# What Romania's mines and warships sank in the Black Sea Interactive map of the 18 Soviet vessels lost to Romanian mines and actions in the Black Sea, 1941–1944: 6 solid attributions, 10 probable contributions, 2 disputed cases. Full edition with map, timeline and documented records: ## Thesis Minefields caused most of the losses: 16 of the 18 in the file. Romania needed no fleet to match the Soviet one: mining home waters and escorting convoys inflicted real losses, because Soviet submarines typically hunted close inshore. ## Vessels in the file ### Solid attributions (6) - **Moskva** (destroyer leader, 26 June 1941) — mine from barrage S-10, laid between 16 and 19 June 1941 by Murgescu, Regele Carol I and Aurora. The wreck, surveyed in 2011 at 45 metres, shows a destroyed bow; the dive team rated gunfire unlikely and the friendly torpedo the weakest theory. - **ShCh-206** (submarine, 9 July 1941) — depth charges of the torpedo boat Năluca and the boats Viscolul and Vijelia, off Mangalia, after the gunboat Stihi Eugen spotted the periscope. The loss date and place match the Romanian action report. - **M-33** (coastal submarine, 22–25 August 1942) — mine off Odesa, at 46°20′ N, 30°54′ E. The field had been laid on 24 June 1942 by Murgescu and Dacia; the Dacia history records M-33 among the two submarines confirmed on that barrage. - **M-60** (coastal submarine, 23–26 September 1942) — mine in the same Odesa barrage, a month after M-33; the second confirmation from the Dacia history. - **ShCh-212** (submarine, after 11 December 1942) — mine from the Snake Island barrages, laid on 29–30 October and 5 November 1942. The same mines damaged the cruiser Voroshilov on 1 December — proof the barrage was there and lethal. - **ShCh-213** (submarine, after 14 October 1942) — mine from the Constanța defensive barrage. The wreck, found in 2008 and confirmed in 2010, disproved the German claim of the submarine chaser UJ-116. ### Probable contributions (10) - **M-58** (October 1941) — mine in the Danube estuary area; area and period fit barrage S-10, but the exact day, the wreck and an action document are missing. - **M-34** (after 3 November 1941) — mine off Constanța; the Russian martyrology, the specialist chronology and the S-10 list converge, with no positive proof. - **M-59** (late October – early November 1941) — mine east of Constanța. The destroyer Regele Ferdinand's claim (the Jibrieni action, 17 December) was disproved by documents: the boat had no fuel left after 8 December. - **ShCh-211** (after 14 November 1941) — mine from field S-18, south of Varna; the wreck was found in 2005 off Cape Galata, but the loss place and the wreck place differ. - **ShCh-210** (after 12 March 1942) — mine from field S-15, off Cape Shabla; a named field, with no wreck and no exact position. - **ShCh-208** (after 23 August 1942) — mine off the Romanian–Bulgarian coast; both lines support the Romanian origin but differ on the place. - **M-31** (after 17 December 1942) — mine in the Snake Island waters; the late claim of the leader Mărășești (July 1943) does not fit the disappearance date. - **L-24** (15–29 December 1942) — mine from field S-15, off Cape Shabla; the wreck was found in 1991, but both sides mined these waters. - **YA-26** (18 April 1944 — date from a single source, not independently confirmed) — mine off Odesa, from the barrage laid on 24 June 1942; a thin file, with no surveyed wreck. - **YA-27** (18 April 1944 — same caveat on the date) — as her sister YA-26, a paired loss on the same barrage. ### Disputed cases (2) - **S-34** (12 or 13 November 1941) — certain mine in Burgas Bay, uncertain ownership: a Bulgarian field or the Romanian Operation Varna field. Outside the solid-attribution total. - **M-118** (1 October 1942) — claimed by the gunboats Ghiculescu and Stihi Eugen off Cape Burnas, after sinking the transport Salzburg; the wreck was not found at the reported spot, and the competing hypotheses are the German floatplane and a mine. ## How Moskva was lost On 26 June 1941, after shelling Constanța, she withdrew under Romanian and German fire and entered barrage S-10. The 04:26 explosion broke her in two: 268 dead, 69 rescued. The wreck, found in 2011 at 45 metres, supports the mine theory, probably magnified by deck torpedoes. ## Method File closed 20 September 2026. Verification drew on specialist ship histories (uboat.net, where a page exists), on wreck surveys, on the Romanian history of the minelayer Dacia, on an independent naval encyclopedia and — for the origins of the Romanian units only — on the Romanian Navy's official history. Exact positions appear only where a source gives them; the rest are approximate zones. Crew figures appear only where documented. Competing explanations stand beside each record, each with its source. Without the two disputed cases, the totals would be 15 mines and 1 direct attack. ## Sources - uboat.net, vessel pages: https://uboat.net/allies/warships/ - Moskva wreck record, Romanian Black Sea Wrecks: https://www.blackseawrecks.ro/wiki/wrecks/moskva - Moskva wreck, the dive team report, X-Ray Mag: https://old.xray-mag.com/content/what-sank-soviet-destroyer-moscow - Minelayer Dacia history, worldwar2.ro: http://worldwar2.ro/arr/?article=254 - Romanian Navy in WWII, Naval Encyclopedia: https://naval-encyclopedia.com/ww2/romanian-navy.php - Romanian Navy history, via GlobalSecurity: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/ro-navy-history-3.htm - Soviet submarine loss chronology, Axis History Forum (search extract): https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=267854 - L-24 wreck position, Wikimapia (diver report): https://wikimapia.org/11182197/Soviet-submarine-L-24-wreck Campaign pages appear in the file only as reading trails, at the end of the source lists, never as principal evidence.