After experimenting with countermining, by 1910 the Royal Navy had developed wire sweeps. Losses were heavy, including the loss of four battleships. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 each side laid about 1,000 moored mines. This mine is a copy of the Soviet M-08 Hertz horn mine which entered service in 1908, 40 years after the Hertz horn was invented by the Prussian scientist Dr Albert Hertz. RAN Clearance Diving Team 3 encountered LUGM 145 contact moored mines during the 2003 Iraq War. Most moored mines utilise Hertz horns, and many are still in service today. A battery was created when a Hertz horn was fractured by a hull.ĭuring the two world wars the RAN swept 46 German, 88 Japanese and 2,675 RAN moored mines, and they all had Hertz horns. During this war Ford also made 12,561 British Mk XIV mines for laying by HMAS Bungaree. Contact by a hull with one of its switch horns closed the switch. British Mk XVII mines included 426 mines made by the Ford Motor Company in Australia during World War II. Contact by a steel hull with either a horn or the antenna created a sea cell battery. These mines had galvanic horns and a vertical antenna above the mine. In World War I the American contribution to the Northern Barrage between the Orkney Islands and Norway comprised 56,033 Mk 6 mines. Japanese mines in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 had a pendulum inertia switch which closed when a ship hit the mine case. They are still in service as the fastest method of clearing contact moored mines.Ĭontact moored mines (hereafter ‘moored mines’) are either detonated by the closure of a firing circuit switch or the creation of a firing circuit battery. Very hazardous sweeping with team sweeps in World War I was replaced by relatively safe sweeping in World War II with single ship sweeps, known as Oropesa sweeps. It is difficult to obtain accurate numbers for the total number of sea mines that have been laid, but the estimate is about 900,000, of which about 800,000 were contact moored mines. Publication December 2019 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved) Mine disposal, HDML, Minesweeping RAN Ships None noted. Garden Island Northern Hill and Garden Tour.Anniversary Cruise: Sydney under Japanese Attack.Royal Australian Naval Transmitting Station ACT.Admiralty House, Garden and Fortifications.Spectacle Island Explosives Complex NSW.HMAS Sydney II and the HSK Kormoran Shipwreck Sites.
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