Coastal minesweeper

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Coastal minesweeper is a term used by the United States Navy to indicate a minesweeper intended for coastal use as opposed to participating in fleet operations at sea.

United States Navy Naval warfare branch of the United States Armed Forces

The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second largest and second most powerful air force in the world.

Littoral (military)

In military and naval warfare, littoral combat is operations in and around the littoral zone, within a certain distance of shore, including surveillance, mine-clearing and support for landing operations and other types of combat shifting from water to ground, and back.

Because of its small size—usually less than 100 feet in length—and construction—wood as opposed to steel—and slow speed—usually about 9 or 10 knots—the coastal minesweeper was considered too fragile and slow to operate on the high seas with the fleet.

Minesweeping, in conjunction with fleet activities, was usually relegated to the diesel-driven steel-hulled AM-type minesweepers, later to be replaced by the wood-hulled MSO-type minesweeper with aluminum engines.

Diesel engine Internal combustion engine with quality rotational frequency governing, internal mixture formation, lean air-fuel-ratio, diffusion flame and compression ignition

The Diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber, is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to the mechanical compression. Diesel engines work by compressing only the air. This increases the air temperature inside the cylinder to such a high degree that atomised Diesel fuel injected into the combustion chamber ignites spontaneously. With the fuel being injected into the air just before combustion, the dispersion of the fuel is uneven; this is called a heterogenous air-fuel mixture. The process of mixing air and fuel happens almost entirely during combustion, the oxygen diffuses into the flame, which means that the Diesel engine operates with a diffusion flame. The torque a Diesel engine produces is controlled by manipulating the air ratio; this means, that instead of throttling the intake air, the Diesel engine relies on altering the amount of fuel that is injected, and the air ratio is usually high.

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The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol to identify their ships by type and by individual ship within a type. The system is analogous to the pennant number system that the Royal Navy and other European and Commonwealth navies use.

Naval mine explosive weapon for use in seas and waterways, triggered by the targets approach

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Minesweeper Vessel for removing naval mines

A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to engage in minesweeping. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, waterways are kept clear for safe shipping.

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Ton-class minesweeper 1953 class of minesweeper of the Royal Navy

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Royal Naval Patrol Service

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Rautu and Vilppula were Kljuz class Minesweepers left by the Soviets to Finland in 1918 since they would not have survived the harsh sailing to the Leningrad. Ships had weak hulls and their engines were not particularly powerful. During peacetime they were used as depot and test ships. Vilppula was designated as T-2 and Zashtshitnik and Rautu as Murman before they were included to the Finnish Navy

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Fugas-class minesweeper

The Fugas class were a group of minesweepers built for the Soviet Navy in the 1930s and 1940s. The Soviet designations were Project 3, Project 53, Project 53-U and Project 58.

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships .