PLAN taskforce conducts first drill of sweeping smart mines in South China Sea

A maritime garrison command under the South China Sea Fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) recently conducted a drill of laying and sweeping real smart mines in a sea area of the South China Sea.

The taskforce successfully swept and detonated a number of smart mines of various types, setting a record of the PLAN's sweeping real smart mines by a taskforce for the first time in the South China Sea.

This drill is one of the annual mine drill missions of the PLAN, according to sources.

Compared with mine sweeping by a single ship, mine sweeping by a taskforce can expand the range of mine sweeping operation, increase the efficiency of mine sweeping in the actual combat, and improve the combat capability.

However, it is more difficult for a taskforce to conduct mine sweeping, because it requires all the ships in the taskforce to keep in step and coordinate closely with each other. Otherwise, the effect and range will decrease instead.

Sweeping smart mines by a taskforce poses high requirements for the on-site leadership, judgment and operational capacity, etc. of the organizing and implementing personnel.

On the drill site, a number of mine sweepers constantly changed the formation, searched intensively in the mission areas based on the waterway features and ocean current conditions, found a number of smart mines, and successfully swept and detonated them.