of countermeasures - an "MCM Toolbox"  - consisting of different tools for sweeping, hunting and disposal of mines. Kockums can provide the right mix of tools for such toolbox - from dedicated MCM vessels to unmanned minesweepers and organic MCM.

Page updated Friday, January 29, 2010.