Cleaning equipment
As Räumgeschirr devices which, in the areas of Seeminenfeldern be dragged behind ships.
General
The clearing gear is mostly devices that are towed on steel cables by the clearing vehicles, which are intended to make contact mines float ( mechanical evacuation ) or to trigger the mines by simulating the signatures of a ship above them ( simulation evacuation ).
Since there are mines with different trigger mechanisms and these also with different sensitivities or depth settings, different clearing harnesses are used. The clearing of a minefield requires repeated driving through the minefield with different or differently adjusted clearing gear. That is why the anti-mine vehicles (except for barrier breakers ) are built in such a way that they usually do not even trigger the mines. The clearing gear is supposed to do this, so that any detonations of the mines occur at a safe distance from the boat due to the long tow rope. Contact or anchor mines are made to float up and then destroyed with on-board or hand weapons from an appropriate distance.
Some types of mines, such as ground mines and mines that respond to the pressure field of a ship, cannot be removed with towed clearing equipment.
To protect minefields that have been laid, mine protection devices are also deployed, which are able to damage clearing harnesses or hinder their effectiveness.
application
Anchorage mines
The harness for clearing classic anchor mines consists of two cables that are spread by so-called shear kites behind the moving boat, so that not only the track of the ship itself, but a correspondingly wider lane is cleared. Swimmers hold the clearing gear at a predetermined depth. Grippers are attached to the steel cables, which either mechanically or by means of small explosive charges cut through the anchor cables or chains of the mines when they slide along the cable of the clearing gear.
Magnetic mines
So-called "hollow rods" are used to clear magnetic mines , which are dragged around 200 m behind the boat. The hollow rods are floating bodies that contain electromagnets . These electromagnets create a disturbance in the earth's magnetic field , just as it would be caused by the steel mass of a large ship.
As the hollow bar floats are large and heavy (10-20 m long and 20 t in weight), they cannot usually be taken on board, so that longer approaches to the clearing area are difficult. In Germany, a system was therefore developed in which the coils are built into remote steerable boats, which were then referred to as hollow rods for short .
For the use of hollow bars, the clearing vehicles must be equipped with powerful generators in order to be able to provide the necessary electrical power for the electromagnets.
Acoustic ignition mines
The clearing of mines, which respond to the typical noises of ships, is done by dragged swimmers to trigger the mines with a sound source. Originally, the noises were generated mechanically by a propeller at the end of the float that was driven by the current and operated a "lace mechanism" inside the float, which was set so that it could generate different frequencies typical for ships. Today the buoy contains a loudspeaker ( hydrophone ) that emits electronically simulated sound signatures.
Clearing otter
The clearing otter is a special form of mechanical clearance . This is towed and is an underwater glider, which already integrates the shear function of a kite. The sea mine that appears on the lake surface after the anchor rope has been separated is then deliberately blown up.
literature
- Jürgen Gebauer, Egon Krenz: Marine encyclopedia from A - Z. Unabridged licensed edition. Tosa, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85492-757-6 .