Naval mine ship, HMHS "Britannic", which was the sister ship of the RMS "Titanic." During World War II, the U-boat fleet, which dominated much of the battle of the Atlantic, was small at the beginning of the war and much of the early action by German forces involved mining convoy routes and ports around Britain. German submarines also operated in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Caribbean Sea, and along the U.S. coast. Initially, contact mines (requiring a ship to physically strike a mine to detonate it) were employed, usually tethered at the end of a cable just below the surface of the
German naval ship Mühlhausen decided to convert her into a training and support vessel for mine-clearing divers. The rebuilding was done at the Peene-Werft shipyard in Wolgast and on April 6, 1995 she was recommissioned as "Mühlhausen" (M1052) and classified as Type 742A ship. After forty years in service, the "Mühlhausen" was decommissioned in 2007 and was replaced by the converted Frankenthal class mine hunter "Rottweil". At the time of her decommissioning, "Mühlhausen" was the largest naval ship still in service with a hull made of glued laminated timber (mahogany). German naval ship Mühlhausen Mühlhausen was a naval ship in service with the German