![]() Two Men Discovered in wooden boxes Two mines floating in a river while fishing near They Were the border with North Korea on Saturday night, to LUKAS year officer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One Killed and Wounded Another man has, the militaire Said Sunday. "There's a lot of clutter out there like rocks, refrigerators and 55-gallon drums," said Sonar Technician 3d Class Matt Wingard, 22, of Smiths, Ala., who must also battle murky, choppy waters that distort the soundings.SEOUL, South Korea - Dozen of Land Mines Have washed up on South Korean shores over the weekend, swept down from Apparently North Korea by torrential rains. The helicopters can also tow the cutters.ĭemolition experts, trailing in small boats, either seize the mines for inspection or attach 10-pound plastic explosive charges and blow them up.Īboard the Adroit, a 173-foot ship built in 1955, sonar technicians scan the bottom 600 yards in front of the ship with one scope and home in on any suspicious objects using a second scope. Flying 100 feet above the water, Navy Sea Dragon helicopters tow 30-foot sleds that simulate ships' hulls to detonate influence mines, including the ship counters.īritish minehunter ships then haul rakes of mechanical cutters that sever the steel cables of moored mines, popping the 400-pound encased explosives to the surface. To clear shipping lanes into Kuwait, minesweeping teams typically use a three-step process. Allied navies are using methods ranging from an experimental laser beamed at submerged mines from a helicopter to lookouts at ships' bows armed with binoculars. The battle to sift the mines sowed by Baghdad from the seas is a blend of brand-new technology and old-fashioned eyeballing. There are other "smart" mines that turn themselves off and on, or use timers to blow up weeks or months after passing ships triggers them. Others are ship counters, allowing, for example, 14 ships to pass safely before exploding on No. Some are calibrated to blow up when a passing ship makes a sound of a particular pitch. ![]() It bought its more treacherous bottom-influence mines from several countries, including Italy and the Soviet Union, Navy experts said. The popular image of mines is of moored ones that have broken loose. Others are suspended below the surface by cables tied to anchors, and explode on contact. Some are situated on the bottom and are activated when influenced by a ship's noise or electromagnetic emissions. The fields are seeded with two types of mines. The charts, which stunned allied officials, showed that Iraq had built two mine belts, one inside the other, in concentric arcs extending 40 miles off the Kuwaiti coast. The complexity of the sea mining by Iraq became clear when under terms of the cease-fire Iraqi generals handed over maps of the coastal minefields to coalition commanders. Germany, prohibited by its Constitution from taking part in the war, has now ordered five minesweepers to the region. Saudi minesweepers cleared their coastal waters of floating mines, but the Saudi vessels are too small to weather rough seas and tackle more extensive duties, Admiral Arthur said.īelgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands are sending minesweepers now, but many governments kept their navies out of the northern gulf during hostilities. "We've now gone back over the past and decided we need more of our own capability." Arthur, commander of American naval forces in the gulf, said in an interview. "Mine warfare has never been one of our big priorities, because we've always assumed that other nations would take on that mission," Vice Adm. Ships of a more advanced class have been designed, but only one, the Avenger, was ready for the gulf crisis, and its sonar system was still being tested during the war. The Navy relies on 18 minesweepers from the Korean War era, 3 of which were sent to the gulf. But that mission revealed shortcomings in Ameican mine-clearing abilities. Carlos Castillo, 27, of Silver Spring, Md., who pilots six Navy Sea Dragon helicopters that hunt and destroy Iraqi mines.ĭuring the war, four American minesweepers played an important role in clearing a safe lane to bring the battleships Wisconsin and Missouri, with their 16-inch guns, to within 10 miles of the Kuwaiti coast. ![]() "No matter how hard we try, these waters will never be completely safe," said Lieut.
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