Designed for deep water offensive minelaying, all the Navy's Minelayers (CM), with the exception of one, were converted from old cruisers or coastal passenger ships. Most, before or upon commissioning as minelayers, were quickly rerated for other duties. Terror (CM-5) remains the Navy's only purpose-built minelayer. A primary reason for the lack of surface minelayers in the U.S. Navy was the invention of radar and other search devices, which rendered the surface minelayer exceedingly vulnerable to air, surface and submarine attack. A secondary reason was the ability of other non-specialized vessels (especially destroyers and submarines) to quickly and easily lay mines. Indded, most mining in World War II was conducted by submarines and aircraft. A lesser, but still important, reason was a traditional disdain among naval leadership for mine warfare, both offensive and defensive, a bias which remains to this day. The North Sea Barrage of 1918 remains the sole major minelaying operation by the U.S. Navy.

The minelaying submarine was designed to lay minefields in enemy harbors and along enemy coasts without being detected. Only one minelaying submarine (Argonaut (SM-1)) was ever built; for her time she was the largest submarine in the Navy. She wasted to a transport before ever laying mines in anger. During World War II most US submarines could lay Mark 10 or 11 mines through their torpedo tubes, negating the need for a specialized unit. In the early 1950's it was projected to convert Picuda (SS-382) to a SM, but with the advent of more sophisticated torpedoes this plan was never carried out.

The minelayers acquired to lay the North Sea Barrage received names commemorating former USN vessels of the Civil War era. When World War II started, this tradition was continued, with most minelaying types receiving names commemorating monitors of the Civil War and Spanish-American War eras.