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the remainder of the war after another small ship was sunk by one of the remaining mines although they may not have realized no more than three mines remained 4 using grumman tbf avenger torpedo bombers the us navy mounted a direct aerial mining attack on enemy shipping in palau on 30 march 1944 in concert with simultaneous conventional bombing and strafing attacks the dropping of 78 mines deterred 32 japanese ships from escaping koror harbour and 23 of those immobilized ships were sunk in a subsequent bombing raid 4 the combined operation sank or damaged 36 ships 75 two avengers were lost and their crews were recovered 76 the mines brought port usage to a halt for 20 days japanese mine sweeping was unsuccessful and the japanese abandoned palau as a base 74 when their first ship attempting to traverse the swept channel was damaged by a mine detonation 4 in march 1945 operation starvation began in earnest using 160 of lemay s b 29 superfortress bombers to attack japan s inner zone almost half of the mines were the us built mark 25 model carrying 570 kg 1 250 lb of explosives and weighing about 900 kg 2 000 lb other mines used included the smaller 500 kg 1 000 lb mark 26 74 fifteen b 29s were lost while 293 japanese merchant ships were sunk or damaged 77 twelve thousand aerial mines were laid a significant barrier to japan s access to outside resources prince fumimaro konoe said after the war that the aerial mining by b 29s had been equally as effective as the b 29 attacks on japanese industry at the closing stages of the war when all food supplies and critical material were prevented from reaching the japanese home islands 78 the united states strategic bombing survey pacific war concluded that it would have been more efficient to combine the united states s effective anti shipping submarine effort with land and carrier based air power to strike harder against merchant shipping and begin a more extensive aerial mining campaign earlier in the war survey analysts projected that this would have starved japan forcing an earlier end to the war 79 after the war dr johnson looked at the japan inner zone shipping results comparing the total economic cost of submarine delivered mines versus air dropped mines and found that though 1 in 12 submarine mines connected with the enemy as opposed to 1 in 21 for aircraft mines the aerial mining operation was about ten times less expensive per enemy ton sunk 80 clearing wwii aerial mines edit between 600 000 and 1 000 000 naval mines of all types were laid in wwii advancing military forces worked to clear mines from newly taken areas but extensive minefields remained in place after the war air dropped mines had an additional problem for mine sweeping operations they were not meticulously charted in japan much of the b 29 mine laying work had been performed at high altitude with the drifting on the wind of mines carried by parachute adding a randomizing factor to their placement generalized danger areas were identified with only the quantity of mines given in detail mines used in operation starvation were supposed to be self sterilizing but the circuit did not always work clearing the mines from japanese waters took so many years that the task was eventually given to the japan maritime self defense force 81 for the purpose of clearing all types of naval mines the royal navy employed german crews and minesweepers from june 1945 to january 1948 82 organised in the german mine sweeping administration gmsa which consisted of 27 000 members of the former kriegsmarine and 300 vessels 83 mine clearing was not always successful a number of ships were damaged or sunk by mines after the war two such examples were the liberty ships pierre gibault which was scrapped after hitting a mine in a previously cleared area off the greek island of kythira in june 1945 84 and nathaniel bacon which hit a minefield off civitavecchia italy in december 1945 caught fire was beached and broke in two 85 damage edit the damage that may be caused by a mine depends on the shock factor value a combination of the initial strength of the explosion and of the distance between the target and the detonation when taken in reference to ship hull plating the term hull shock factor hsf is used while keel damage is termed keel shock factor ksf if the explosion is directly underneath the keel then hsf is equal to ksf but explosions that are not directly underneath the ship will have a lower value of ksf 86 direct damage edit usually only created by contact mines direct damage is a hole blown in the ship among the crew fragmentation wounds are the most common form of damage flooding typically occurs in one or two main watertight compartments which can sink smaller ships or disable larger ones contact mine damage often occurs at or close to the waterline near the bow 86 but depending on circumstances a ship could be hit anywhere on its outer hull surface the uss samuel b roberts mine attack being a good example of a contact mine detonating amidships and underneath the ship bubble jet effect edit the bubble jet effect occurs when a mine or torpedo detonates in the water a short distance away from the targeted ship the explosion creates a bubble in the water and due to the difference in pressure the bubble will collapse from the bottom the bubble is buoyant and so it rises towards the surface if the bubble reaches the surface as it collapses it can create a pillar of water that can go over a hundred meters into the air a columnar plume if conditions are right and the bubble collapses onto the ship s hull the damage to the ship can be extremely serious the collapsing bubble forms a high energy jet similar to a shaped charge that can break a metre wide hole straight through the ship flooding one or more compartments and is capable of breaking smaller ships apart the crew in the areas hit by the pillar are usually killed instantly other damage is usually limited 86 the baengnyeong incident in which the roks cheonan broke in half and sank off the coast of south korea in 2010 was caused by the bubble jet effect according to an international investigation 87 88 shock effect edit if the mine detonates at a distance from the ship the change in water pressure causes the ship to resonate this is frequently the most deadly type of explosion if it is strong enough 89 the whole ship is dangerously shaken and everything on board is tossed around engines rip from their beds cables from their holders etc clarification needed a badly shaken ship usually sinks quickly with hundreds or even thousands example needed of small leaks all over the ship and no way to power the pumps the crew fare no better as the violent shaking tosses them around 86 this shaking is powerful enough to cause disabling injury to knees and other joints in the body particularly if the affected person stands on surfaces connected directly to the hull such as steel decks the resulting gas cavitation and shock front differential over the width of the human body is sufficient to stun or kill divers 90 countermeasures edit a bottlenose dolphin of the united states navy marine mammal program during mine clearance operations in the persian gulf weapons are frequently a few steps ahead of countermeasures and mines are no exception in this field the british with their large seagoing navy have had the bulk of world experience and most anti mine developments such as degaussing and the double l sweep were british inventions when on operational missions such as the invasion of iraq the us still relies on british and canadian minesweeping services the us has worked on some innovative mine hunting countermeasures such as the use of military dolphins to detect and flag mines mines in nearshore environments remain a particular challenge they are small and as technology has developed they can have anechoic coatings be non metallic and oddly shaped to resist detection 91 18 further oceanic conditions and the sea bottoms of the area of operations can degrade sweeping and hunting efforts 91 18 mining countermeasures are far more expensive and time consuming than mining operations and that gap is only growing with new technologies 91 18 passive countermeasures edit designers can make ships difficult for mines to detect to avoid detonating them this is especially true for minesweepers and mine hunters that work in minefields where a minimal signature outweighs the need for armour and speed these ships have hulls of glass fibre or wood instead of steel to avoid magnetic signatures these ships may use special propulsion systems with low magnetic electric motors to reduce magnetic signature and voith schneider propellers to limit the acoustic signature they are built with hulls that produce a minimal pressure signature these measures create other problems they are expensive slow and vulnerable to enemy fire many modern ships have a mine warning sonar a simple sonar looking forward and warning the crew if it detects possible mines ahead it is only effective when the ship is moving slowly see also sqq 32 mine hunting sonar a steel hulled ship can be degaussed more correctly de oerstedted or depermed using a special degaussing station that contains many large coils and induces a magnetic field in the hull with alternating current to demagnetize the hull this is a rather problematic solution as magnetic compasses need recalibration and all metal objects must be kept in exactly the same place ships slowly regain their magnetic field as they travel through the earth s magnetic field so the process has to be repeated every six months 92 during the second world war charles f goodeve developed a simpler variation of this technique for the british admiralty his wiping saved time and resources between 1941 and 1943 the us naval gun factory a division of the naval ordnance laboratory in washington d c built physical models of all us naval ships three kinds of steel were used in shipbuilding mild steel for bulkheads a mixture of mild steel and high tensile steel for the hull and special treatment steel for armor plate the models were placed within coils which could simulate the earth s magnetic field at any location the magnetic signatures were measured with degaussing coils the objective was to reduce the vertical component of the combination of the earth s field and the ship s field at the usual depth of german mines from the measurements coils were placed and coil currents were determined to minimize the chance of detonation for any ship at any heading at any latitude 93 some ships are built with magnetic inductors large coils placed along the ship to counter the ship s magnetic field using magnetic probes in strategic parts of the ship the strength of the current in the coils can be adjusted to minimize the total magnetic field this is a heavy and clumsy solution suited only to small to medium sized ships boats typically lack the generators and space for the solution while the amount of power needed to overcome the magnetic field of a large ship is impractical 93 compared with conventional vessels hovercraft can exhibit less vulnerability to some naval mines 94 active countermeasures edit active countermeasures are ways to clear a path through a minefield or remove it completely this is one of the most important tasks of any mine warfare flotilla mine sweeping edit an mh 53e from hm 15 tows a minesweeping sled while conducting simulated mine clearing operations minesweeper uss tide after striking a mine off utah beach 7 june 1944 note her broken back with white smoke billowing amidships main article minesweeping a sweep is either a contact sweep a wire dragged through the water by one or two ships to cut the mooring wire of floating mines or a distance sweep that mimics a ship to detonate the mines the sweeps are dragged by minesweepers either purpose built military ships or converted trawlers each run covers between one hundred and two hundred metres 330 and 660 ft and the ships must move slowly in a straight line making them vulnerable to enemy fire this was exploited by the turkish army in the battle of gallipoli in 1915 when mobile howitzer batteries prevented the british and french from clearing a way through minefields if a contact sweep hits a mine the wire of the sweep rubs against the mooring wire until it is cut sometimes cutters explosive devices to cut the mine s wire are used to lessen the strain on the sweeping wire mines cut free are recorded and collected for research or shot with a deck gun 95 minesweepers protect themselves with an oropesa or paravane instead of a second minesweeper these are torpedo shaped towed bodies similar in shape to a harvey torpedo that are streamed from the sweeping vessel thus keeping the sweep at a determined depth and position some large warships were routinely equipped with paravane sweeps near the bows in case they inadvertently sailed into minefields the mine would be deflected towards the paravane by the wire instead of towards the ship by its wake more recently heavy lift helicopters have dragged minesweeping sleds as in the 1991 persian gulf war 96 the distance sweep mimics the sound and magnetism of a ship and is pulled behind the sweeper it has floating coils and large underwater drums it is the only sweep effective against bottom mines during wwii raf coastal command used vickers wellington bombers wellington dw mk i fitted with degaussing coils to trigger magnetic mines 97 in a parallel development the luftwaffe adapted some junkers 52 3m aircraft to also carry a coil operated by electricity supplied from an onboard generator the luftwaffe called this adaption minensuch e lit mine search 98 in both cases pilots were required to fly at low altitude up to about 200 feet above the sea and at fairly low speeds to be effective modern influence mines are designed to discriminate against false inputs and are therefore much harder to sweep they often contain inherent anti sweeping mechanisms for example they may be programmed to respond to the unique noise of a particular ship type its associated magnetic signature and the typical pressure displacement of such a vessel as a result a mine sweeper must accurately mimic the required target signature to trigger detonation the task is complicated by the fact that an influence mine may have one or more of a hundred different potential target signatures programmed into it 99 another anti sweeping mechanism is a ship counter in the mine fuze when enabled this allows detonation only after the mine fuze has been triggered a pre set number of times to further complicate matters influence mines may be programmed to arm themselves or disarm automatically known as self sterilization after a pre set time during the pre set arming delay which could last days or even weeks the mine would remain dormant and ignore any target stimulus whether genuine or false 99 when influence mines are laid in an ocean minefield they may have ...
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