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Minesweepers Of The Royal New Zealand Navy
Commissioned minesweepers and danlayers of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) from its formation on 1 October 1941 to the present. The RNZN was created two years into World War II. For coherence this article covers the war years from the start, and thus includes also the New Zealand minesweepers operating from the beginning of the war. World War II minesweepers During World War II the RNZN operated 39 minesweepers and danlayers. This included 20 naval trawlers (13 , three and four ), five converted trawlers, 10 converted merchant boats, and four danlayers. Naval trawlers Naval trawlers were trawlers purpose built to Admiralty specification to operate as minesweepers and/or anti-submarine boats. Castle class Thirteen naval trawlers were commissioned. Apart from ''James Cosgrove'' and ''Wakakura'', all were built in New Zealand by government directive, circa 1942. They were long, displaced 540 tons standard or 612 tons loaded, and were designed for a complement of 27. The three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minesweeper
A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of the naval mine dates to the Ming dynasty.Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 203–205. Dedicated minesweepers, however, only appeared many centuries later during the Crimean War, where they were deployed by the British. The Crimean War minesweepers were rowboats trailing Grappling hook, grapnels to snag mines. Minesweeping technology picked up in the Russo-Japanese War, using aging torpedo boats as minesweepers. In Britain, naval leaders recognized before the outbreak of World War I that the development of sea mines was a threat to the nation's shipping and began efforts to counter the threat. Sir Arthur Wilson noted the real threat of the time was blockade aided by mines and not invasion. The function of the fishing fleet's trawlers with their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Division Of The Royal Navy
The New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy also known as the New Zealand Station was formed in 1921 and remained in existence until 1941. It was the precursor to the Royal New Zealand Navy. Originally, the Royal Navy was solely responsible for the naval security of New Zealand. The passing of the Naval Defence Act 1913 created the New Zealand Naval Forces as a separate division within the Royal Navy. __TOC__ History At its establishment in 1848, the Australia Station encompassed Australia and New Zealand. Under the Australasian Naval Agreement 1887 the colonial governments of Australia and New Zealand secured a greater naval presence in their waters, agreed that two ships would always be based in New Zealand waters and agreed contributions to funding that presence. In 1901 the Commonwealth of Australia became independent of the United Kingdom. The Australian Squadron was disbanded in 1911 and the Australia Station passed to the Commonwealth Naval Forces. The Australia Statio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMNZS Duchess (T07)
His or Her Majesty's New Zealand Ship (HMNZS) is the ship prefix used to identify warships and shore facilities commissioned into the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN). It derives from "His Majesty's Ship" (HMS) used in the United Kingdom. The British monarch is also equally and separately the New Zealand head of state. Should the monarch be female, the designation also changes to "Her" rather than "His" Majesty. On 1 October 1941, King George VI fixed his signature to the approval for the Royal New Zealand Navy and from that date all ships officially received the designation. See also *List of ships of the Royal New Zealand Navy Sortable list of commissioned vessels of the Royal New Zealand Navy from its formation on 1 October 1941 to the present. It does not include vessels of the New Zealand Division (1921–1941) or New Zealand Naval Forces (1913–21) or earlier ve ... Royal New Zealand Navy Ship prefixes {{NewZealand-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMNZS Breeze (T02)
HMNZS ''Breeze'' (T02) was a coastal cargo boat which was requisitioned by the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and converted into a minesweeper. ''Breeze'' was owned by the Canterbury Steam Shipping Company. She was taken up on 3 March 1942, under protest, to replace the which had sunk in a minefield. She was a sister ship to . Operational history ''Breeze'' joined the 25th Minesweeping Flotilla at Tulagi in April 1943. On her arrival she was also formed, with and her sister ship , into the 9th Auxiliary Minesweeping group within the flotilla. They carried out night-time patrol and escort duties under COMSOPAC control. The Japanese were well north by this time, but occasionally made sudden attacks into American strongholds around Guadalcanal. In July 1943, prior to being fitted with radar, ''Breeze'' collided with off Guadalcanal while patrolling in a monsoon rainstorm. Grazing port to port, she had a boat wrecked. During convoy escort duty in Ironbottom Sound she was att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chatham Island
Chatham Island ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) is by far the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway between the equator and the pole, and right on the International Date Line", though the point (180°, 45°S) in fact lies ca. 173 miles WSW of the island's westernmost point. The island is called ''Rekohu'' ("misty skies") in Moriori, and ''Wharekauri'' in Māori.Government of New Zealand, Dept. of Conservation (1999) Chatham IslandsConservation Management Strategy''. Retrieved 13 July 2012. The island was named after the survey ship HMS ''Chatham'' which was the first European ship to locate the island in 1791. It covers an area of . Chatham Island lies south-east of Cape Turnagain, the nearest point of mainland New Zealand to the island. Geography The geography of the roughly T-shaped island is dominated by three features: two bays a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TSS Wahine
TSS ''Wahine'' (meaning "woman" in Maori) was a Union Steamship Company passenger steamship that was launched in Scotland in 1912 and wrecked in the Arafura Sea in 1951. She spent most of her career on inter-island ferry route between Wellington and Lyttelton, New Zealand. She was a minelayer in World War I, and a troop ship in World War I, World War II and the Korean War. William Denny and Brothers built ''Wahine'' in Dumbarton as yard number 971. She was launched on 25 November 1912 and completed on 9 April 1913. Her registered length was , her beam was and her depth was . As built, her tonnages were and . ''Wahine'' had three screws, each driven by a steam turbine. High-pressure steam powered her port and starboard turbines. Exhaust steam from them powered a low-pressure turbine that drove her middle screw. To help her berth at Lyttelton, ''Wahine'' had a rudder on her bow as well as one in the conventional place at her stern. The UK Admiralty chartered ''Wahine'' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMNZS Inchkeith
HMNZS ''Inchkeith'' was an minesweeper of the Royal New Zealand Navy. She was one of the first ships to be commissioned into the newly created Royal New Zealand Navy. She was bought alongside three other ships for a price of £65,000 each. On 15 March 1942 ''Inchkeith'' was involved with a collision with HMS ''Marsdale'', damaging her superstructure. During World War II, HMNZS ''Inchkeith'' worked escorting various convoys in both the Atlantic and Pacific theatres before transitioning to a primarily minesweeping role around the Hauraki Gulf and the Bay of Islands, although filling some escort duties. Due to coal shortages ''Inchkeith'' along with her sister ships were laid up in October 1945, and by February 1946 the corvettes and were fitted with minesweeping gear, and the four Isles-class ships were placed in reserve. By 1957, ''Inchkeith'' was declared surplus and were sold for scrapping in August 1958, and was broken up along with her sister ships at the Lighter B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OS2U Kingfisher
The Vought OS2U Kingfisher is an American catapult-launched observation floatplane. It was a compact mid-wing monoplane, with a large central float and small stabilizing floats. Performance was modest because of its low-powered engine. The OS2U could also operate on fixed, wheeled, taildragger landing gear. The OS2U was the main shipboard observation seaplane used by the United States Navy during World War II, and 1,519 of the aircraft were built. It served on battleships and cruisers of the US Navy, with the United States Marine Corps in Marine Scouting Squadron Three (VMS-3), with the United States Coast Guard at coastal air stations, at sea with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, and with the Soviet Navy. The Royal Australian Air Force also operated a few Kingfishers from shore bases. The Naval Aircraft Factory OS2N was the designation of the OS2U-3 aircraft built by the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The OS2U first flew on 1 March 1938. Design and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capital, Honiara, is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the wider area of the Solomon Islands (archipelago), which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (currently a part of Papua New Guinea), but excludes the Santa Cruz Islands. The islands have been settled since at least some time between 30,000 and 28,800 BCE, with later waves of migrants, notably the Lapita people, mixing and producing the modern indigenous Solomon Islanders population. In 1568, the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to visit them. Though not named by Mendaña, it is believed that the islands were called ''"the Solomons"'' by those who later receiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tulagi Harbour
Tulagi, less commonly known as Tulaghi, is a small island——in Solomon Islands, just off the south coast of Ngella Sule. The town of the same name on the island (pop. 1,750) was the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate from 1896 to 1942 and is today the capital of the Central Province. The capital of what is now the state of Solomon Islands moved to Honiara, Guadalcanal, after World War II. The island was originally chosen by the British as a comparatively isolated and healthier alternative to the disease-ridden larger islands of the Solomon Islands archipelago. In October 2019, the government of Central Province signed a deal to grant the 75-year lease of the entire island of Tulagi to a Chinese company China Sam Enterprise Group. However, this was declared unconstitutional by the Solomon Islands parliament after a week and, consequently, the deal was cancelled. Climate History The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on or under the surface of the water, such as other vessels. "Sonar" can refer to one of two types of technology: ''passive'' sonar means listening for the sound made by vessels; ''active'' sonar means emitting pulses of sounds and listening for echoes. Sonar may be used as a means of acoustic location and of measurement of the echo characteristics of "targets" in the water. Acoustic location in air was used before the introduction of radar. Sonar may also be used for robot navigation, and SODAR (an upward-looking in-air sonar) is used for atmospheric investigations. The term ''sonar'' is also used for the equipment used to generate and receive the sound. The acoustic frequencies used in sonar systems vary from very low (infrasonic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Depth Charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive Shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth charges use explosive, high explosive charges and a fuze set to detonate the charge, typically at a specific depth. Depth charges can be dropped by ships, patrol aircraft, and helicopters. Depth charges were developed during World War I, and were one of the first viable methods of attacking a submarine underwater. They were widely used in World War I and World War II, and remained part of the anti-submarine arsenals of many navies during the Cold War, during which they were supplemented, and later largely replaced, by anti-submarine homing torpedoes. A depth charge fitted with a nuclear warhead is also known as a "nuclear depth bomb". These were designed to be dropped from a patrol plane or deployed by an anti-submarine missile from a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
