The Imperial Armed Forces of Auwalt, and especially the Imperial Navy, utilize naval mines in defensive barrages and for offensive purposes. There are a number of dedicated minelayers and mine warfare vessel classes in service with the Imperial Navy, but a number of vessels, in particular the destroyers and the Stadt-class Scout Cruisers, as well as submarines, can lay mines as well.
History
Types of mines
Modell 1918
The Modell 1918 Naval Mine is the most common naval mine in service with the Imperial Armed Forces, a steel ball of 86 cm diameter with a buoyancy chamber, a dry battery with a life of two to three years and a charge of 140 kilograms of TNT. The mine is connected to its anchor by a wire rope on a reel, which pulls the mine beneath the surface to a pre-designed depth (anti-surface mines are usually placed 25 meters beneath the surface, anti-submarine mines can go deeper, to a maximum depth of 250 meters). Once dropped, the mine would float, while the anchor sinks, either to the bottom, where a sensor would arrest the cable, or until the cable is completely unwound, making it a floating mine, floating 5 meter beneath the surface.
Once live, the mine could detonate by one of five fuzes, four of which were on the upper hemisphere of the mine: Soft metal horns, which, when bent, would break a glass ampule with electrolyte solution, which would, in turn, connect to an open circuit, forming an electric circuit and thus detonating the mine. The fifth fuze is a copper wire antenna on a float, which, upon touching the hull of a passing steel vessel, would form a battery - with the sea water as electrolyte solution and a copper plate on the upper half of the mine, it would actuate the detonator of the charge. However, if, for whatever reason, the mine is detached from the anchor, the mine is completely safe. To prevent the mine from blowing up on the vessel, each fuze was deactivate by a separate, spring-loaded safety switch, which was held open by salt pallets, which took about twenty minutes to dissolve, thus arming the mine.
For transport, the mine is resting on its anchor, which has a number of wheels on it for movement along the minelaying vessel.
In total, including its anchor, each Modell 1918 Naval Mine weights 570 kilograms and can be delivered by aircraft as well as by ship.