US Navy retired all dedicated minesweepers from the Gulf three months after bombing Iran — then Iran started laying mines

On September 25, 2025, the US Navy decommissioned USS Devastator (MCM-6) at Naval Support Activity Bahrain — the last of four Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships to leave the Persian Gulf. USS Dextrous (MCM-13) had decommissioned on September 3, USS Gladiator (MCM-11) around September 12, and USS Sentry (MCM-3) around September 24. Vice Admiral George Wikoff presided over the final ceremony.

These were purpose-built minesweepers: fiberglass-sheathed wooden hulls designed to operate inside minefields where magnetic-influence mines would destroy steel-hulled ships. The class had been forward-deployed to Bahrain since 2012, and Dextrous had operated continuously in the Persian Gulf since August 1997 — 28 years.

The decommissioning occurred three months after Operation Midnight Hammer (June 22, 2025), in which the United States struck Iranian nuclear sites. The Navy proceeded with scrapping its only dedicated mine countermeasures vessels in the most minable chokepoint on Earth while actively engaged in military operations against the country with the largest mine stockpile in the region — an estimated 2,000 to 6,000 naval mines.

The replacement — the Littoral Combat Ship MCM Mission Package — had been declared “not operationally effective or operationally suitable” by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation in 2015. It achieved Initial Operational Capability in May 2023 after what USNI News described as “more than a decade of fits, starts and failed systems.” Its first operational deployment did not begin until March 2025. It has never been tested against real mines.

On January 9, 2026, all four decommissioned MCMs were loaded onto the heavy-lift vessel M/V Seaway Hawk and departed Bahrain for disposal. The Seaway Hawk arrived in Philadelphia on approximately March 10, 2026 — the same day CNN and CBS reported that Iran had begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

On February 28, 2026, the United States launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran. By March 11, three merchant ships had been struck in or near the Strait of Hormuz, including a Thai-registered bulk carrier that caught fire. Reuters reported the Navy had been refusing “near-daily requests” from the shipping industry for military escorts, saying the risk was too high. The decommissioned minesweepers sat in a Philadelphia dock.