On April 14, 1988, an American warship, the frigate Samuel B. Roberts, showed to the world exactly how vulnerable modern technology is to one of the oldest, most primitive weapons still in mass use today.
Passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the ship struck an Iranian M-08 naval mine — a modern copy of a design that’s been around since the start of the 20th century — and nearly sank as her keel broke and a 15-foot hole opened up in the portside of the hull.
The Samuel B. Roberts incurred nearly $100 million in damage, with a number of crewmen suffering serious injuries requiring immediate medevac off the ship.
The frigate was eventually loaded onto a heavy lift ship and carried back to the U.S., where she spent more than a year undergoing repairs before finally being relaunched in October of 1989.
The mine which did this damage, and nearly sank the billion-dollar ship altogether, cost an estimated $1500.
If that weren’t enough, the subsequent sweep of the minefield where the Samuel B. Roberts was damaged proved to be even more costly to the U.S., as a Marine helicopter and its two crewmen went down during night operations.
The lesson here is that no matter how much money or technology you throw at a problem, sometimes, the simplest, cheapest methods will prove hard or impossible to defeat.
The Water: An Insurgent’s Battlefield
Naval mines have been in use since at least the American Revolution, when they were employed by the colonial forces to destroy or booby trap British ships moored at harbor.
Though the materials have changed over the years, and the delivery methods have become more sophisticated, the basic principal hasn’t changed at all.
Cheap to manufacture and deploy; hard to see; devastating to any target unlucky enough to bump into one.
Of course, things like sonar and magnetic field sensors have made it harder for naval mine designers to get their weapons to their targets, but one advantage that will never go away is the sea itself.
You see, the world’s oceans remain our darkest, most mysterious frontier. We invest more, and know more about outer space, in fact, than we do about the world’s oceans.
To date, only 4% of the world’s water volume has been charted — which means that when it comes to hiding places, there is nowhere better.
It’s the reason why naval mines remain a threat today… And it’s the reason why our enemies, who know all too well about the limitations of current underwater scanning and imaging technology, are starting to take to the depths.
The mine which nearly sank the Samuel B. Roberts was traced back to an Iranian minelayer, and spurred an American retaliation, codenamed Operation Praying Mantis — the biggest U.S. naval action since World War 2.
And that illustrated the second part of the lesson… Small things can lead to big consequences.
Special Delivery: Cocaine-Bearing Submersibles
Nearly 30 years have passed since this event, but today, tensions are even higher.
Iran still uses naval mines, but it also operates a fleet of small submarines, codenamed Ghadir.
Tiny, cheap and also very hard to detect, these manned weapons have the capacity to do billions of dollars worth of damage to American naval assets patrolling the area.
And the Iranians aren’t alone.
Thousands of miles closer to home, at our very shores, another enemy — this one not operating under any flag or following any ideology besides the quest for profit — is using its own cheap, hard to see submersibles to bring illegal narcotics to our shores.
Built of fiberglass and nearly silent, narco submarines like the one pictured below cost less than a million dollars to manufacture, but can transport more than $100 million in product in a single trip — making them effectively disposable.
They’re even smaller than the Iranian Ghadir subs, and most of the time, modern underwater sensors can’t distinguish these plastic submarines from large aquatic animals.
If you’re surprised by how blind we are to these smaller, improvised threats, you’re not alone.
In an age when aerial surveillance seems to have its eye on every moving person and object on Earth, the fact that we can barely see a few feet beneath the surface of the water is absurd.
However, it’s the way technology developed.
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21st Century Solutions to 18th Century Problems
When the U.S. was building its early-warning SOSUS network to spot incoming Soviet Ballistic missile submarines, it was imagining giant, 10,000 ton displacement titanium monsters cruising towards our shores… Not vessels barely bigger than a sail boat, with crew numbers in the single digits.
Today, however, the solution to this problem is within reach… And it’s already being implemented by government and private security forces around the world, as well as some companies which you might not typically think about when you imagine national security.
A small Canadian company has come up with something called Synthetic Aperture Sonar, and it’s already being recognized as a game-changer for underwater sensing and imaging.
The difference in resolution, from the current industry standard of 12.5 centimeters, and this company’s synthetic aperture imaging, which resolves at three centimeters, is dramatic.
Even without a trained eye, this 17x improvement in resolution cannot be overlooked.
Where as before, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between, say, a submerged car and a boulder… today, that’s no longer a problem.
This company’s groundbreaking imaging technology is already getting orders from both American and foreign clients, but it was only a few months ago that we got a peek at what its true vision is.
Though small, the company building this new-generation sonar recently acquired a world leader in underwater robotics, along with all its patents and intellectual property.
The next step is to create the world’s smartest, sharpest-seeing underwater drone fleet.
Of course, defense agencies will be interested, but another industry altogether has already seen potential of a different kind: Profit.
The oil industry, in its never-ending quest for more fertile fields to tap, knows full well what deep-diving Synthetic Aperture Sonar can do, and it’s not waiting around.
Unique investment opportunities are my specialty, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a young company, with such a specialized product, meet the needs of two giant, completely unrelated markets.
I’ve spent the last several weeks looking into this company; I’ve spoken with the CEO and chief scientific officer; and I’ve watched the orders come rolling in.
This week, I’m finally publishing my detailed insiders report on this company, and the technology that has the likes of Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) worried about its own floundering sea drone development program.
The report is free, and for the first time ever, available for instant access.
Fortune favors the bold,
Alex Koyfman
Check us out on YouTube!His flagship service, Microcap Insider, provides market-beating insights into some of the fastest moving, highest profit-potential companies available for public trading on the U.S. and Canadian exchanges. With more than 5 years of track record to back it up, Microcap Insider is the choice for the growth-minded investor. Alex contributes his thoughts and insights regularly to Energy and Capital. To learn more about Alex, click here.
