Sea Mines - was Any ideas??

Any ideas on this thing? Its outside the Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial Museum, Manston

Contact mine. Ships for the sinking of. As they say in Stores.

Thanks Ossington, much appreciated

Now there's a subject! There are so many variations on that theme. The picture below is actually a collection box for monetary donations by the way, not a mine

It would have had horns on it once, but I suspect H&S required their removal. In terms of types of mine, you get contact mines of various shapes and sizes and then there are your influence mines (Magnetic, acoustic and seismic) the more modern variations can be set to recognise a particular ship's acoustic signature or count a number of ships passing. Some mines were developed that had compressed gas in them to allow them to automatically rise and sink in the water column over a period of time. The archives has a copy of a test report from the Glen Fruin Water Tank Test Facility of that variant.

Is this the start of a new category?

Can't wait to get on to the subject of trigger and fusing mechanisms!

With your expertise Dietmar we should have an aircraft carrier thread.

Now you're talking!