Ok I am sorry if this comes across as a little silly and uninformed BUT I have tried to answer these questions myself and have not been successful:

1. Minesweepers:

how exactly did they detect mines in the sea? radar? sonar? vison?

when they detected a mine, how did they go about getting rid of it? Did they blow it up somehow?

2. Depth charges

my understanding is that depth charges had a time delay fuse and were set so they would explode at a certain depth. I may well be wrong here.

so how did anti sub patrols know what depth to set their charges for when hunting a U boat? I assume that depth charges need to explode fairly close to a U boat to cause damage.

I would really appreciate some input here and I am sorry if some of these questions seem a bit elementary to others but i have to be honest and say i am at the bottom of a step learning curve about U boats!

reading the book about the U boat that passed through New Zealand waters has really got me interested.

cheers

Dave

New Zealand