Avenger-class mine countermeasures ship
1985 class of American mine countermeasures ships
The Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships are a class of 14 ships constructed for the United States Navy from 1987 to 1994, designed to clear naval mines from vital waterways. The ships have the hull designator MCM (for mine, countermeasure).
The Avenger-class ships are being replaced by the Freedom and Independence-class littoral combat ships, as well as other MCM platforms, which use unmanned air, surface, and undersea vehicles to detect and destroy naval mines at a standoff distance.
History
Background
In the early 1980s, the U.S. Navy began development of a new mine countermeasures (MCM) force, which included two new classes of ships and minesweeping helicopters. The vital importance of a state-of-the-art mine countermeasures force was strongly underscored in the Persian Gulf during the eight years of the Iran–Iraq War, and in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991 when Avenger and Guardian conducted MCM operations.
Avenger-class ships are designed as mine hunter-killers capable of finding, classifying, and destroying moored and bottom mines. The last three MCM ships were purchased in 1990, bringing the total to 14 fully deployable, oceangoing Avenger-class ships. These ships use sonar and video systems, cable cutters and a mine-detonating device that can be released and detonated by remote control. They are also capable of conventional sweeping measures.
Operations
As of 2012, eight Avengers were forward-based: four at Sasebo, Japan with standing crews, and four at Manama, Bahrain, with ten ships' companies on rotational deployments.
The public source identifies “Avenger-class mine countermeasures ship” as 1985 class of American mine countermeasures ships. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Avenger-class, mine and countermeasures.
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This entry incorporates text from “Avenger-class mine countermeasures ship” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.