IRAQi MINES found from Iraqi freedom
battle from Don DeCrona LCDR ret.
What we
have here is an illustration of Fourth Generation Naval Warfare, in which
a commercial tug masquerades as a minelayer, with the mines hidden inside
oil drums, and stored inside an innocent looking Conex. Cheers for the
Aussies. For those that didn't get to see them on the
news, these are the mines we found on the tugs by Australian navy
sailors. The (gray) ones with the horns are the floating contacts i.e.
float partially submerged and make direct contact with the side of the
ship, and the (green) cone shaped ones are the bottom dwelling magnetic
influence type which sit on the shallow bottom and wait for the ship
to go over the top. When the mine senses the magnetic attraction decreasing
it will go off. You can see how they hid one lot inside some cut out oil
drums, and the others were inside the pontoon attached to the tug. Looks
as though they could be launched undetected through the sides of the pontoon
on the rail system as the tug moves through the Gulf. The red container
on the pontoon had the soft patch inside under the floor boards, which
is how they got down inside the pontoon where the mines were. |