“My city’s fine outer harbor and its intergral network of connecting waterways are ideal targets for mine warfare,” writes New Yorker Arthur Cappabianca in the most recent issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine. Cappabianca, co-founder of a port security consulting firm, says he believes terrorists might one plant undersea mines in U.S. ports. “Imagine a Staten Island Ferry striking a mine during rush hour on a cold December morning … loss of life could be double that of the Titanic.”
Cappabianca has a clear interest in stoking panic regarding the mine threat. The more worry, the more consulting he might do. But is his scenario at all plausible? Consider: mines don’t lay themselves. And until terrorists develop long-range submarines or stealthy bomber aircraft, the only way for them to plant a mine in a U.S. harbor is by way of small boats, which the Coast Guard admits it does a poor job of tracking.
But the overall system for supporting and arming these boats is pretty complex. Consider this 1998 South African report:
To achieve its objective of sinking or damaging a ship passing near or over it, a ground-mine requires a large warhead — usually in the order of at least 200 kilograms of explosives — as well as increasingly sophisticated and complex electronic systems. It is these two requirements which make the modern sea-mine not only heavy and bulky, but also electronically complex and therefore expensive in relative terms to develop and produce. … Notwithstanding this factor and due to the complexity of sea-mines, as well as their use as a strategic rather than a tactical weapon, mine warfare at sea requires detailed preplanning for effective utilisation.
Sound like something Al Qaeda might pull off in a U.S. port thousands of miles from any of its safe havens? I’d say no, especially considering that it’s much easier to simply blow a hole in the side of Liquid Natural Gas tanker (pictured) and ignite a massive fireball, as MSNBC described, quoting a study by Sandia National Laboratories:
The Sandia scientists identified “several credible” terror scenarios that the report said would result in at least one — possibly as many as three — of a tanker’s five cargo tanks being breached. That would ignite a pool of fire to spread several hundred yards in all directions, the report said. While “the most significant impacts to public health” and the most severe destruction of buildings would be within a 550-yard radius of the fire, heat that could burn the skin and damage houses could extend to nearly a mile away.
Related:
Robot mine-killer swims upstream
Navy reconsiders mine warfare
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[...] The difficulty of sea mines. [...]