Magneto (weapon)
Magnetic detonators from torpedoes and sea mines register changes in the earth's magnetic field , such as those caused by the steel mass of ships, and thus cause the weapon to explode when it approaches a ship.
effect
Torpedoes and mines with impact fuses tear holes in the ship's side through which water can penetrate the target. Such a water ingress can often be compensated for by closing the bulkheads and counter-flooding . In addition, part of the explosion pressure escapes immediately into the interior of the ship, which weakens the effect on the ship's hull. Due to an explosion at a short distance from the ship, the pressure via the practically incompressible water is exerted undiminished over a larger area and thus causes greater damage.
The keel of the torpedo is mostly broken by torpedoes that are set so that they undermine the ship at a short distance and the magneto detonates the torpedo underneath the ship, making the ship practically irredeemable. Often it even breaks. As a result, magneto torpedoes are considered to be more effective compared to impact fuze torpedoes.
development
Magnetic igniters were developed in World War I and used towards the end of the war. The physicist Adolf Bestelmeyer was in charge of the development of a functioning magneto on the German side . They first came to widespread use in torpedoes during the Second World War . For torpedoes, the development of magnetos using technical means was difficult at the time, as the geomagnetic field changes significantly with different latitudes or through mineral-rich rocks, as in the Norwegian fjords , which led to misfires or duds. Both Americans and Germans had considerable problems with an accumulation of failing torpedoes ( torpedo crisis , torpedo scandal ) , among other things due to magnetos .
The implementation of the ignition mechanism in sea mines was much easier, since there are hardly any natural changes in the magnetic field of the environment in stationary use.
Originally magneto only registered the disturbance of the natural alignment of the earth's magnetic field by a large mass of steel with a heterogeneous field direction. One countermeasure was the so-called demagnetization of ships using electrical coils, whereby the field direction was homogenized and thus adjusted to the natural field. During the Second World War, the sensitivity of magneto ignition systems in mines was so improved that an adjustment was no longer sufficient. The detonators also reacted to minimal distortions of the magnetic field and to the different distribution of the steel mass in a ship, so that the mines did not explode under the bow, but under the massive steel mass of the engine rooms.
With modern magnetic self-protection systems , the magnetic signature of special ships, such as submarines and minesweepers , can be reduced in all three dimensions to such an extent that magnetos no longer respond. However, this effort is not made for the majority of the ships. Nevertheless, mines today usually have several triggering parameters. Most torpedoes no longer use magnetos, as the widespread use of sonar tracking for locating the target also enables the detonation to be controlled more precisely in relation to the target.
literature
- Eberhard Rössler : The torpedoes of the German submarines. Mittler Verlag, ISBN 3-8132-0842-7 , pp. 83-88.
Web links
- Tim Garold: Mine Warefare MCM (Information on American mine systems )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d military history. Historical Education Journal. The torpedo crisis in World War II page 12 (online PDF 3.79 MB) ( Memento from September 30, 2017 in the Internet Archive )