Mine-Laying Fleets.

Great Britain.

These are all second class cruisers of from 3,400 to 3,600 tons, built about 1891–2, which have been converted into mine-layers. They are equipped with a very large number of submarine explosive mines, which can be automatically lowered into the water as the vessels steam along. Their speed is about 15 knots, and their armament consists of four 4·7-inch quick-firing guns. Their complement is about 150 officers and men.

Photo, Cribb, Southsea.]

THE BRITISH MINE-LAYER H.M.S. IPHIGENIA.

The mine-dropping gear can be seen in the stern.

Germany.

All these vessels, with the exception of the Arkona, which was a protected cruiser, have been specially built for mine-laying work. Their displacement is about 2,000 tons. The Pelikan has a speed of 15 knots, the Albatross and Nautilus of 20 knots, and the Arkona of 21 ½ knots. They are all fitted with special gear for dropping the large number of mines carried, and their armament consists of from four to eight 21-pdr. quick-firing guns. Their complement is about 200 officers and men.

Austria.

The Austro-Hungarian Navy possesses only one regular mine-laying warship—the Chamaleon, which was being completed when war was declared. She is a vessel of 1,800 tons displacement, with a speed of 20 knots. Her mine-launching gear is of the most modern and efficient type, and she is armed with several quick-firing guns.

Since the beginning of hostilities Austria has converted several old warships and merchantmen into mine-layers.

France and Russia.

Neither of these powers possess proper mine-laying vessels, but on the outbreak of war several old warships and small merchant steamers were used for that purpose.

CHAPTER XIII
MINE-SWEEPING FLEETS

For clearing away the mines dropped by an enemy special vessels are employed. Each vessel is fitted on both sides with a curious contrivance known as the “picking-up gear.” This apparatus is lowered into the water, and “picks up” any mines which may lie in the path of an on-coming fleet. When a mine-field is discovered by either destroyers or seaplanes these vessels are immediately dispatched to destroy it; and they are aided, in the case of the British Navy, by a large flotilla of steam trawlers. Many of these auxiliary vessels are not fitted with the picking-up gear, but go to work in pairs. Two vessels, connected together by a long wire rope weighted in the centre to keep it submerged, range themselves on each side of a mine-field, and by steaming ahead in a parallel line sweep up the mines floating between them. This process can be carried on simultaneously by a large number of trawlers, covering a very wide area of sea. In the meantime the attached destroyers and seaplanes can be searching for new fields. It often happens during sweeping operations that mines are brought into contact with each other and violent explosions occur. Sometimes the vessels engaged in this hazardous work will themselves strike one of the mines, but it is more often the searching flotillas which meet with sudden disaster in this way. Fully equipped mine-sweepers usually precede a fleet of battleships and big cruisers through dangerous and narrow seas, within the likely zone of hostile mines.

The British Mine-Sweeping Fleet comprises the following vessels:—Circe (810 tons), Jason (810 tons), Speedy (810 tons), Leda (810 tons), Gossamer (735 tons), Seagull (735 tons), Skipjack (735 tons), and Speedwell (735 tons).

These eight vessels are obsolete torpedo-gunboats which have been specially fitted out for the work of mine-sweeping. There is also a large flotilla of steam fishing trawlers engaged. Some of these vessels were purchased by the Admiralty before the war, and were also equipped for mine-sweeping; but many others were, by special arrangement, handed over to the Navy on the outbreak of war. The whole of the mine-sweeping fleet is manned by a special section of the Royal Naval Reserve, known as the “Trawler Section,” which consists of about 142 skippers and 1,136 men. This is, of course, in addition to the several thousand naval sailors employed on the regular mine-sweepers, named above, and also to those employed on the large number of additional small steamers taken over for this work by the Admiralty at the commencement of hostilities. It is estimated that the task of keeping the North Sea clear of mines during the first four weeks of the Great War required over 100 vessels and 5,000 sailors, in addition to the usual destroyer and submarine patrols with their crews, and also to the seaplanes with their pilots and observers.

Almost any steamship can be quickly converted into an effective mine-sweeper, and for this reason it is impossible to give here more than the very briefest information concerning the vessels employed in these operations by the other Naval Powers at war. Russia had fifteen special mine-sweeping vessels building when war broke out; but, doubtless, many small merchant ships have since been used for this purpose. France employed a number of mine-sweepers in the Adriatic; and Japan used some in clearing the approaches to Tsing-tau. Germany and Austria, of course, did not need many vessels of this kind, as the Allied Navies laid comparatively few mines and German oversea commerce ceased to exist almost as soon as war was declared. It was in the North Sea, during the first phase of the naval war, that the value of a big British mine-sweeping fleet made itself so wonderfully apparent.

CHAPTER XIV
COMPARATIVE FIGHTING VALUE OF THE SUBMARINE FLEETS AT WAR

Tempered and tried in the forge of war the submarine has at last been lifted from the experimental stage of naval construction to the fore-front of fleets in being. For over twenty years naval experts, marine engineers and scientists have been wrestling with the vast and complex problems of submarine construction, navigation and warfare, and have, at a cost of many lives and many millions sterling, produced submersible warships of steadily increasing size and power, until to-day 264 of these vessels, of over a dozen different and more or less secret designs, with displacements ranging from 100 to 1,000 tons are in the fighting line of the Fleets at war. Thousands of sailors have been trained to fight beneath the seas; torpedoes, guns, engines, and even the air to breath, have been adapted for submarine work. A comparison, therefore, of the strength and fighting power of the submarine fleets engaged for the first time in this great struggle for the mastery of the seas is of more than passing interest.