Minelayer - Naval Minelayers

Naval Minelayers

The most common use of the term "minelayer" is a naval ship used for deploying sea mines. In the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I, mines laid by the Ottoman Empire's Navy's Nusret sank HMS Irresistible, HMS Ocean, and the French battleship Bouvet in the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. Russian minelayers were also efficient; sinking the Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War.

In World War II, the British employed the Abdiel class minelayers both as minelayers and as transports to isolated garrisons, such as Malta and Tobruk. Their combination of high speed (up to 40 knots) and carrying capacity was highly valued. The French used the same concept for the Pluton.

A naval minelayer can vary considerably in size, from coastal boats of several hundred tonnes in displacement to destroyer-like ships of several thousand tonnes in displacement. Apart from their loads of sea mines, most would also carry other weapons for self-defense.

Submarines can also act as minelayers. The first submarine to be designed as such was the Russian submarine Krab. USS Argonaut (SM-1) was also one such minelaying submarine.

In modern times, most navies worldwide no longer possess minelaying vessels; the United States Navy, for example, uses aircraft to lay sea mines instead. Mines themselves have evolved from purely passive to active; for example in the U.S. CAPTOR (enCAPsulated TORpedo) that sits as a mine until detecting a target upon which a torpedo is launched. A few navies still have minelayers in commission, including those of Turkey, South Korea, Norway, Sweden and Finland, countries with long, shallow coastlines where sea mines are most effective.