06-24-2024, 09:32 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-ships...31668.html
Another Hallelujah. This has been way too long coming. IMO the sea drones should have prioritized mines from the very beginning. The drones aren't destroyed in the effort. They RTB and do it again the next night. Lots of mines can be covertly placed with minimal loss of material. It makes a sustainable effort much easier.
Ukraine also should have placed mines in the Kerch strait and the Sea of Azov way back when it was doable. These mines have the ability to activate on a certain date. You can place them covertly over months and have them come online all at once. Mines in the strait would have caused havoc with commercial shipping. A minefield wouldn't necessarily sink many ships because the first one that was mined would stop all traffic. It could also have destroyed/sunk the ferries Russia is now using instead of the bridge. Sweeping bottom mines is at best very time consuming. I doubt Russia is presently equipped in the Black Sea to do it. In the Baltic, they are. Russia and Ukraine didn't use them, they used floating mines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_60_CAPTOR
CAPTOR mines were particularly vicious because they can "chase down" the target even if it doesn't directly pass over the mine. Close counts. We should have literally tons of them to give away as we quit using them. Hopefully they aren't too old :-).
Mines are very hard to defend against, especially bottom mines. Mining harbor entrances will for certain damage if not sink the ships that use that harbor. Mining know submarine transit lanes also can yield great results. Mariners hate them because there is nothing they can really do to avoid them. If the mine is programmed for your signature and you get too close, you are toast. These mines can have ship counts and activation schedules. This means a ship may have transited them many times and you therefore have no idea they were there. Then one day, BOOM! Are there others? Where are they? When will they be activated?
Another Hallelujah. This has been way too long coming. IMO the sea drones should have prioritized mines from the very beginning. The drones aren't destroyed in the effort. They RTB and do it again the next night. Lots of mines can be covertly placed with minimal loss of material. It makes a sustainable effort much easier.
Ukraine also should have placed mines in the Kerch strait and the Sea of Azov way back when it was doable. These mines have the ability to activate on a certain date. You can place them covertly over months and have them come online all at once. Mines in the strait would have caused havoc with commercial shipping. A minefield wouldn't necessarily sink many ships because the first one that was mined would stop all traffic. It could also have destroyed/sunk the ferries Russia is now using instead of the bridge. Sweeping bottom mines is at best very time consuming. I doubt Russia is presently equipped in the Black Sea to do it. In the Baltic, they are. Russia and Ukraine didn't use them, they used floating mines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_60_CAPTOR
CAPTOR mines were particularly vicious because they can "chase down" the target even if it doesn't directly pass over the mine. Close counts. We should have literally tons of them to give away as we quit using them. Hopefully they aren't too old :-).
Mines are very hard to defend against, especially bottom mines. Mining harbor entrances will for certain damage if not sink the ships that use that harbor. Mining know submarine transit lanes also can yield great results. Mariners hate them because there is nothing they can really do to avoid them. If the mine is programmed for your signature and you get too close, you are toast. These mines can have ship counts and activation schedules. This means a ship may have transited them many times and you therefore have no idea they were there. Then one day, BOOM! Are there others? Where are they? When will they be activated?