Navy Dolphins To The Rescue!

Jan 17, 2012 by James

Iran may think that it can block U.S. Navy surface and subsurface vessels from entering the Strait of Hormuz but there’s one thing they can’t stop – dolphins. The mammal is the Navy’s back up plan if Iran decides to block the world from approximately a fifth of the global oil supply. Mines are a great threat to any navy and the Americans have found the proper recruit for deep sea mine detection. These highly trained dolphins are extremely effective and they’re one of only a few sea creatures employed by the U.S. Government.

The threat of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz has reached the boiling point and Iran has numerous weapons available to close the strait including mines, patrol boats and anti-ship missiles. War was essentially threatened when according to multiple sources administration officials told Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, that closing the strait would cross a “red line” and result in a “response.” That response would likely involve opening the strait by force, or a show of force, and that would mean clearing the strait of anything that can damage a ship.

In 2000 al-Qaeda used a mine to blow a giant hole in the USS Cole.

These mines pose a great threat not only due to their lethality but because of their simplicity and relatively low cost. Some of the simpler versions can cost just a mere $1,000 a piece which in military terms is dirt cheap. Clearing a minefield can also take up to 200 times as long as it did to lay it and the cost to remove it is generally around 10% more than it cost to lay it. These mines are triggered either by contact or approach of an incoming vessel and unlike today’s modern laser guided bombs these do not discern between friend and foe. Nations are bound by international law to announce when they lay mines but because you lose the strategic advantage that way many do not or they make the location very general.

This is where the dolphins come to the rescue. ”We’ve got dolphins,” said retired Adm. Tim Keating in a Wednesday interview with NPR. Since 1965, the Navy has trained dolphins to protect U.S. troops and ships and has previously used them in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first time the animals were used to locate live ordnance in wartime according to the Navy. The Navy has 80 bottlenose dolphins in the San Diego Bay alone and they are trained to seek out and drop location markers near mines. They are part of Navy Special Clearance Team One, an elite team of Navy SEALs and Marines formed in 2002, said former Navy spokesman Tom LaPuzza. Their success is classified but the rumors are they have a near 100% success record. The destruction of the mines is still left up to their human counterparts.

Sea mines were first put to use in the 14th century during the Ming Dynasty.

The dolphins’ sonar is so effective that they can can discern a quarter from a dime when blindfolded and spot a 3-inch metal sphere from 370 feet away which blows any deep sea divers capability out of the water (no pun intended). The dolphins are kept on ships in specially designed containers and are deployed by small boat when a mine is spotted or they’re given good intelligence on a mine field. Once a mine is found the dolphins will surface, tap the side of the boat and then drop a weighted tether near the mine. The Navy stresses that the dolphins are safe and that the divers are the ones taking the real risk but that doesn’t stop the animal rights groups from complaining.

Most dolphins are kidnapped for aquariums, academic centers and research and training facilities from their pods and families at sea by aqua cowboys who use speedboats to corner a group of dolphins and net the young. Much of what we know about the training of dolphins of war is based on the testimonies of ex-Navy trainers. It has been reported that dolphins were beaten, kicked and starved as aids in training. There are also allegations that dolphins that have become old and of no use to the Navy any more were dumped at sea without proper rehabilitation. …both sides will have to consider dolphins as potential enemy biosensors or weapons. In some situations, there may be no choice but to destroy dolphins or any marine mammal presenting a similar threat. Source: Petition Online

Maybe al-Qaeda will take to training suicide dolphins to eliminate the threat of American dolphins invading their few waterways? Dolphins however have become invaluable to the United States military as well as other mammals including the sea lion. Iran might have been thinking that it would be easy to defeat the conventional forces of the Navy but they likely never thought that the first wave of Americans into the Strait of Hormuz would be Navy SEAL dolphins.

The Atlantic Wire SF Gate Wikipedia – Naval Mine