Kan Iran verkligen slå ut det här i Hormuz-sundet? (maffig bildsammanställning )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_mine
The distance sweep mimics the sound and magnetism of a ship and is pulled behind the sweeper. It has floating coils and large underwater drums.
It is the only sweep effective against bottom mines.


Modern influence mines are designed to discriminate against false inputs and are therefore much harder to sweep. They often contain inherent anti-sweeping mechanisms. For example, they may be programmed to respond to the unique noise of a particular ship-type, its associated magnetic signature and the typical pressure displacement of such a vessel. As a result, a mine-sweeper must accurately guess and mimic the required target signature in order to trigger detonation. The task is complicated by the fact that an influence mine may have one or more of a hundred different potential target signatures programmed into it

Another anti-sweeping mechanism is a ship-counter in the mine fuze. When enabled, this allows detonation only after the mine fuze has been triggered a pre-set number of times. To further complicate matters, influence mines may be programmed to arm themselves (or disarm automatically—known as self-sterilization) after a pre-set time. During the pre-set arming delay (which could last days or even weeks) the mine would remain dormant and ignore any target stimulus, whether genuine or faked.

When influence mines are laid in an ocean minefield, they may have various combinations of fuze settings configured. For example, some mines (with the acoustic sensor enabled) may become active within three hours of being laid, others (with the acoustic and magnetic sensors enabled) may become active after two weeks but have the ship-counter mechanism set to ignore the first two trigger events, and still others in the same minefield (with the magnetic and pressure sensors enabled) may not become armed until three weeks have passed. Groups of mines within this mine-field may have different target signatures which may or may not overlap. The fuzes on influence mines allow many different permutations, which complicates the clearance process.

Mines with ship-counters, arming delays and highly specific target signatures in mine fuzes can falsely convince a belligerent that a particular area is clear of mines or has been swept effectively because a succession of vessels have already passed through safely.

Mine hunting
Mine hunting is very different from sweeping, although some minehunters can do both tasks. Mines are hunted using sonar, then inspected and destroyed either by divers or ROVs (remote controlled unmanned mini submarines). It is slow, but also the most reliable way to remove mines.

Mine hunting started during the Second World War, but it was only after the war that it became truly effective.

Sea mammals (mainly the Bottlenose Dolphin) have been trained to hunt and mark mines, most famously by the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program.

Mine-clearance dolphins were deployed in the Persian Gulf during the Iraq War in 2003. The Navy claims that these dolphins were effective in helping to clear more than 100 antiship mines and underwater booby traps from Umm Qasr Port.

French naval officer Jacques Yves Cousteau's Undersea Research Group was once involved in mine-hunting operations: They removed or detonated a variety of German mines, but one particularly defusion-resistant batch—equipped with acutely sensitive pressure, magnetic, and acoustic sensors and wired together so that one explosion would trigger the rest—was simply left undisturbed for years until corrosion would (hopefully) disable the mines.

http://imageholicsanonymous.blogspot.se/2010_05_01_archive.html
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_akOD74dlP4E/S_FyID-1KqI/AAAAAAAACxM/JsmUYZOzucY/s1600/1987+oil+tanker+Bridgeton.jpg
In 1987, the U.S. began re-flagging Kuwaiti oil tankers in an effort to protect them from Iranian attacks. Unfortunately, the heavily-laden tanker Bridgeton struck an Iranian mine and nearly sank. Somehow, it managed to make it to port without losing much of its cargo.

http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/military_service/persian_gulf_ops.htm
http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/military_service/Bridgeton.jpg
On Friday July 24th, two days into Earnest Will, the 415,000 ton oil tanker Bridgeton struck an Iranian mine. Four of the ship’s 31 compartments were breached. This views shows the Liberian-flagged tanker Stena Explorer, which struck an Iranian mine on June 19th. She had about 120 feet of hull beneath the water in this view; a remarkable testimony of how difficult it is to sink a super tanker. Between May 16th and July 25, 1987 five super tankers struck mines in the Persian Gulf, hastening the deployment of HM-14 and their minesweeping choppers to the area!