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galvanic cell which powered it from the shore the power of its explosive charge was equal to 14 kg 31 lb of black powder in the summer of 1853 the production of the mine was approved by the committee for mines of the ministry of war of the russian empire in 1854 60 jacobi mines were laid in the vicinity of the forts pavel and alexander kronstadt to deter the british baltic fleet from attacking them it gradually phased out its direct competitor the nobel mine on the insistence of admiral fyodor litke the nobel mines were bought from swedish industrialist immanuel nobel who had entered into collusion with the russian head of navy alexander sergeyevich menshikov despite their high cost 100 russian rubles the nobel mines proved to be faulty exploding while being laid failing to explode or detaching from their wires and drifting uncontrollably at least 70 of them were subsequently disarmed by the british in 1855 301 more jacobi mines were laid around krostadt and lisy nos british ships did not dare to approach them 20 in the 19th century mines were called torpedoes a name probably conferred by robert fulton after the torpedo fish which gives powerful electric shocks a spar torpedo was a mine attached to a long pole and detonated when the ship carrying it rammed another one and withdrew a safe distance the submarine h l hunley used one to sink uss housatonic on 17 february 1864 a harvey torpedo was a type of floating mine towed alongside a ship and was briefly in service in the royal navy in the 1870s other torpedoes were attached to ships or propelled themselves one such weapon called the whitehead torpedo after its inventor caused the word torpedo to apply to self propelled underwater missiles as well as to static devices these mobile devices were also known as fish torpedoes the american civil war of 1861 1865 also saw the successful use of mines the first ship sunk by a mine uss cairo foundered in 1862 in the yazoo river rear admiral david farragut s famous command during the battle of mobile bay in 1864 damn the torpedoes full speed ahead note 1 refers to a minefield laid at mobile alabama after 1865 the united states adopted the mine as its primary weapon for coastal defense in the decade following 1868 major henry larcom abbot carried out a lengthy set of experiments to design and test moored mines that could be exploded on contact or be detonated at will as enemy shipping passed near them this initial development of mines in the united states took place under the purview of the us army corps of engineers which trained officers and men in their use at the engineer school of application at willets point new york later named fort totten in 1901 underwater minefields became the responsibility of the us army s artillery corps and in 1907 this was a founding responsibility of the united states army coast artillery corps 21 the imperial russian navy a pioneer in mine warfare successfully deployed mines against the ottoman navy during both the crimean war and the russo turkish war 1877 1878 22 during the war of the pacific 1879 1883 the peruvian navy at a time when the chilean squadron was blockading the peruvian ports formed a brigade of torpedo boats under the command of the frigate captain leopoldo sánchez calderón and the peruvian engineer manuel cuadros who perfected the naval torpedo or mine system to be electrically activated when the cargo weight was lifted this system was employed on 3 july 1880 in front of the port of callao when the gunned transport loa was sunk while capturing a sloop mined by the peruvians a similar fate occurred to the gunboat schooner covadonga in front of the port of chancay on 13 september 1880 when a captured pleasure boat exploded while being hoisted on its side 23 during the battle of tamsui 1884 in the keelung campaign of the sino french war chinese forces in taiwan under liu mingchuan took measures to reinforce tamsui against the french they planted nine torpedo mines in the river and blocked the entrance 24 early 20th century edit during the boxer rebellion imperial chinese forces deployed a command detonated mine field at the mouth of the hai river before the dagu forts to prevent the western allied forces from sending ships to attack 25 26 the next major use of mines was during the russo japanese war of 1904 1905 two mines blew up when the petropavlovsk struck them near port arthur sending the holed vessel to the bottom and killing the fleet commander admiral stepan makarov and most of his crew in the process the toll inflicted by mines was not confined to the russians however the japanese navy lost two battleships four cruisers two destroyers and a torpedo boat to offensively laid mines during the war most famously on 15 may 1904 the russian minelayer amur planted a 50 mine minefield off port arthur and succeeded in sinking the japanese battleships hatsuse and yashima following the end of the russo japanese war several nations attempted to have mines banned as weapons of war at the hague peace conference 1907 22 many early mines were fragile and dangerous to handle as they contained glass containers filled with nitroglycerin or mechanical devices that activated a blast upon tipping several mine laying ships were destroyed when their cargo exploded 27 beginning around the start of the 20th century submarine mines played a major role in the defense of us harbours against enemy attacks as part of the endicott and taft programs the mines employed were controlled mines anchored to the bottoms of the harbours and detonated under control from large mine casemates onshore british war workers using air pressure to test naval mines during world war i during world war i mines were used extensively to defend coasts coastal shipping ports and naval bases around the globe the germans laid mines in shipping lanes to sink merchant and naval vessels serving britain the allies targeted the german u boats in the strait of dover and the hebrides in an attempt to seal up the northern exits of the north sea the allies developed the north sea mine barrage during a period of five months from june 1918 almost 70 000 mines were laid spanning the north sea s northern exits the total number of mines laid in the north sea the british east coast straits of dover and heligoland bight is estimated at 190 000 and the total number during the whole of wwi was 235 000 sea mines 28 clearing the barrage after the war took 82 ships and five months working around the clock 29 it was also during world war i that the british hospital ship hmhs britannic became the largest vessel ever sunk by a naval mine citation needed the britannic was the sister ship of the rms titanic and the rms olympic 30 world war ii edit a contact mine being deployed from the german minelayer hansestadt danzig during world war ii the u boat fleet which dominated much of the battle of the atlantic was small at the beginning of the war and much of the early action by german forces involved mining convoy routes and ports around britain german submarines also operated in the mediterranean sea in the caribbean sea and along the us coast initially contact mines requiring a ship to physically strike a mine to detonate it were employed usually tethered at the end of a cable just below the surface of the water contact mines usually blew a hole in ships hulls by the beginning of world war ii most nations had developed mines that could be dropped from aircraft some of which floated on the surface making it possible to lay them in enemy harbours the use of dredging and nets was effective against this type of mine but this consumed valuable time and resources and required harbours to be closed later some ships survived mine blasts limping into port with buckled plates and broken backs this appeared to be due to a new type of mine detecting ships by their proximity to the mine an influence mine and detonating at a distance causing damage with the shock wave of the explosion ships that had successfully run the gantlet of the atlantic crossing were sometimes destroyed entering freshly cleared british harbours more shipping was being lost than could be replaced and churchill ordered the intact recovery of one of these new mines to be of the highest priority the towed electric cables of double l magnetic minesweeping gear being deployed behind a royal navy minesweeper the british experienced a stroke of luck in november 1939 when a german mine was dropped from an aircraft onto the mudflats off shoeburyness during low tide additionally the land belonged to the army and a base with men and workshops was at hand experts were dispatched from hms vernon to investigate the mine the royal navy knew that mines could use magnetic sensors britain having developed magnetic mines in world war i so everyone removed all metal including their buttons and made tools of non magnetic brass 31 they disarmed the mine and rushed it to the labs at hms vernon where scientists discovered that the mine had a magnetic arming mechanism a large ferrous object passing through the earth s magnetic field will concentrate the field through it due to its magnetic permeability the mine s detector was designed to trigger as a ship passed over when the earth s magnetic field was concentrated in the ship and away from the mine the mine detected this loss of the magnetic field which caused it to detonate the mechanism had an adjustable sensitivity calibrated in milligauss a vickers wellington fitted with a dwi magnetic mine exploder ismailia egypt from this data known methods were used to clear these mines early methods included the use of large electromagnets dragged behind ships or below low flying aircraft a number of smaller bombers like the vickers wellington were used for this both of these methods had the disadvantage of sweeping only a small strip a better solution was found in the double l sweep 32 using electrical cables dragged behind ships that passed large pulses of current through the seawater this created a large magnetic field and swept the entire area between the two ships the older methods continued to be used in smaller areas the suez canal continued to be swept by aircraft for instance while these methods were useful for clearing mines from local ports they were of little or no use for enemy controlled areas these were typically visited by warships and the majority of the fleet then underwent a massive degaussing process where their hulls had a slight south bias induced into them which offset the concentration effect almost to zero initially major warships and large troopships had a copper degaussing coil fitted around the perimeter of the hull energized by the ship s electrical system whenever in suspected magnetic mined waters some of the first to be so fitted were the carrier hms ark royal and the liners rms queen mary and rms queen elizabeth it was a photo of one of these liners in new york harbour showing the degaussing coil which revealed to german naval intelligence the fact that the british were using degaussing methods to combat their magnetic mines 33 this was felt to be impractical for smaller warships and merchant vessels mainly because the ships lacked the generating capacity to energise such a coil it was found that wiping a current carrying cable up and down a ship s hull 34 temporarily canceled the ships magnetic signature sufficiently to nullify the threat this started in late 1939 and by 1940 merchant vessels and the smaller british warships were largely immune for a few months at a time until they once again built up a field the cruiser hms belfast is just one example of a ship that was struck by a magnetic mine during this time on 21 november 1939 a mine broke her keel which damaged her engine and boiler rooms as well as injuring 46 men and one later died from his injuries she was towed to rosyth for repairs incidents like this resulted in many of the boats that sailed to dunkirk being degaussed in a marathon four day effort by degaussing stations 35 the finnish minelayer ruotsinsalmi lays naval mines in the gulf of finland during the continuation war the allies and germany deployed acoustic mines in world war ii against which even wooden hulled ships in particular minesweepers remained vulnerable 36 japan developed sonic generators to sweep these the gear was not ready by war s end 36 the primary method japan used was small air delivered bombs this was profligate and ineffectual used against acoustic mines at penang 200 bombs were needed to detonate just 13 mines 36 the germans developed a pressure activated mine and planned to deploy it as well but they saved it for later use when it became clear the british had defeated the magnetic system the us also deployed these adding counters which would allow a variable number of ships to pass unharmed before detonating 36 this made them a great deal harder to sweep 36 mining campaigns could have devastating consequences the us effort against japan for instance closed major ports such as hiroshima for days 37 and by the end of the pacific war had cut the amount of freight passing through kobe yokohama by 90 37 when the war ended more than 25 000 us laid mines were still in place and the navy proved unable to sweep them all limiting efforts to critical areas 38 after sweeping for almost a year in may 1946 the navy abandoned the effort with 13 000 mines still unswept 38 over the next thirty years more than 500 minesweepers of a variety of types were damaged or sunk clearing them 38 the us began adding delay counters to their magnetic mines in june 1945 36 cold war era edit in 1988 an iranian m 08 mine made a 8 metre 25 ft hole in the hull of the frigate uss samuel b roberts forcing the ship to seek temporary repairs in a dry dock in dubai uae since world war ii mines have damaged 14 united states navy ships whereas air and missile attacks have damaged four during the korean war mines laid by north korean forces caused 70 of the casualties suffered by us naval vessels and caused 4 sinkings 39 during the iran iraq war from 1980 to 1988 the belligerents mined several areas of the persian gulf and nearby waters on 24 july 1987 the supertanker ss bridgeton was mined by iran near farsi island on 14 april 1988 uss samuel b roberts struck an iranian mine in the central persian gulf shipping lane wounding 10 sailors in the summer of 1984 magnetic sea mines damaged at least 19 ships in the red sea the us concluded libya was probably responsible for the minelaying 40 in response the us britain france and three other nations 41 launched operation intense look a minesweeping operation in the red sea involving more than 46 ships 42 on the orders of the reagan administration the cia mined nicaragua s sandino port in 1984 in support of the contras 43 a soviet tanker was among the ships damaged by these mines 44 in 1986 in the case of nicaragua v united states the international court of justice ruled that this mining was a violation...
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