"Mine Rakes?" Topic

How common were mine rakes during the civil war? Were they improvised by ship's crews 'on the spot', or were they refits requiring a short visit to the yards?

Were they multiple 'flavors' of rakes – fixed/floating?

Thanks!

I can only think, off the top of my head, one time when they were used. that was at the ironclad attack on Charleston, and they made the vessels with them very hard to manuevar. If they were a common item, or even a useful one, they would have been used at Mobile.

I recently wondered the same thing. I assumed they were uncommon since I had also only heard of them being used in the attack on Charleston but when I did a quick search of Wikipedia I came up with several photos of ironclads with the rake.

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A quick read of the history of the ships shows USS Kickapoo and USS Milwaukee were involved in sweeping operations at Mobile. It sounds like that since mine rakes affected the manuverability of a ship they were normally used to pre-sweep an area prior to a battle (like World War Two minesweepers cleared lanes prior to D-day). They also seem to have been used to keep water supply routes clear from mines since for the Union many of these would pass near or through enemy held areas. They probably used ironclads since they provided a level of protection from enemy fire and the detonation of a mine. We may not hear of mine rakes in battle accounts since every attempt was made to remove as many mines as possible pre-battle and the mine rakes were removed prior to fighting to make the ironclads more manouverable.

Just my thoughts someone else may have more information.

I dug out my copy of Perry's "Infernal Machines", and the rake appears to be WAY more common than I thought. Porter insisted that ALL his ships mount rakes on the James River, while wooden gunboats in North Carolina used 'nets' to snag mines (which didn't always work).

Thanks, y'all!