The ''Linnet ''class were a
class of three small coastal
minelayer
A minelayer is any warship, submarine or military aircraft deploying explosive mines. Since World War I the term "minelayer" refers specifically to a naval ship used for deploying naval mines. "Mine planting" was the term for installing contro ...
s commissioned into the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...
just before the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
Description
The ''Linnet'' class were the largest of a dozen specialized vessels known as "Indicator Loop Mine Layers" built for the Royal Navy immediately before and during the Second World War. These vessels were designed to lay
controlled mines A controlled mine was a circuit fired weapon used in coastal defenses with ancestry going back to 1805 when Robert Fulton termed his underwater explosive device a torpedo:
Robert Fulton invented the word torpedo to describe his underwater explosiv ...
, used in coastal defences, as well as
anti-submarine indicator loops. Similar vessels known as
mine planter
Mine planter and the earlier "torpedo planter" was a term used for mine warfare ships into the early days of World War I. In later terminology, particularly in the United States, a mine planter was a ship specifically designed to install controll ...
s were operated by the US Army during the same era.
Ships of the class had a displacement of 498 tons standard and a length of
between perpendiculars. They were equipped with a single 20 mm gun and two machine guns. They had two
triple expansion engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
s which allowed the ship to have a maximum speed of . There was a complement of 24 officers and crew and a total mine capacity of 12.
[Cocker, pp. 20-21]
Ships
Notes
References
* Jane's Fighting Ships 1939, p. 98
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linnet Class Minelayer
Mine warfare vessel classes
Ship classes of the Royal Navy