How Many Minesweepers Does the US Navy Have? Just Four Left

Four ships remain: USS Patriot (MCM 7), USS Pioneer (MCM 9), USS Warrior (MCM 10) and USS Chief (MCM 14). All four are forward deployed with the Seventh Fleet in Sasebo, in southern Japan, and the youngest, Chief, was commissioned in November 1994.

Each ship is 224 feet (68 meters) long, displaces about 1,300 tons and carries a crew of about 84. The hulls are wood sheathed in fiberglass, which keeps the magnetic signature low so the ship does not set off the mines it is hunting. Top speed is about 14 knots.

The Navy has planned for years to retire the last four. Its shipbuilding plan of April 2022 proposed taking them out of service around 2027, and no replacement ship of the same type is being built.

A modern minesweeper does two jobs: it hunts mines with sonar and destroys them one by one, and it sweeps an area to trigger or cut loose mines it cannot see.

On an Avenger, a hull-mounted sonar looks for objects on the seabed and in the water. When the crew finds a likely mine, a remotely operated mine neutralization vehicle dives to it, sends back video and places an explosive charge, or cuts the cable of a moored mine so it floats up and can be destroyed. For sweeping, the ship tows gear that cuts mooring cables and imitates the magnetic and acoustic signature of a large ship, so influence mines detonate harmlessly behind it. That is why the Navy calls these ships mine countermeasures ships rather than minesweepers alone.

The Navy retired all four of its Gulf-based minesweepers in September 2025, ending more than three decades of dedicated mine-hunting ships in the Middle East.

USS Dextrous was decommissioned on September 3, USS Gladiator on September 4, USS Sentry on September 24 and USS Devastator on September 25, 2025, all in Manama, Bahrain. Vice Adm. George Wikoff, commander of US Naval Forces Central Command and the Fifth Fleet, presided over the final ceremony at Naval Support Activity Bahrain. In January 2026 the four hulls were loaded onto a heavy-lift ship and carried back to the United States.

Six others went earlier. USS Champion, USS Scout and USS Ardent were decommissioned in August 2020, and USS Avenger and USS Defender in 2014. USS Guardian ran aground on Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines in January 2013 and was cut up where it lay.

The Navy replaced the Avengers with Independence-class littoral combat ships that carry a mine countermeasures mission package, backed by helicopters, underwater drones and explosive ordnance disposal divers.

Three of these ships were based in Bahrain by early 2026: USS Canberra (LCS 30), USS Santa Barbara (LCS 32) and USS Tulsa (LCS 16). Canberra, the first, arrived on May 22, 2025, and the Navy planned a fourth. Their package keeps the ship outside the minefield: an unmanned surface vessel tows an AN/AQS-20 sonar, the Knifefish underwater drone searches the seabed, an unmanned influence sweep imitates a passing ship, and an MH-60S helicopter can find mines and destroy them with expendable charges.

The MH-53E Sea Dragon, the large helicopter that towed mine-hunting sleds for decades, is on its way out. Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 15 is the last unit flying it, and the Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 budget lists the type for retirement.

Yes. Two of the four Japan-based ships, USS Pioneer and USS Chief, left Singapore on April 10, 2026, heading west for the Gulf, as the US mine-clearance mission in the strait began on April 11.

US Central Command brought them in to work with the littoral combat ships, underwater drones and helicopters. In late August 2026, Central Command announced that all mines had been cleared from the strait’s international shipping lanes. On October 25, Adm. Brad Cooper, its commander, said the primary shipping routes were free and clear of Iranian sea mines, and Central Command repeated it on October 29.

Iran disputes that. Its navy said on October 29 and 30 that the southern route was contaminated with mines, and the Guards navy claimed two mine strikes on November 1 and 2. No maritime authority has confirmed any of them. We covered the claims in the Lavan Island attack report and the limpet-mine attack off Oman.

No one outside Iran knows for certain. Before the war, estimates given to Congress put Iran’s stock at 5,000 to 6,000 naval mines, while Central Command later put the prewar figure at about 8,000.

Adm. Cooper told the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 14, 2026, that US forces had destroyed more than 90 percent of that inventory in more than 700 strikes on mine-related targets. He did not say how many were destroyed in storage, on boats or after being laid. Even on his figure, Iran would still hold hundreds of mines, and a handful in a shipping lane is enough to stop tanker traffic.

Mines have hit US warships in the Gulf before. USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine on April 14, 1988, and USS Tripoli and USS Princeton both hit mines off Kuwait on February 18, 1991.