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The first known naval mine was invented in 1776 by the American inventor David Bushnell. Originally called a torpedo, the Bushnell mine was a simple watertight wooden keg loaded with gunpowder and hung from a float. These mines were first used in 1777 when General George Washington ordered a number of the kegs to be set adrift in an attempt to destroy a fleet of British warships anchored in the Delaware River off Philadelphia. This attempt failed, but the naval mine has since gained the reputation as the least expensive, yet most effective, offensive and defensive weapon of war. The famous steamboat inventor, Robert Fulton, designed several naval mines between 1797 and 1812. These mines were offered to France, Great Britain, and the United States, but even with successful tests, these mines received no support. Naval mines were used in several wars in Europe and Asia, but with little or no consequence. It was not until the American Civil War that mines were used on a relatively large scale. At that time the Confederate Navy, inferior in numbers to the Federal Navy, needed a weapon to compensate for their disadvantage. The naval mine (still called the torpedo) was the adopted by the Confederates and used effectively against the Federal Navy. Twenty seven Federal vessels were sunk by naval mines, while only nine were sunk by artillery fire. Admiral Farragut, famed for his quote "Damn the torpedoes Capton Drayton, go ahead!" during the Battle of Mobile Bay, might have been quoted otherwise had he known the mines (torpedoes) had been rendered inert due to water immersion and wave action. The naval mine emerged as the Allies primary and most effective weapon against the German submarine during World War I. American and British minelayers planted over 72,000 mines in the North Sea over a five month period in a line extending 250 miles from Scotland to Norway. This gigantic mine barrage sank six submarines, damaged many more, and forced U-boat commanders to either face destruction or waste precious time and fuel evading the barrage. There is no telling how effective this barrage would have been if it had been completed earlier, rather than at the end of the war. In the years of peace that followed World War I, the naval mine was all but forgotten. However, with the start of World War II, mine development was revived. The airplane and submarine were introduced as minelayers and a new series of mines, influence mines, were designed. These mines employed electronic detectors which responded to, or were influenced by (thus their name) magnetic, acoustic, and pressure changes resulting from a ship entering the mines sensor range. The extensive use of mines armed with new electronic detection systems, ship counters and arming-delay devices placed an immense burden on the mine countermeasures forces of both the Allied and Axis powers. During World War II mines sank 1,316 Axis ships and damaged 540 while the Allies lost 1,118 vessels. The Axis and Allied nations laid more than 550,000 submarine mines during the war. A classic example of the use of influence mines was a multiphased mining campaign called Operation Starvation, carried out by the U.S. against the Japanese during the final stages of the war in the Pacific. Over 12,000 mines were laid by U.S. aircraft in Japanese shipping routes and harbor approaches , sinking 650 Japanese ships and totally disrupting all maritime shipping. Japan was completely unprepared to cope with these influence mines which saturated her home waters; and those not sunk by mines were either forced to stay in closed ports or divert to a few overcrowded ports where they were prey to attack by aircraft and submarine. The virtual collapse of Japan's seaborne transportation and heavy industry resulted. During the Korean Conflict, mining by Communist forces in Korea effectively hampered U.S. Naval operations. Troop and support ships were prevented from entering port for more than a week during the landing at Wonson in 1950. Most of the 3,000 mines laid were simple contact mines, yet they effectively hindered the mighty U.S. Navy. This embarrassment forced the U.S. Navy to review and reconstruct it's entire mine countermeasures forces. During the Vietnam Conflict a new family of mines called Destructors, a bomb type mine, came into use. These mines contained highly sophisticated solid-state circuitry firing mechanisms inserted into the fuse cavities of general purpose bombs. The firing mechanisms were either magnetic or seismic.  Aircraft-laid Destructor mine The breakup of the Soviet Union, with its enormous stockpile estimated at nearly half a million sea mines has resulted in the potential widespread availability of mines. A $1,500 World War I vintage moored contact mine caused $96 million worth of damage to the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) in the Persian Gulf. In fact, 75 percent of damage to US Navy capital ships in the last ten years came from mines, two of which were World War I technology. Since the Persian Gulf war, the number of mine producers and mine exporters has grown significantly. Today, there are 49 countries that possess mining capabilities, 30 known sea mine manufacturing countries and 20 known exporters. Naval mines have come a long way since the Bushnell torpedo of 1777. The naval mines employed today are more sophisticated and of global strategic importance. Yet they are relatively simple technologically, with most nations possessing the knowledge to produce advanced designs. Naval warfare has many sophisticated weapons; aircraft carriers, tomahawk missiles, and nuclear submarines. Yet none of these weapons can be made as cheaply, produced in such massive quantities, planted in near secrecy, programmed to destroy with such lethal accuracy, and be left completely unattended. Naval mines may not get the press coverage that carriers, missiles and submarines receive, but they remain the most inexpensive and prolific weapon for control of the seas. Countries without a strong mine countermeasures force remain at the mercy of these potent lethal weapons. |
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