Minelayer

A minelayer is a warship, which specializes in the laying of sea mines. To distinguish between "real" mine -layers, which were built specifically for this task, the Navy designated former merchant ships that had been converted to auxiliary mine -layers, as mine ships.

Also, many warships that serve primarily other purposes, particularly destroyer or fast boats, but also submarines are equipped for mine laying. In particular, mine countermeasures vessels often have the ability to lay mines.

As a minelayer also units, persons or military equipment of the fight pioneers are called, lay the landmines.

Hardware

Minelayer vary in size from smaller coastal boats of several hundred tons displacement to large units of several thousand tons. They have special storage space for a large number of mines and special minelaying rails over which the mines are transported into the water. The rails can carry out special hatches in the rear or just over the stern. Most minelayer also possess weapons for self- defense, mainly air defense weapons.

Even submarines can assume the function of a minelayer. Examples were the USS Argonaut (SS -166 ), the boats of the British Porpoise class, the French sapphire -Class, the German submarine classes UC, UE, VII D and X or the Polish Wilk class. Initially, the submarines were equipped with vertical mine shafts in hull, from which the mines " dropped " were. But even before the start of World War II was developed in Germany special underground mines that were ejected like a normal torpedo with compressed air from torpedo tubes. This could be used for laying mines each submarine. Modern submarines use this technique today.

In modern navies specialized mine-laying are less and less available, as airplanes and helicopters can perform these tasks more efficiently. Countries with long, hard-to defending coastlines such as South Korea, Norway, Sweden or Finland, till now a minelayer.