Colin:
Minesweeping gear is pretty well modular. We have a limited number of kits and they can be moved from one MCDV to the next fairly easily. Minesweeping is not high tech and has not changed much since it was conceived at the end of Victorian times. However, sweeping only deals with moored (or tethered) mines. offensive mine warfare has evolved passed that and we now have to deal with bottom mines. These you have to "hunt", and the hunting is technology driven.
Basically, think of hydrographic surveying: you are trying to derive a picture of the bottom of the water in sufficiently rough details that you can point out where the "bumps" on the bottom and general slopes are. In mine hunting, using similar techniques, we are trying to pin point objects in realtime that are from the size of a barrel down to the size of a bankers box on the sea floor that look like they do not belong there to start with.
In Canada, I'll say it again here, the MCDV were acquired to deal with ONE mine warfare threat: deep anti-submarine mines. This is because at the time we developed the MCDV's concept of operation, we were in the middle of the acquisition program for six to eight nuclear submarines. Such submarines were sufficiently high value assets to warrant an attack by deep sea mines.
The MCDV's were to deal with such mines in two ways: Moored mines would be team swept with mechanical EDATS gear (Extreme Depth Armed Team Sweep). Dealing with the bottom mines was different : in "peace" time, extremely detailed route surveys of the routes would be taken by the MCDV's using side scan sonar. Anything unusual revealed by these surveys would be identified by divers or ROV and catalogued. In case of increased tension or suspected mine attack, the route survey would be re-taken and compared to the original one. Anything new would be considered a mine and re-identified or destroyed by divers/ROV again. So here is a first technological choke point: The volume of data that needed to be stored, then compared for discrepancies - with the attendant "noise to signal" problems, not to mention "matching of data: did the ship go over exactly the same ground, were the sonar angles the same, is this a different rock, or the same rock which shifted a bit or was not measured from the same position, etc. I do not know (as I have been out for a while) if we ever managed to make it work. I know we had not when I retired.
Just think of the expeditions that go looking for important warship sinking sites: They have a good idea of where the ships sank because navies keep pretty good navigational records and they are looking for a six to nine hundred foot ship. Still they search for weeks, months and sometimes fail to find their prey. You are looking for something very small that may or may not be there and never know what your search area will be exactly until you start finding mines. That is why, for the shallower area where regular mines are used against surface ships we need mine hunters that have two important assets: 1) every possible and conceivable measure of self protection possible, and 2) the single most advanced computing system for realtime analysis of data, the Mk1 human eye/brain computer.
For this type of mine hunting work, modular systems are more problematic: First, it is difficult if not impossible to know the exact boundary of the mined area, and thus cannot come up with a safe standoff distance for any Craft of opportunity that would receive the modular package. Such craft does not have self protection measures built-in and losing it and the modular package before even starting is not the best scenario. Moreover, it would have to be stand off technology. We are slowly getting there and the latest generations of machines are getting better, but such technology has to work in nature and, whether you have an umbilical control or radio control (more complicated as you still need something connecting the underwater system to the surface antenna) search system, it is affected by under water currents, the way it is driven by the operator, the distance off you are (time delays) and the effect of the weather on the surface mother ship. So if you are in a hurry, you can miss things or easily fail to maintain proper attitude or lose contact with the system or fail to realize the actual position of the object you are inspecting more closely, etc. In all cases, the safety of your craft of opportunity has now been compromised.
As you can see, while the technology is improving, we are not there yet and mine hunting is still a craft that requires people going in harm's way in the mine field relying on their experience and the safety of the self-protection measures built in the craft they use.
Sorry if I bored some people with mine warfare 101.
