Explosive Buoy

[Kameraden]

Hi

I'm reading S-Boats in Action by Hans Frank.
There are several mentions of Explosive Buoys as opposed to Mines.
They seem to be some sort of much smaller mines that are used to secure Sea Lanes.
There is a picture of them on the back of an S-Boat and they seem to look Shell Shaped and I imagine they float and are separated by ropes.
Does anyone have any more info on them as I've got many Kriegsmarine books and never heard of them before so am intrigued.

Thanks

[Peter K.]

Link: http://michaelhiske.de/Wehrmacht/Marine ... l_B/B3.htm

[Polar bear]

hi,

They seem to be some sort of much smaller mines that are used to secure Sea Lanes.

Their purpose is to destroy an enemy's minesweeper's mechanical sweeping gear (by explosion) to "protect" one's own minefield against sweeping.

greetings, the pb

[Natter]

There are several mentions of Explosive Buoys as opposed to Mines.
They seem to be some sort of much smaller mines that are used to secure Sea Lanes.

Link: http://michaelhiske.de/Wehrmacht/Marine ... l_B/B3.htm

As mentioned in the previous post, this is "sperrschutsmittel", ie devices to protect an ancored minefield from being swept.

Note that only the Sprengboje D (Spr. B D) had an explosive charge (0,8 kg). It would detonate when the wire from a mechanical sweep was pulled up against to the buoy.

As you can see from the illustrations in the link provided by Peter, the other sweep-obstructors (the Reißboje (RB), Bombenreißboje (BRB) and the EMR "mine") were only equipped with mechanical wirecutters ("reißgreifer"), which is the exact same equipment (in addition to explosive cutters) that would have been mounted on the mechanical sweep. Ie: If the obstructor should do it's work, it's cutter needed to grab hold of the sweepwire before the sweepwire's cutter grab hold of the obstructor's anchorwire...

The other two EMR-variants were also classified as sperrschutzmittel, but not as effective due to the lack of cutters (the chain would probably have some effect against the sweep's cutters though). Their main purpose would have been as EMC "decoys" and force the enemy to spend time and resources on sweeping.

[Kameraden]

Thanks for the replies guys!