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ast from enemy ships and submarines forcing them into more easily defended areas or keeping them away from sensitive ones shipowners are reluctant to send their ships through known minefields port authorities may attempt to clear a mined area but those without effective minesweeping equipment may cease using the area transit of a mined area will be attempted only when strategic interests outweigh potential losses the decision makers perception of the minefield is a critical factor minefields designed for psychological effect are usually placed on trade routes to stop ships from reaching an enemy nation they are often spread thinly to create an impression of minefields existing across large areas a single mine inserted strategically on a shipping route can stop maritime movements for days while the entire area is swept a mine s capability to sink ships makes it a credible threat but minefields work more on the mind than on ships 4 international law specifically the eighth hague convention of 1907 requires nations to declare when they mine an area to make it easier for civil shipping to avoid the mines the warnings do not have to be specific for example during world war ii britain declared simply that it had mined the english channel north sea and french coast citation needed history edit early use edit a 14th century illustration of a naval mine and page description from the huolongjing naval mines were first invented by chinese innovators of imperial china and were described in thorough detail by the early ming dynasty artillery officer jiao yu in his 14th century military treatise known as the huolongjing 5 chinese records tell of naval explosives in the 16th century used to fight against japanese pirates wokou this kind of naval mine was loaded in a wooden box sealed with putty general qi jiguang made several timed drifting explosives to harass japanese pirate ships 6 the tiangong kaiwu the exploitation of the works of nature treatise written by song yingxing in 1637 describes naval mines with a ripcord pulled by hidden ambushers located on the nearby shore which rotated a steel wheel flint mechanism to produce sparks and ignite the fuze of the naval mine 7 although this is the rotating steel wheel s first use in naval mines jiao yu described their use for land mines in the 14th century 8 the first plan for a sea mine in the west was by ralph rabbards who presented his design to queen elizabeth i of england in 1574 7 the dutch inventor cornelius drebbel was employed in the office of ordnance by king charles i of england to make weapons including the failed floating petard 9 weapons of this type were apparently tried by the english at the siege of la rochelle in 1627 10 david bushnell s mines destroying hms cerberus s tender on 13 august 1777 the american inventor david bushnell developed the first american naval mine for use against the british in the american revolutionary war 11 the mine consisted of a watertight keg filled with gunpowder that was floated toward the intended target and would be detonated by a sparking mechanism if it struck a ship on 13 august 1777 bushnell attempted to use a mine to destroy hms cerberus in the delaware river but only succeeded in destroying her ship s tender and killing three or four sailors 12 the 19th century edit infernal machines in the potomac river in 1861 during the american civil war sketch by alfred waud the 1804 raid on boulogne made extensive use of explosive devices designed by inventor robert fulton the torpedo catamaran was a coffer like device balanced on two wooden floats and steered by a man with a paddle weighted with lead so as to ride low in the water the operator was further disguised by wearing dark clothes and a black cap 13 his task was to approach the french ship hook the torpedo to the anchor cable and having activated the device by removing a pin remove the paddles and escape before the torpedo detonated 14 also to be deployed were large numbers of casks filled with gunpowder ballast and combustible balls they would float in on the tide and on washing up against an enemy s hull explode 14 also included in the force were several fireships carrying 40 barrels of gunpowder and rigged to explode by a clockwork mechanism 14 in 1812 russian engineer pavel shilling exploded an underwater mine using an electrical circuit in 1842 samuel colt used an electric detonator to destroy a moving vessel to demonstrate an underwater mine of his own design to the united states navy and president john tyler however opposition from former president john quincy adams scuttled the project as not fair and honest warfare 15 in 1854 during the unsuccessful attempt of the anglo french 101 warships fleet to seize the kronstadt fortress british steamships hms merlin 9 june 1855 the first successful mining in western history hms vulture and hms firefly suffered damage due to the underwater explosions of russian naval mines russian naval specialists set more than 1 500 naval mines or infernal machines designed by moritz von jacobi and by immanuel nobel 16 in the gulf of finland during the crimean war of 1853 1856 the mining of vulcan led to the world s first minesweeping operation 17 18 during the next 72 hours 33 mines were swept 19 the jacobi mine was designed by german born russian engineer jacobi in 1853 the mine was tied to the sea bottom by an anchor a cable connected it to a 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...
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