Arndt, P./Schenk, P./Mrva, F. (Skizzen) Deutsche Netzsperrverbände

After the successful volume on the German net-blockers, Peter Arndt prepared a work on the German net-blocking associations in the two world wars in years of research, but due to illness he could not finish it. Dr. Peter Schenk from the "Erich Gröner" working group in Berlin completed the manuscript after Peter Arndt's death. The volume shows the emergence of the need for net barriers due to the U-boats, which appeared on a larger scale for the first time in World War I, against which minefields had proved not to be fully effective. The development and deployment of net blocking units is described in great detail in this volume.
Extensive technical detail is given.

After a period of trials, existing foreships and merchant ships were made fit for purpose and the design of nets to block harbour bays and the Baltic Sea approaches was begun. An outstanding undertaking was the securing of the day bay to protect the transporters and the security forces during the landing on the Baltic islands in 1917. In the Second World War, it was already possible to fall back on a basic stock of existing material, with which the ports and the Baltic Sea accesses could be secured. The expansion of the war entailed the need for rapid expansion of the net blocking units. In Norway and France, the heavy naval units, which were increasingly the target of small arms attacks, had to be specially protected. In the Mediterranean and Black Sea, too, interdiction tasks had to be solved with often improvised means. The largest and most successful task was the blocking of the Gulf of Finland in its entire width of approx. 60 nautical miles, which neutralised Soviet submarines for two years. After the war, the advancing development of weapons had made net closures superfluous for the time being.