USS Pivot (AM 276) World War II United States Admirable Class Minesweeper shown in the Gulf of Mexico on sea trials 12 July 1944

A minesweeper is a military ship designed to locate and destroy naval mines placed in the sea by enemies. The same ships are sometimes used for mine laying. Image File history File links USSPivotAM276. ... Image File history File links USSPivotAM276. ... USS Pivot (AM-276), an Admirable Class Minesweeper, was the first ship of the United States Navy named Pivot. ... A naval mine is a stationary self-contained explosive device placed in water, to destroy ships and/or submarines. ...

Onboard, these vessels include specialised sonar and radar to detect and track mines. To avoid detonation of mines, they are designed to produce much less noise than other ships, and are often constructed with hulls of wood, plastic or low-magnetic steel. The F70 type frigates (here, La Motte-Picquet) are fitted with VDS (Variable Depth Sonar) type DUBV43 or DUBV43C tugged sonars Sonar (sound navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation under water to navigate or to detect other watercraft. ... This long range radar antenna (approximately 40m (130ft) in diameter) rotates on a track to observe activities near the horizon. ... A hull is the body or frame of a ship or boat. ... A tree trunk as found at the Veluwe, The Netherlands Wood is an organic material found as the primary content of the stems of woody plants, especially trees, but also shrubs. ... Plastic is a term that covers a range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products. ... Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ...

Alternately, minesweepers are equipped with powerful electromagnetic degaussing fields to neutralise their magnetic field and/or jammers. Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field: a field, encompassing all of space, composed of the electric field and the magnetic field. ... Degaussing, named after the German scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss, is the process of removing permanent magnetism (magnetic hysteresis) from an object. ...

There is a blurred distinction between a minesweeper and a minehunter. A minesweeper is generally designed to clear an area of a large number of relatively simple mines - for example towing a wire sweep to cut loose floating contact mines or a floating cable energised with powerful electric current pulses to detonate magnetic mines. A minehunter is a ship which is better equipped to handle more modern mines which need to be individually located on the sea bed and destroyed. Both kinds of ships are sometimes collectively called MCMVs - Mine Counter Measure Vessels.

Helicopters towing underwater cables are sometimes used for minesweeping. The worlds most popular helicopter, the Bell 206 of Canadian Helicopters Robinson Helicopter Company (USA) R44, a four seat development of the R22 A helicopter is an aircraft which is lifted and propelled by one or more large horizontal rotors (propellers). ...

Their weaponry is mostly designed for the destruction of mines (specialized mortars and short-range torpedoes), but as they are military ships, anti-aircraft and other combative weapons are usually present. A modern torpedo, historically called a self-propelled torpedo, is a self-propelled guided projectile that (after being launched above or below the water surface) operates underwater and is designed to detonate on contact or in proximity to a target. ...

see:

• Royal Navy Hunt Class
• Alta class minesweeper
• Royal Navy Sandown Class
• 206FM class (NATO: Krogulec)
• USS Pivot (AM 276)