i heard there are many civil war going nowadays, when the war is over, there would usually be tons of problems with landmines killing or injured citizens. Does world war 2 have that problem as well, thanks for telling.
and i believe the allies used some sort of any landmine tank in normandy, its like a farming machine. If someone knows anything about it, please post some, thanks
In Northern Africa (Lybia, Tunisia, parts of Egypt) there is a huge problem with WW2 land mines, especially since they don´t rust in the desert climate and stay live forever.
Jan
The British Army’s 79th Armoured Division fielded an array of special purpose tanks, collectively referred to as “Funnies” (because of their weirdness). The missions of the various Funnies were varied, but quite common was the types developed for the mine-clearing mission.
Among them, the flail tank.
http://www.d-daytanks.org.uk/articles/flail-tanks.html
and for a specific example
http://www.d-daytanks.org.uk/exhibits/crab.html
It’s use is fairly self explanatory. Lower the flail such that the chains beat up the ground as the tank moves along, dealing with mines in the path of the tank.
They also had roller tanks which obviously set off mines by rolling over the ground ahead of the tank itself. Picture shows a Matilda equipped as such.
I recommend anyone read the D-Daytanks website in full. Particularly on the different types of tank. The breadth of ingenuity displayed by the British & Commonwealth tank development people - tanks like the Churchill AVRE’s, which could accept many modifications such as rolling matting down for other vehicles to follow, or laying demolition charges or even small bridges!
is it true that, there was a meeting and it was decided that landmines should not be used in warfare any more, because they cause too many civillian deaths, and horrific injuries. But America did not join!?
Yes that is true (although the USA isn’t the only country that has failed to sign up to the agreement, it is however the most significant) Here is a link to the text of the agreement:
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/d111fff4b9c85b0f41256585003caec3?OpenDocument
The ban is only for anti-personel mines, anti-tank/vehicle mines are not covered (although there are movements to ban these too). The failure of the USA to sign up is IIRC due to the large use of landmines on the border between North and South Korea.
The land mine “ban” is a farce - 1st world armies lay landmines, map them, mark them, & clear them afterwards. Nasty countries scatter them all over the place, don’t mark them, don’t map them, & don’t clear them up. Now the good guys (except the US) are banned from using a valid means of area denial & troop protection, but the bad guys (whose mines are generally the ones causing the civvy casualties) can still use them. Great. Our troops are now at more risk, to no net reduction in civvy casualties.
is world war 2 the first battlefield to use landmines?
or they already used in world war 1?
Yes landmines were used in WW1 (on a short scale). For instance, the first antitank mines used during WW1 were typically just artillery shells equipped with sensitive fuses.
Anyway, before the war ended first antitank mines were developed.
Northern france is till littered with explosives, related to the theme of land mines they’re still finding unexploded bombs from WW2 in Britain and Germany. Like landmines their legacy often remains years after the war itself.
(edited for typos)
Here in Germany there are systematic searches for EOD taking place, e.g. in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg anybody who files for a building permit needs to show a certificate that his land has been searched by an EOD disposal company and found clear of ordnance.
Countries like Lybia or Tunisia don´t have the means to do this.
Concerning landmines, most first world nations used them as tactical weapons, to channel enemy attacks or to protect weak points in their lines. The Soviet Union back in Afghanistan or guerilla groups use them as strategical weapons, by distributing them randomly over e.g. agrarian land they prevent this land from being used and cause e.g. food shortages or they deny this land to the enemy and prevent his movement.
Another problem with landmines is that that they don´t stay stationary. East Germany e.g. had to remove their mines from the inner German border in the 1970s, after rainfalls washed mines from the border strips into western German territory.
Jan
Having been involved in this field in Munster, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Traunreut and Lüneburg I can safely say that it isn’t as rosy a situation as you make it appear. As these projects are financed from the public purse (which as you know is getting smaller all the time) there is a reluctance to search (and find) old munitions, working on the principle that what isn’t found cannot be cleared. This is especially the case for chemical munitions due to the horrendously high costs of clearing such sites.
Edited: Typo
Years ago I was working in this field in Berlin (for Firma Halter GmbH), helping in clearing the Tiergarten in West Berlin. After some accidents in the 1970s and 1980s, there have been systematic searches going on in Berlin. I deliberately exclude now former military training areas, which have danger signs around them.
Jan
Oh I’m not just talking about training areas that are fenced off and signed as such, I am talking about areas that are now used by industry and in some cases are residential areas. I suggest you look into what is going on around Traunreut especially in and around a factory belonging to a large producer of household appliances. :shock:
Berlin did a systematic search up to the mid 70s, at this time it was assumed that all the EOD would be safe due to detoration. This attitude was quickly changed after a 500 kg bomb with a delay fuze exploded without a warning under a street in Buckow in, I think 1978, fortunately nobody was injured, since it happened early on a morning on a weekend, when most people were still asleep. Shortly afterwards it was discovered that a whole development has been built over a former anti tank trench, which was used in the month after the German surrender to get rid of ammo, including hundreds of Riegelminen.
This caused a big stir, since houses had to be evacuated for long periods to permit the authorities to recover the ammo.
Systematic search was taken up again. Another push came after unification.
Some builders, who were drilling holes for foundations of a new building in Berlin-Lichtenberg (standard practice in Berlin. The cities underground is sand, gravel and clay, with the bedrock almost 800 meters below. To get a stable foundation for a building, rows of holes with a diameter of about one meter and a depth of 20 meters are being drilled into the ground, and then filled with a reinforcement cage and concrete). In this case the drill bit hit (as has been reconstructed from fragments) the fuze of a dud 250 kg bomb, killing three builders, injuring several others and badly damaging several neighbouring buildings.
At the same time the British and Americans declassified their after bomb raids areal pictures, which permitted a better search.
The project I was working in (in a very menial position, as a summer job wielding the shovel as a college student), was a systematic search of the Tiergarten park in West Berlin. Every day we would mark an area of ten meters times 50 meters and divide it in lanes of 2 meters. The search was done using both mine detectors for any metal close to the surface and Förster probes to search for ferrous metals down to 3 meters. Any piece of metal had to be accounted for and had to be entered into a map.
EOD search is a state matter in Germany, as you know, so laws vary. In Berlin at least the grounds of every new building project get searched. Unfortunately there are many areas, where houses and factories have been built on land not cleared in the past. They may be standing right on top of unexploded bombs.
Jan
The project I was working in (in a very menial position, as a summer job wielding the shovel as a college student), was a systematic search of the Tiergarten park in West Berlin. Every day we would mark an area of ten meters times 50 meters and divide it in lanes of 2 meters. The search was done using both mine detectors for any metal close to the surface and Förster probes to search for ferrous metals down to 3 meters. Any piece of metal had to be accounted for and had to be entered into a map.
Yep backbreaking work isn’t it?
I cant really comment on the situation in Berlin too much as I have no direct experience, I’m just speaking of the areas I know of, most of my work was in Niedersachsen and Bremen, range and battlefield clearance. BTW around Bremen was very interestingI found amongst others the wreck of a British plane (type I never found out) complete with skeletal remains of the pilot. I was also involved in the clearance of a site where Fallschirmjäger had fought a pitched battle with Canadian troops, found several K98s, Helmets, 75mm tank shells, Tellerminen etc etc
EOD search is a state matter in Germany, as you know, so laws vary. In Berlin at least the grounds of every new building project get searched. Unfortunately there are many areas, where houses and factories have been built on land not cleared in the past. They may be standing right on top of unexploded bombs.
and there you point out the main problem, up until recently the problem was largely ignored and building was carried out on a “what I cant see wont hurt me” basis, unfortunately certain fuzes can be very unpredictable and aerial bombs have been known to explode without any physical cause other than the effects of time.
Berlin has the additional problem of having been the scene of the final fights in WW2 in Europe. The Germans used everything they could get their hands on or still had in stock, like Italian or Czech grenades, French mortar bombs, and the Russians e.g. fitted German dud bombs with a Russian fuze and dropped them again from their own planes. Then the common method of getting rid of ammo at the end of the war was to dump it into a shell crater and to bury it, of course without marking the position. You´ll never know if the metal the detector showed was just some scrap metal or highly instable ammo, but it had to be dug out and accounted for.
I had one hole close to the Italian embassy, where we dug out scrap metal and slabs of carrara marble. Suddenly we hit lots of 37mm AA shells. An old geezer, who happened to pass by told us that there was a AA battery down the road during the war, so they probably dumped all their leftover ammo into a crater and filled it up with dirt after the surrender.
Jan
BTW, according to the EOD rules in the state of Berlin, landmines and unexploded, but fired 88mm AP rounds have to be blown up in situ. They are considered to be too dangerous to move.
My experience of the IGB was that the fence and minefield was 50-100m on the east of the actual border. I patrolled it in 78 a number of years after the nice round towers were blown down by wind and they built the square ones.
the fence and minefield was 50-100m on the east of the actual border
I believe that our Russian friends set their fencelines, border posts and border security measure sometimes up to a kilometre inside their own territory so as to creat a “no-Mans Land” beyond the fence that the Ruskies could shoot into without causing an international incident if anyone broke the cordon and started running for the west.
Delightful :shock: