Swept Away

The score: 388 to 21

The debate over defense spending has put the spotlight on such high-tech hardware items as the MX missile and the B-l bomber. But the less glamorous yet still important elements of the nation's defense arsenal have sometimes received less illumination than they should. A case in point: U.S. minesweepers.

According to the new edition of Jane's Fighting Ships, the authoritative London-based yearbook of floating warfare, the U.S. Navy's current force of 21 minesweepers--three active and 18 in reserve--could keep open only two of the nation's twelve major ports were the Soviets ever to mine U.S. harbors. Concluded Editor Captain John Moore: "The U.S.S.R. has the largest and the most diverse stock of [mines] in the world."

That judgment comes as no news to the Navy. In hearings before the Senate Sea Power and Force Projection Subcommittee last March, Vice Admiral Robert L. Walters, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Surface Warfare, testified, "No segment of naval warfare has been underfunded for so many years as has the mine-warfare community." The Navy got only three of the four sweepers it asked for in the fiscal 1984 budget; it has requested eight more, at a cost of about $380 million each, in the fiscal 1985-88 budgets.

The Soviet navy boasts 388 mine-clearance vessels, one-third more than NATO'S total. "We are trying," sighed a Navy spokesman. "We are aware of the threat, believe me." sb This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.