Russian sea mine m/1904

[Tmine35]

Does anyone have information about Russian m/1904 remote exploded sea mine? I'll try to send later one a picture of such mine. Only thing I know about this mine is that explosive charge was 75 kilos of pyroxyl.

 

[Big Dave]

Hi ,according to Norman Friedman's Naval Weapons of World War One (Seaforth, 2011)there's a M1905 which used a Matheson detonator (invented in the 1880s ) which relied on an internal ball moving against 4 restraining springs by the impact of the ship .The charge contained between 48 - 78 kg of Pyroxylin, if you need anymore let me know, regards Dave

 

[Tmine35]

Thank you. This is the mine in question. I would love to see a sectional drawing of the mine.

 

[Dreamk]

To the best of my knowledge there was no 1904 Russian mine



- the mines used in the 1904 - 1905 conflict were models 1877 and 1898

Would it be the 1877 model?

 

[Tmine35]

I know nothing about this mine. The one in my picture is a commemorial statue, with brass plate telling it is model 1904. However I know that many Russian items left behind in Finland after 1918 civil war have wrong designations in Finnish use later on.

Here a picture of the brass plate, showing no horns. I have read somewhere that Russia used in certain places mines which were anchored on seabed and had electric cable connection to shore, an observer could ignite the mine when necessary.
The plate says that the mine is a " shore connected mine".

 

[Big Dave]

Here goes , we ( the British)used command detonated sea mines in the 1880-90s usually manned by Royal Engineers as it was seen as an army not navy responsibility .I know the Russian used these and also the Americans ? and probably a few other countries ,type in submarine mining on most searches and quite a lot of information comes up
Now back to the Russian M1905 it used the case of the M1898 mine (775mm diameter) and was introduced with the innovation of laying mines from non-specialist ships such as torpedo boats .The firing current was supplied by a dry cell battery, safety was by a timer and sugar disconnect or. The mine soon fell out of favour due short battery life and reliability problems .It seems the Hertz horned mines were easier and cheaper to use ,hope this helps.Sorry I couldn't find any picture or drawings for the M1905

 

[trrrr]

If You have some measurments,or some typical signe picture, we can try to compare that probably 1904 with model 1877.

 

[Tmine35]

In Tallin Estonia they have in museum several different Russian mines, including the one in question.
http://kuhuminna.delfi.ee/files/8587/4da3115bb4723.jpg
http://kuhuminna.tallinn.ee/Kohad/miinimuuseum

Perhaps one of our Estonian members could find more details from museum?