Page 245 - NAVAL SCIENCE 3 TEXTBOOK

Mine Warfare

A mille as used ill naval warfare is a device containing a charge of tact-firing devices. An unfortunate current caused the kegs to go
explosive in a watertight casing, flo::tting on, moored in, or planted astray, and red tape in Congress prevented additional expenditures
under a waterway for the purpose of blowing lip an enemy vessel on the concept. In the early nineteenth century, Robert fulton, the
that strikes it or passes close by it. J\'iinc warfare may be divided inventor of the steamship, contributed to a slowly developing COI1-
into detensivc and offensive mining, and mine countermeasures. cept in naval w"lI't:1re by demonstrating Ilwt a ship could be sunk
De/ellsil'e Illillillg is that which is done to protect a nation's own by an underwater explosion.
harbors and shorelines. 0ffellsi!,c lIIil/illg may be used to bottle 13y the lime of the Civil 'Var, "torpedoes" moored in harbors
up enemy harbors, to render their shipping routes dangerous or and rivers were considered a prime naval weapon, especially by the
impossible to lise, and to make the enemy divert ships, equipment, Confederates, who used them to defend against the much larger
and personnel to mincswceping chores. By spreading millcfields Union Navy.
over as wide an area as possible, and by llsing several difterent types Admiral David G. Farragut's attack al Mobile !lay in 1864
of mines, the problem of rcmoving or s\\leepillg them is made for- remains one of the more dram,,1tic episodes in the history of mine
midable, and s,lie shipping routes become more and more difficult war61re. The Confederates had planted some two hundred mines,
to maintain. Offensive minefields also force enemy shipping to go then called torpedoes, to force Union ships into a channel covered
through areas where it may be more readily attacked. by shore b,ltteries, an early lise of a mining tactic that later became
,'-Ii/Ie CO/ll/terlllCl1sures constitute all methods of countering an standard. \Vhen the Union monitor TCC/ll/Isch hit a submerged
enemy's mines. These measures include self-protcction for ships, mine, blew up, and sank, the Contederate batteries opened fire.
,,1S well as the sweeping of mines. Progress into the harbor becilme confused, and the Union force
seemed in danger of defeat. At this crucial point, however, Admiml
Farragut personally ordered his lorce ahead with the tamous quo-
Evolution of Mine Warfare tation "Damn the torpedoes- full speed ahead!" taking a cal-
During the American Revolution, David 13ushnell attempted to culated risk that no ildditional mines would explode because of
break the British blockade of the Delaware River at Philadelphia saltwater deterioration. He was right, and the battle was won. \,Vith
with floating kegs filled with gunpowder and equipped with COI1- a more reliable mine, the Confederates might have frustrated the

An American mine storage depot at Inverness, Scotland, in World War I. Mines were assembled here to await deployment by the mine squadrons
that laid Ihe North Sea barrage.

25\