Bump.
That would be Teutonic thoroughness.
…
Ditches and slopes approaching ancient forts, causing the approaching enemy to slow down to be better targets for archers and to tire themselves before they reached the defenders.
Apart from the typically thorough Teutonic observers ;), what was that used for?
It’s a so-called trench plough, it was used to plough trenches.
Seriously, it was indeed used to make the construction of trenches a lot easier for the troops by removing the frozen top layer of dirt (about two feet).
And I thought you’d say it was used for digging ditches. 
Did it have much application in the field?
I can’t see it being used anywhere in sight of the enemy. This relegates it to making defensive trenches in fall back positions or perhaps just shell scrapes for rear area troops, which isn’t much help to troops at the front who would really like some help digging in frozen ground and who really needed to get below ground.
I once stepped on some barbed wire that put a small hole in my foot…no biggie, but it was enough to let a parasitic worm through and into my foot! I changed countries a week after that and about a month later, it had grown large enough to be noticable (and a fluid dripping-blistered-pain-in-the-butt). I had no idea what it was and neither did the docs…till a guy from Executive Outcomes spotted me tending to it and says to me, “Where the hell you get a sand worm around here?”
I replied, “You know what this is?”
I was just happy to know what the hell it was and get the bugger out of my foot!
Hangs head in shame. If failing to capitalise Mau Mau gets a week of extras…do I lose a stripe? :oops:
Hmmm…I clearly remember having a flechette claymores explained to me as having flechettes arranged so that they’d be projected in a similar pattern as a conventional claymore, but the flechettes would provide much greater range and penetration of protective vests than a round ballbearing would.
Granted, these probably weren’t used in 'Nam and I have no idea how common they are…but I thought they were the updated version of claymores. I think I recall they had a kill radius of something impressive like 200 feet…but only in the direction facing the enemy
Ahhhh!!! I finally understand! Thanks!!! Hmmm…seems like CBUs might have worked better.
Your profession gets obvious here!
Did it have much application in the field?
I can’t see it being used anywhere in sight of the enemy. This relegates it to making defensive trenches in fall back positions or perhaps just shell scrapes for rear area troops, which isn’t much help to troops at the front who would really like some help digging in frozen ground and who really needed to get below ground.
There weren’t too many available I guess. Mostly manpower did the job.
Any yes, certainly it was used only for fall-back positions in the rear.
Yet another old device still used today, commonly called a ripper and fitted to the back of medium crawler tractors to rip up the road surface during denial tasks.
Dunno about possible modifications to the Claymore,I have looked on the net, didnt see any actual claymore designations for a flechette variant. just some loose verbiage by a reporter. but in the 70’s they had 700 3/8 inch balls held in a plastic matrix . Flechettes were used in artillery sized munitions at the time, (also some smaller darts were stacked inside 12 ga. shotshells for close up social remediations) The use of gravity weapons, as pictured was fairly common, the Allies used lazy dog bombs in huge numbers to inflict casualties, and damage on the Axis. They were small hardened steel penetrators with sheet metal fins, only about 2-3 inches long. Dropped from high altitudes, they would do the job okay. (and were handy for opening cans)
“Greek Fire” whose modern child was Napalm, which has several recipes with household-available ingredients.
Regards, Uyraell.
Several of which my son, then just early teens, combined to modest effect.
Marginally more impressive that spraying deodorant on his jeans and setting himself alight, and making sparkler bombs.
For improvised projectiles, I still like his experiments with Coke / Mentos bombs, although one of the latter gave one of his mates a real good smack in the head from about 20 metres. Knocked him over, actually, and he was a heavy set six footer about 17 years old at the time, although he might have rolled with it. I can still hear him moaning. Bloody funny. For those who don’t know what a Coke/Mentos bomb is, and what fun they can provide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QuMASPj6Fg
The day I catch My lad (who is 18) trying that Mentos/Coke he will be walking oddly. This will be because he will be trying to extract a rather large shoe, planted with great force, from a place it is not polite to mention…
While I’m no fan of punishments corporal, I’m much less a fan of irresponsible behaviours as depicted in that Youtube.
Warm Regards, Uyraell.
Simple Military invention that changed history.
The humble, and ubiquitous, tin-opener.
Little-known is that for the first 5 years after the invention of canned foods a very wide variety of devices, from bayonets, to cold-chisels, to saws, had been employed to open sealed cans.
Various injuries to hands, arms and legs were a relatively frequent result.
It was a retired Sergeant, who had at one point in his military service been an armourer, who first created what was at the time called a Tin-Bayonet, and later came to be called a tin-opener, or can-opener.
The device resembled that which most folk my age recall seeing in gran’s kitchen drawer, for it entered civilian life very shortly thereafter, despite initially having been declared a military secret. Date was approximately 1885, though I’m guessing a little, as I have not seen the book which references it in over 15 years.
It was a simple handle in which was mounted piercing blade with a small hook to one edge, which went under one edge of the tin, while the blade pierced the lid. One of the earliest versions had a cast-iron bull’s head, wherein the upper jaw served as the hook, and the lower (but rigidly fixed) jaw was the piercing blade.
Addendum: Millions of the things have since been made to almost as many designs, But one of the most efficient I have ever seen or used sits to this day on my keyring, a genuine Vietnam era P38 tin-opener. It is 1.5 inches long, and the folding piercing blade is a half inch of arc-edged triangle. Repros of the thing sell for $5 these days. In 1975, I paid about 25 cents for mine, which has remained in perfect working order ever since.
Regards, Uyraell.
Being left-handed I embrace the invention of the electric tin-opener for -with a mechanical one- I inflicted more wounds to myself as I could’ve ever done using a bayonet or a saw.:mrgreen:
Fair-enough said, My friend 
Though left-handed versions of the tin-opener did exist, in my now distant youth. :mrgreen:
I hope the electric version serves you well.
Warm Regards, Uyraell.
To my wife it does!