Talk:Submarine mines in United States harbor defense

Military history: Fortifications / Maritime / Technology / North America / United States / World War I / World War II

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References tag[edit]

I removed the references tag, since I believe there are quite a few cited here, both in the text and in the lengthy captions to the photos and maps. Pgrig (talk) 19:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Observers vulnerable[edit]

The observed fire scenario should be described as vulnerable to attack by ground troops such as enemy Marines who would likely come ashore and work to reduce the harbor's ability to defend itself. Marines would be expected to fight their way through defenders in order to spike guns and disable other shore defenses such as nets, torpedoes, mines, booby traps, etc. Binksternet (talk) 17:09, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. I'll make mention of them in the large-scale edit that I'm working on now. Playing "what if" with troop landings would have to take account of the difficulty of getting through the mine fields in order to destroy them. Also, in the U.S., coast defense sites received (on paper) extra allotments of ground troops in order to defend them from ground attack. The coast defense sites I'm familiar with in Boston would, however, seem to me to have been quite vulnerable to attack by seaborne troops, many of the sites being only slightly above sea level, with their fortifications open to the rear (city) side.

By the way, ground attacks, if aimed at the mine casemates, would have been equally effective against observed and non-observed mine firings, since the electricity to detonate the mines issued from these casemates. Pgrig (talk) 19:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Marines would likely land at night on beaches near the harbor, outside of the area of protection, and make their way to the casemates by foot. They would not necessarily make a frontal assault up the harbor in boats, though that was an option. Sneaking in by night was typical of Napoleonic seacoast warfare as practiced by Great Britain and others. Binksternet (talk) 20:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Boston[edit]

This article needs a rewrite. Many parts of it seem to be very specific to Boston harbor, rather than about mine defense of U.S. harbors in general. Examples are always good but, in this case, there's so much example that the general picture is obscured. Dricherby (talk) 12:17, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]