U.S mines?

I have acouple of questions for anyone who has knowledge of this subject.
1.What branch of the Service would deal with placement of underwater mines?
2.Does the Service still deploy underwater mines?
3.Saw somthing on tv awhile back about some new type of deep sea mine that might be used to destroy subs. If you might know what im talking about with question three a web site or info would be nice



tilldawn over and out

Are you kidding me no one knows?

[edit on 29-7-2006 by tilldawn]

1) the navy i would have thought
2) dunno but mines are defensive weapons and the us doesnt fight around its homeland much. or attack and disrupt enemy merchant shipping much.
3) ships travel in 2d subs travel in 3d so theres more area to cover so deep underwatermnes would need some kind of guidance and propulsion system. sounds kind of like a torpedo to me.

justin

I dont know that the USA Navy places mines, Isnt that illegal? Im almost certain NATO does not permit that.

When you say "mine", what does that mean to you?

A spiky ball on a chain?

There are some devices that *I* would call a mine, but they're not like old WW2 movie mines. At all.

Originally posted by skippytjc
I dont know that the USA Navy places mines, Isnt that illegal? Im almost certain NATO does not permit that.

The Ottawa Treaty prohibits the deployment, stockpiling, sale etc of anti-personnel land mines. The vast majority of the First World has signed up, although the USA have remained outside of the Treaty, although this may have to do with destroying the vast numbers of US mines along the Korean border rather than a desire to spoil the Treaty.

As for sea mines, I don't think there are any international treaties... The indescriminate use of floating sea mines in the Gulf over the last three decades may constitute a breach of some form of international convention, but that's Iran and Iraq for you!

Mines in use by the US would (I imagine) be used to sink enemy subs and naval shipping rather than to disrupt international trade and b*gger-up economies, unlike our good friends in Iran and Iraq!

To my knowledge the US only deploys air and sub delivered mines.

Regards

Right, some of these mines are more like torpedoes in a can, like a MK60 Captor or MK67. Others are like MK62-65 Quickstrikes which are mostly shallow water airdropped mines.

Captors rock. With the newer control system, you can set them up to listen for specific ships. SS Achmed sails by, and Captor launches a MK46 in homing mode.

Thanks everyone for the helpful info.