Naval mine Facts for Kids

Polish wz. 08/39 contact mine. The horns around the top of the mine, called Hertz horns, are part of the detonation mechanism.

A naval mine is a bomb placed in water to destroy ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are put in the water and left to wait until they make contact with a ship. Naval mines can be used offensively, to make it harder for enemy ships to sail easily, or trap them into a harbour. They can also be used defensively, to protect friendly ships and create "safe" zones.

Mines can be laid in many ways: by specially built minelayers, refitted ships, submarines, aircraft, or even by dropping them into a harbour by hand. They are a cheap weapon with a basic mine costing as little as US$1000. There are very advanced mines which can cost millions and have several kinds of sensors, and deliver a warhead by rocket or torpedo.

International law says that nations have to say when they put mines in an area. This is to make it easier for civil shipping to avoid the mines. The warnings do not have to be specific; during World War II, Britain said simply that it had mined the English Channel, North Sea, and French coast.

In 1988, an Iranian M-08 mine made a 25-foot (8 m) hole in the hull of the USS Samuel B. Roberts.

Closeup of the Roberts' damaged hull.

Images for kids

British Mk 14 sea mine
A 14th-century drawn illustration of a naval mine and page description from the Huolongjing
David Bushnell's mines destroying a British ship in 1777
Infernal machines in the Potomac River in 1861 during the American Civil War, sketch by Alfred Waud
A contact mine being deployed from the German minelayer Hansestadt Danzig
The towed, electric cables of Double-L, magnetic–minesweeping gear being deployed behind a Royal Navy minesweeper
A Vickers Wellington fitted with a DWI, magnetic mine exploder, Ismailia, Egypt
A German contact mine laid in Australian waters during World War II
German parachute-retarded magnetic mine. Dropped by Luftwaffe bomber during WWII and landed on the ground. Fuse mechanisms are visible
Captured Iranian mine laying ship, Iran Ajr (left), a converted Japanese-built landing craft, 1987.
Camouflaged Iraqi mines hidden inside oil barrels on a shipping barge in the Persian Gulf, 2003.
A B-29 Superfortress dropping sea mines over Japanese home waters
A bottlenose dolphin of the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program during mine clearance operations in the Persian Gulf
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 smoke pouring from amidships.
Pinguin B3 mine hunting drone, such are operated from Frankenthal-class minehunters of the German Navy
Seehund ROVs of the German Navy used for minesweeping
MK 62 Quick Strike deployed from a P-3 Orion

Naval mine facts for kids

Images for kids

See also