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rge 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 of international law post cold war edit during the gulf war iraqi naval mines severely damaged uss princeton and uss tripoli 45 the us navy mined the approaches to the iraqi port of umm qasr on 17 january 1991 three a 6 intruders from the aircraft carrier uss ranger dropped mines on the main channel amid intense anti aircraft fire from zu 23 2 and iraqi naval vessels one of the a 6s was shot down and its two crewmembers were lost the pilot of one of the surviving a 6s claims he watched three ships disabled by the mines in the area during the last mission of the war 46 when active hostilities concluded eight countries conducted clearance operations 41 houthi forces in the yemeni civil war have made frequent use of naval mines laying over 150 in the red sea throughout the conflict 47 in the first month of the 2022 russian invasion of ukraine ukraine accused russia of deliberately employing drifting mines in the black sea area around the same time turkish and romanian military diving teams were involved in defusing operations when stray mines were spotted near the coasts of these countries london p i club issued a warning to freight ships in the area advising them to maintain lookouts for mines and pay careful attention to local navigation warnings 48 ukrainian forces have mined from the sea of azov to the black sea which banks the critical city of odesa 49 when the united states and israel launched an air war against iran iran planted sea mines in the strait of hormuz resulting in the 2026 strait of hormuz crisis 50 types edit types of naval mines a underwater b bottom ss submarine 1 drifting mine 2 drifting mine 3 moored mine long wire 4 moored mine short wire 5 bottom mines 6 torpedo mine captor mine 7 rising mine naval mines may be classified into three major groups contact remote and influence mines contact mines edit the earliest mines were usually of this type they are still used today as they are extremely low cost compared to any other anti ship weapon and are effective both as a psychological weapon and as a method to sink enemy ships contact mines need to be touched by the target before they detonate limiting the damage to the direct effects of the explosion and usually affecting only the vessel that triggers them early mines had mechanical mechanisms to detonate them but these were superseded in the 1870s by the hertz horn or chemical horn which was found to work reliably even after the mine had been in the sea for several years the mine s upper half is studded with hollow lead protuberances each containing a glass vial filled with sulfuric acid when a ship s hull crushes the metal horn it cracks the vial inside it allowing the acid to run down a tube and into a lead acid battery which until then contained no acid electrolyte this energizes the battery which detonates the explosive 51 earlier forms of the detonator employed a vial of sulfuric acid surrounded by a mixture of potassium perchlorate and sugar when the vial was crushed the acid ignited the perchlorate sugar mix and the resulting flame ignited the gunpowder charge 52 during the initial period of world war i the royal navy used contact mines in the english channel and later in large areas of the north sea to hinder patrols by german submarines later the american antenna mine was widely used because submarines could be at any depth from the surface to the seabed this type of mine had a copper wire attached to a buoy that floated above the explosive charge which was weighted to the seabed with a steel cable if a submarine s steel hull touched the copper wire the slight voltage change caused by contact between two dissimilar metals was amplified clarification needed and detonated the explosives 51 limpet mines edit main article limpet mine limpet mines are a special form of contact mine that are manually attached to the target by magnets and remain in place they are named because of the similarity to the limpet a mollusk moored contact mines edit a german contact mine laid in australian waters during world war ii generally this type of mine is set to float just below the surface of the water or as deep as five meters a steel cable connecting the mine to an anchor on the seabed prevents it from drifting away the explosive and detonating mechanism is contained in a buoyant metal or plastic shell the depth below the surface at which the mine floats can be set so that only deep draft vessels such as aircraft carriers battleships or large cargo ships are at risk saving the mine from being used on a less valuable target in littoral waters it is important to ensure that the mine does not become visible when the sea level falls at low tide so the cable length is adjusted to take account of tides during wwii there were mines that could be moored in 300 m deep 980 ft water floating mines typically have a mass of around 200 kg 440 lb including 80 kg 180 lb of explosives e g tnt minol or amatol 53 moored contact mines with plummet edit sequence of laying a moored contact mine with a plummet a special form of moored contact mines are those equipped with a plummet when the mine is launched 1 the mine with the anchor floats first and the lead plummet sinks from it 2 in doing so the plummet unwinds a wire the deep line which is used to set the depth of the mine below the water surface before it is launched 3 when the deep line has been unwound to a set length the anchor is flooded and the mine is released from the anchor 4 the anchor begins to sink and the mooring cable unwinds until the plummet reaches the sea floor 5 trig...
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