What is the history of the development of anti-mine ships?

Starting with the appearance of minesweepers in the Crimean War (1853-1856) in the 1850s, mine countermeasures ships have developed rapidly through many naval battles. The main method of mine clearance by anti-mine ships was minesweeping.

In the second world war, only the allied countries put into the minesweeper 1500 ships. After the war, Britain and a dozen other countries used nearly 1,600 minesweeping ships over a period of 8 to 9 years to remove the mines remaining in the Great War. Some countries in emergencies, but also the use of old ships converted to minebreakers, but not very effective.

The 1950s, with the development of electronic technology, modern mine fuses and anti-sweeping measures and devices are increasingly advanced and complex, with the traditional method of mine clearance, has not been adapted to exclude the need for modern mines.

The end of the 50s, a number of countries are actively exploring and development of new mine detection, mine clearance methods and equipment.

In 1972, France built the first mine-hunting ship, countries have built mine-hunting ships and mine-hunting and mine-sweeping ability to hunt and mine-sweeping ships, reduce or even stop building traditional mine-sweeping ships.