During World War II, the fleets of the warring parties set up extensive minefields in the waters of the seas and oceans. This made it possible for the fleets to solve a wide range of combat missions by inflicting both direct and indirect losses on the enemy. The war ended, but the sea minefields continued to carry their "battle watch". During the first three years after the end of the war (1945-1948), 406 ships and 29 ships were blown up by mines in European waters. In the post-war years, an extremely difficult mine situation developed at our sea and river theaters. During World War II, more than 145,000 mines and mine defenders were deployed in an area of 22,815 square miles. The most difficult mine situation was in the Baltic Sea. The forces of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, as well as the Navy of England, Germany and Finland, delivered over 79 thousand mines and mine defenders here, of which more than 4000 were German proximity mines (bottom and anchor). The latter posed the greatest danger in the Baltic. In addition, a feature of the mine situation in the Baltic Sea was the presence of the Gogland and Nargen-Porkkala-Udd anti-submarine mine positions created by the German fleet in 1941-1944. Here, special deep-sea trawls and powerful minesweepers were required to clear mines.
During the war years, our fleet placed 2069 mines at the Northern Sea Theater, and the enemy only in the White and Barents Seas - 51883. In the postwar years, the mine situation in this area was also dangerous. There were minefields on the approaches to important bases and ports (Murmansk, Iokanka, Arkhangelsk), where many ships entered.
The total number of mines and mine defenders placed during the Great Patriotic War in the Black and Azov Seas was 20,000. Of these, 10,845 mines were put up by the Black Sea Fleet, the rest - by the Germans and their allies. Of the indicated number of mines, 2500 were non-contact; there were about 7000 mine defenders here, sweeping which is no less difficult than minesweeping. The number of mines placed in the zone of control of the Pacific Fleet reached almost 42 thousand (Soviet, American, Japanese). In addition, in the Sea of Japan, beginning in the autumn of 1941, there were a very large number of floating, de-anchored contact mines, which posed a serious threat to navigation.
An equally difficult mine situation was in the first post-war years and in the lower reaches of the Volga, on the Dnieper and other rivers. However, this issue requires special consideration and is beyond the scope of this article. In order to ensure uninterrupted and free navigation in the sea theaters of the USSR, the People's Commissariat of the Navy, having assessed the resulting mine situation, considered it necessary to carry out special measures. In them, first of all, it was envisaged to wipe and open demagnetized vessels for navigation:
a) in the Baltic Sea - a large ship's fairway without draft limitation by June 1, 1946;
the ship's fairway through the Irbensky Strait, with a draft of 10 m by August 1, 1946;
b) in the Black and Azov Seas - a ship's fairway through the Kerch Strait for the passage of vessels with a draft of 6 m by July 1, 1946; ports of the Sea of Azov - within the terms agreed with the People's Commissariat for Morphology;
c) in the Pacific Ocean to ensure the navigation of ships in the fairway of warships (FVK) without pilotage in Vladivostok - from April 15, 1946; through the La Perouse Strait - from May 1, and to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - from May 15, 1946.
To expand the fairways open for navigation in all seas of the USSR up to 2 miles.
To ensure trawling, the Soviet government provided for the USSR people's commissariats to carry out measures for the material and technical support of the Navy with trawls, aggregates, cables, as well as for equipping non-winding demagnetization stations (SVR) and monitoring and measuring magnetic stations (KIMS). In addition, in accordance with the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, during 1946, the triangulation network was restored in the areas of post-war trawling, navigation fencing of sea routes was carried out in the Baltic, Black and White Seas, in the areas of Soviet merchant shipping and fishing.
Following the decisions of the Soviet government, the People's Commissar of the Navy issued a directive in December 1945, in which he set the following trawling tasks for the fleet and flotillas for 1946: to ensure the safety of warships sailing along existing fairways and at training ranges intended for combat training by surface ships and submarines. boats.
In accordance with this directive, and based on the availability of trawling forces and means, the fleets developed trawling plans for 1946. For example, in the Baltic Sea it was envisaged:
- by June 1, 1946, the opening of the Bolshoi Korabelny fairway for navigation of vessels with any draft from Kronstadt to the FVK Helsinki-Tallinn and from Tallinn to the exit to the Baltic Sea, along the current Tallinn-Ristna fairway; by September 1, 1946, trawling and opening for navigation of vessels with any draft of the Great Ship Fairway from the Helsinki-Tallinn FVK through the Nargen-Porkkala-Ud-d mine position before going to sea;
- by August 1, 1946, the opening of the fairway through the Irbensky Strait for the passage of ships with any draft;
- by April 1, 1946 opening for navigation of the southern entrance to the port of Libau;
- trawling and opening for navigation of the fairway from the approach point of FVK Swinemünde to the English fairway Trelleborg-Danish Straits;
- Expansion of approach fairways to the bases and ports of Kronstadt, Tallinn, Riga, Libava, Pillau, Vindava, Memel and Swinemunde;
- trawling and opening of the fairway for navigation of ships to the port of Wismar;
- destruction of all minefields on Lake Ladoga. Similar plans for trawling for 1946 were drawn up in the Black Sea, Northern and Pacific fleets.
The fulfillment of the tasks assigned to the fleets to ensure safe navigation in the sea theaters of the USSR required a lot of work from the commanders, headquarters and personnel of ships and formations. Trawling work began with the start of the 1946 campaign. They used a significant amount of trawling forces and assets.
It must be said that trawling in the Baltic Sea was the most difficult, since combined German minefields were exhibited here. When creating them, as a rule, various types of mines were used, exposed with different deepening and protected by mine defenders. The Gogland and Nargen-Porkkala-Udd positions were especially saturated with mines. In these relatively small waters at the exit from the Gulf of Finland, there were several thousand German mines, German net barriers, and a significant number of mine defenders. The minesweepers of the Kronstadt and Tallinn naval defensive areas had great difficulty in breaking through these obstacles. And only by the end of the sweeping campaign, in September 1949, the minefield on the Nargen, Porkkala-Udd line was completely eliminated.
Trawling to destroy minefields in the Baltic Sea was carried out in a trawling order, which was built, as a rule, according to the following scheme. The first were boat minesweepers (having a shallow draft) with a lightweight trawl KT, followed by them, in a swept strip, were road minesweepers with trawls with a large capture width - MTSh, then - sea powerful minesweepers with trawls made up of trawling parts of several trawls MT- 3, MT-2. The trailing ones were 1-2 vechestav minesweepers, which fenced the swept area with special trawling milestones. They also shot from their gun mounts (caliber 37-45 mm) mines that had been drilled out and floated to the surface.
Trawls with explosive cartridges were used to etch mines with chain minereps. Trawling of contact mines in the Baltic, and in other seas, was carried out only during daylight hours, since there was a great danger of detonation on the mines that had already been drilled out. If the destruction of minefields consisting of contact mines, with the appropriate preparation of the sweeping forces, did not require very much effort, then sweeping non-contact mines was a more complex and laborious task.
Proximity mines with a fuse triggered by the ship's magnetic field appeared in the early years of the Great Patriotic War. They were constantly improving. Moreover, not only mines were improved (they were bottom, anchor and floating), but also proximity fuses, which were at first magnetic, then induction, acoustic, and at the end of the war - combined. The fuses came to a firing position after a set time (urgency device) and after a certain number of its operations (multiplicity device). The fight against non-contact mines was very serious. Our eminent scientists, including I. V. Kurchatov and A. P. Alexandrov. According to the results of the scientists' work, according to their recommendations, the fleets were equipped with winding-free demagnetization stations (SBR) and magnetic control stations (KIMS) to measure the residual magnetic field of the ship (vessel) after passing the SBR. Ships and vessels, the magnetic field of which was more than the permissible norms, were not released into the sea.
However, in order to eliminate the danger from non-contact mines, they had to be destroyed. The first trawls were small barges loaded with scrap metal, which were towed by wooden (non-magnetic) minesweeping boats of the KM-4 type or fishing seiners. The magnetic field of such trawls was so great that mines exploded far from the trawl, including near the trawler. Then they began to tow the barge in a short tug or at the side, log. Later, loop cable trawls PEMT-3, PEMT-4 were designed, which created a magnetic field similar to the field of a ship from a ship's generator, and open trawls of the TEM-5, TEM-6 type. In open trawls, a magnetic field identical to the ship's field was created by passing current through a conductor lowered into sea water. Moreover, the trawling was effective only with a pair of minesweepers. In the Baltic Sea, boat trawls KEMT-2, solenoid trawls SEMT-12, SEMT-24 and loop trawls PEMT-3, PEMT-4 were used to sweep non-contact mines. Open trawls, due to the low salinity of the sea water in the Baltic, were used with an additional improvement of the electrodes. It should be noted that the towing of non-contact trawls took place at low speed, with several (up to 16 times) covers of the trawl strip. All this required a huge amount of time, the expenditure of the minesweepers' motor resources, and the hard work of the sailors. In the Baltic Sea, combat trawling was carried out by 100 minesweepers and 178 minesweeping boats.
During the period of the combat trawling (from May to September), trawling brigades and minesweeper divisions were relocated to maneuver-based points located near the trawling areas. So, when trawling Narva Bay, base minesweepers were based on Ust-Luga, boat minesweepers - on Gakkovo. Movement points were also deployed in Primorsk, Ust-Narva, Virta and in other harbors and bays of the Gulf of Finland, Riga and the Baltic Sea. Fuel, food, trawls and spare parts were delivered here. Here the minesweepers took shelter from bad weather, carried out scheduled preventive maintenance.
While in the Baltic and Black Seas, during the post-war trawling, the problem of maneuverable basing of minesweepers was solved quite satisfactorily, in the Northern Fleet and in the Pacific Ocean, enormous difficulties were encountered along this path. The main task of post-war trawling in the Northern Fleet, for example, was to eliminate the mine threat on the Northern Sea Route. However, there, in most areas, there were no ports, no points, no berths where minesweepers could go. In this regard, replenishment of stocks, repairs were carried out at anchorages, on unequipped roads, in conditions of frequent storms. All this made trawling extremely difficult in the North.
As a result of the work carried out in 1946, the trawling of the first stage of the Bolshoi Korabelny fairway from Kronstadt to the FVK Helsinki-Tallinn was completed. On June 17, it was opened for sailing. On June 25, 1946, the Hydrographic Directorate of the Navy reported: “The Great Ship Fairway is open for navigation during daylight hours from Kronstadt to the Tallinn-Helsinki fairway for all demagnetized ships and merchant ships with any draft, strictly adhering to its axis. Submarine navigation in a submerged position and laying on the ground is prohibited."
In the same year, areas in the Kronstadt Maritime Defense Region (KMOR), in the Tallinn Maritime Defense Region (TMOR), the harbor of Petrodvorets, the Tallinn roadstead, Paldiski Bay, etc. were swept from non-contact mines., Lake Ladoga; in the TMOR - the Tallinn-Ristna fairway, 3 miles wide and 25-60 m deep; in the Ostrovnoye Maritime Defense Region (OMOR) - a 2-mile wide approach fairway along the Vindavsky sections and a deep-water fairway in the Irbensky Strait. The sailors opened the ports of Warnemünde and Rostock for navigation with the approaching FVK, Wismar with the approaching FVK, Sasnitz and FVK Swinemünde-Sasnitz, the southern entrance to Libau and the outer roadstead, Stralsund and the eastern fairway to the port. Minefields in the Putzig Bay were destroyed.
Together with the minesweepers of the North Baltic Fleet, trawling in 1946 in the Gulf of Finland (mainly in the Finnish skerries) was carried out by minesweepers of the Finnish Navy, both from non-contact and contact mines (about 200 minesweepers swept through in 1946 in the northern part of the Gulf of Finland about 4000 sq.. miles). The total number of destroyed and destroyed mines and mine defenders in the Baltic Sea since November 1, 1946 was: non-contact bottom mines - 58 pcs.; non-contact anchor mines - 243 units; contact anchor mines - 4837 pcs.; anti-amphibious mines - 94 pcs.; mine defenders - 870 pcs.
In general, despite the great work done by the headquarters of the trawling formations and the personnel of the minesweepers, the trawling plan for 1946 in the Baltic Sea was not fully implemented. Affected by unfavorable weather conditions, especially for boat minesweepers, and the difficulties in destroying minefields at the Nargen-Porkkala-Udd position, as well as on the Nargen-Aegna line due to the presence of network barriers in their composition. In addition, minesweepers of the North Baltic and South Baltic fleets were often used not for their intended purpose (they towed barges with national economic cargo, were used as auxiliary vessels, etc.). The technical base for ensuring the timely repair of minesweepers was also weak.
The same shortcomings in the first year of post-war trawling were in other fleets of our country. Trawling in 1947 was much better. The fleets prepared for it in advance, took the necessary measures to repair the minesweepers, manning them, etc. In accordance with the tasks set by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR for this year to ensure the safety of navigation of warships and transports, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in December 1946 instructed the military councils of the fleets to plan sweeping operations. For contact trawling: the Pacific, Black Sea, South-Baltic and North-Baltic fleets to destroy all contact minefields without exception; For the Northern Fleet, destroy all contact minefields, with the exception of 2 that stood aside from the sea routes. By non-contact trawling, all fleets, except for the Pacific, expand the tracked fairways to all major ports, lay fairways to all small ports and points not yet open for navigation, destroy non-contact minefields located near the fairways.
At the beginning of March 1947, a gathering of commanders of trawling formations, flagship miners and chiefs of trawling departments of fleet headquarters and other specialists was held at the Main Headquarters of the Navy. It analyzed the reasons that hinder the implementation of trawling plans, outlined ways of eliminating them and methods of monitoring the work being carried out, rational use of minesweepers, etc. All this contributed to the successful solution of the assigned tasks. The fleets completed their trawling plans for 1947 in full. In the Baltic Sea, 3391 sq. Km were swept by contact trawling. mile, on Cherny - 1959 sq. miles, on the North - 482 sq. miles.
True, the area swept from non-contact mines continued to remain insignificant - 84 sq. miles in the Baltic, 110 sq. miles on the Black Sea, 51 sq. mile in the Northern Fleet. This was due to the fact that when the "Trawling Manual" (NT-45) was being developed, all the elements of the enemy's mines were not yet known. Therefore, it was drawn up with the expectation of the maximum guarantee that mines of all types will be removed. In reality, it turned out to be different. It took completely new techniques and methods of work. Later, with the receipt of more complete and accurate information about proximity mines and the types of their fuses, the frequency of non-contact trawling (the number of tacks performed by minesweepers with the trawl turned on) began to be selected taking into account these data. In general, in 1947 the fleets were destroyed: the Baltic - 351 mines and 196 mine defenders, the Black Sea - 331 mines and 10 mine defenders, the North - 2, the Pacific - 4 mines.
An analysis of mine danger in our theaters showed that if it had practically ceased to exist in the Pacific Ocean by the beginning of 1948, then it still remained in the Baltic, Black Seas and in the North, and mainly from non-contact bottom mines, contact mines, placed or placed on malfunctions to a large depression, as well as from floating mines. The presence of a mine hazard in these seas and, in connection with this, the restriction of navigation caused large unproductive downtime and runs of the merchant ships (the total estimated amount of losses of shipping companies for the 3 post-war years amounted to 150 million rubles and about 2 million rubles of foreign currency).
The directives of the commander-in-chief of the Navy on the development of trawling plans for 1948 proposed to provide for the completion of all major work with the calculation of provision by the end of the year, normal navigation conditions. These fleets were to complete contact deep-sea trawling and begin trawling with a bottom contact trawl to finally destroy anchor minefields and thereby eliminate sources of floating mines. After the end of deep-water contact trawling, it was envisaged to cancel the mandatory navigation of ships and vessels along the fairways in all areas where non-contact mines were not placed. In areas where non-contact minefields remain undisturbed, the existing restrictions on navigation conditions (i.e., the mandatory use of swept fairways) remained until the expiration of the period, which will be determined by the duration of the combat service of the non-contact mines of this type. The fleet commanders were asked to use mine-breaker ships in 1948 to sweep the remaining non-contact mines on the main fairways in order to ensure the navigation of non-demagnetized vessels along them.
The plans for trawling in the fleets in 1948, despite the large amount of work, were largely fulfilled. Contact trawls swept an area of 3469 sq. miles, non-contact - 436 sq. miles. As a result, ships of the merchant fleet were allowed to sail without re-demagnetization in all areas of the White and Barents Seas (the Northern Sea Route was open only for demagnetized vessels), entry without re-demagnetization to all major ports of the Baltic and Black Seas. Gradually began, albeit with a certain degree of risk, the transition to navigation of ships without demagnetization, but along the tracked fairways, along which a large number of ships had already passed.
In 1949, trawling in the seas of the USSR was carried out mainly by non-contact and bottom trawls near ports and naval bases, such as Baltiysk, Klaipeda, Libava, Vindava, Riga, Tallinn, Ust-Narva, as well as certain areas in the Gulf of Finland, throat The White Sea, the Azov and Black Seas. Studies carried out by scientific institutions of the Navy in 1946-1948 showed that all proximity mines fail 7-8 years after they were placed. Proceeding from this, the command of the Navy made a decision: to check minefields from non-contact mines, the survivability of which has already expired, with a control trawling, and in the absence of mines being blown up by a trawl, open areas without trawling. This made it possible to promptly authorize the navigation of all ships in the seas of the USSR and save significant material and technical resources.
As a result of the great and hard work of the personnel of the trawling formations of fleets and flotillas in the first post-war years (1946-1949), significant sea areas of the USSR were cleared of mines. Later, a repeated bottom trawling was organized in order to completely destroy the mine threat.
In addition to carrying out combat sweeping, the fight against mine danger in the first post-war years included a diving survey of piers and harbors, depth bombing, search and destruction of floating mines. So, for the destruction of mines in the ports and harbors of Tallinn, Riga, Liepaja, Sevastopol, Odessa and others, a diving survey of the soil and the mooring line was carried out. This very dangerous job was entrusted to specially trained teams of divers, who in special non-magnetic equipment examined in detail every berth and every meter of the harbor. In the Baltic alone, 8.5 million square meters were surveyed. m, 43 pieces were found and destroyed. mines, 415 bombs, 24 depth charges.
On roadsteads and in narrow areas, where, due to the tightness of the water area, it was impossible to use trawls, depth bombing was carried out to destroy mines. In the harbor of Gdansk, for example, 8 mines were destroyed, in the port of Gdynia - 9 mines. In addition, depth bombing was used to destroy anti-submarine nets at the Nargen-Porkkala-Udd position. Here 76.6 cables of German anti-submarine networks were blown up.
In the postwar years, floating contact mines posed a great danger to navigation. They appeared on the surface of the sea due to the breakage of the minerail due to corrosion, defects in manufacturing, natural fragility of the metal during prolonged stay under water. Especially many of them appeared after stormy weather in areas where minefields were exposed. In order to combat floating mines in the Baltic and other seas, the headquarters of the fleets developed special measures to combat them. These measures provided for constant monitoring of the sea, coastal posts, special search for mines by ships and aircraft along the developed routes, according to the schedule, but at least 2-3 times a week. All ships and vessels at sea were instructed to give notification to the fleet about discovered floating mines and to destroy them. In total on the Baltic Sea during 1946-1949. 545 floating mines were destroyed.
Trawling has always been laborious, complex and extremely dangerous work, which, as a rule, had to be carried out in the absence of accurate data on the boundaries and composition of minefields. The minesweepers sometimes had to work in stormy weather, which, along with the difference in mine systems (anchor, antenna, bottom non-contact, and others) in the same minefield, made the task even more complicated. Minefields, as a rule, were surrounded by small mines - "mine defenders", in large numbers the Germans used booby traps and other tricks that made trawling difficult and extremely dangerous. Therefore, despite the skill of our sailors, 74 of our minesweepers were blown up in combat trawling operations in the period after May 9, 1945.
The mines themselves, as a rule, were equipped with anti-blast devices and various traps. For example, bottom non-contact mines had highly sensitive magnetic, acoustic or combined proximity fuses, as well as multiplicity and urgency devices, which brought the mine into a combat state only after multiple passage of the ship over it or after a predetermined time after its setting (from an hour to several months).
So, in the Gulf of Finland, where the Nazis tried to create an insurmountable mine barrier, the minefield lines consisted of several rows: in the first of them, as a rule, there were mines with traps, in the subsequent ones - mines of various designs intended against small surface ships. All the mines had different recesses - from 20-30 centimeters to 1, 5-2, 0 meters, and the interval between the mines was 20, 30 and 40 meters. To make trawling more difficult, the Germans covered the mine lines with a large number of mine defenders. Also, instead of a standard minerail made of a steel cable, a six-meter chain was often installed on mines, resistant to the effects of cutters of undercutting trawls. In later sets, two or three cutters were also attached to this chain against the trawling parts. There were even mines equipped with special devices that allowed trawls to pass through, which sharply reduced the efficiency of trawling.
Despite all the difficulties, during the trawling, Soviet sailors showed brilliant knowledge of their business, and sometimes real heroism, which helped them to fulfill the most difficult, difficult tasks with honor and open safe navigation on all seas of our country. Many ship and division commanders have become masters of minefield destruction. Among them are the North Sea residents A. Ivannkov and V. Golitsyn, the Baltic A. Dudin, G. Ovodovsky, F. Pakholchuk and N. Gurov, the Black Sea residents L. Volkov, F. Savelyev, A. Ratner, the Pacific people V. Piven, M. Sinyakoa and many others. Here is what, for example, is said in the award list about the actions of the commander of the minesweeper squad T-435, foreman of the 2nd article Bogachev Yuri Stepanovich: “… in September 1946, during the explosion of an antenna mine in the trawl, some of the sailors from the trawl crew were thrown out by the blast wave overboard the ship. Was thrown overboard and the commander of the ship. Bogachev took over the leadership in the rescue of personnel. At his command, the boat was quickly lowered into the water, and he himself threw himself into the water and saved a shell-shocked sailor from death …”. Only in 1948, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 677 officers, foremen and sailors were awarded orders and medals for their merits in clearing our seas, lakes and rivers from mines (State Archives of the Russian Federation, file number 36, file number 350). After 1949, the Soviet fleet continued to destroy dangerous weapons until 1957, when the mine threat was eliminated on the main fairways and sea areas.
