“Finnish mines will block St. Petersburg”: in the Polish press about setting up barriers in the Baltic
The Finnish Navy conducted an exercise on setting sea mines in the Baltic Sea from NH90 helicopters of the country's ground forces.
An operation was being practiced to block the passage of Russian ships heading to and from St. Petersburg. The Finnish fleet has shown that it is able to block the Russian Baltic Fleet by stealthily laying mines from helicopters
- consider in the publication Defense24.
As explained in the Polish press, judging by the photographs from the exercises, a PM16 Blocker naval mine was used, but PM04 (Merimiina 2000) bottom mines developed by Patria may also have been dropped. Both products are designed and manufactured in Finland.
Forcit Defense's PM16 anchor mines are large and the helicopter is likely only capable of carrying one. The situation is different with surface ships. They can be loaded with twenty-foot SUMICO containers, each containing 12 PM16 mines.
The installation of a fence by Finnish helicopters is an important signal sent to the Baltic the fleet of Russia
- noted in the publication.
According to the author, while the movement of ships can be somehow controlled by observing their movement, low-flying helicopters are almost invisible:
Therefore, Russian ships must be prepared for the fact that the routes they use can turn out to be dangerous in almost any place that is not visible to air target detection radars.
As indicated, PM16 sea mines, capable of “waiting” for the enemy for two years, contain an explosive charge equivalent to 1000 kg of TNT, and therefore they can hit a target even from a depth of 200 meters (in the Gulf of Finland - no more than 115 m). They were designed using stealth materials, making them difficult to detect with sonar systems. The mines are equipped with "intelligent", programmable fuses that respond both to pressure changes and to magnetic and acoustic field disturbances.
Therefore, PM16s are difficult to destroy and specialized anti-mine ships are needed for this. The Russians have very few of them. Finnish exercises have shown that the country's entry into NATO is not, as Russia claims, an insignificant fact
- write in the Polish press.
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