The mines most people picture, like those seen in films such as “Godzilla Minus One,” are floating spheres tethered to the seabed, with small protrusions called Hertz horns that trigger the mine when it makes contact with a ship. In the film, characters use a small wooden boat to sweep mines without triggering them because the mines responded to a metal-hulled ship’s magnetic field. This has been demonstrated in practice: During the 1980s, Iran and Iraq deployed relatively small numbers of mines against each other in the so-called Tanker War in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.
Author: John Femiani, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Miami University
Published at: 2026-03-30 22:44:22
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