And that is why they came up with the M58 MICLIC
Not always.
For one thing, the claymore used by the US army is a directional mine, and as such is above ground (though it’s more of an ambush mine than a minefield mine). Some types of mines are also laid down by aircraft or artillery, obviously those are kinda hard to bury.
But mostly, burying mines takes a lot of time and carefulness, which isn’t always in copious supply in war. Besides, an open air minefield can acomplish the same thing as an underground one : denying ground to the enemy. Even if you can see the mines, you just don’t run across the field while being shot at. Same deal about anti tank mines laid down on a road : sure, the enemy can bring a 'dozer and clear them somewhat easily, but while they’re waiting for it, they’re not speeding down the road. Mines are cheap, so they’re good to buy time.
Well, now that I am qualified to jump into this thread . . .
cyclesurgeon, I’m sorry to hear that about your brother. IEDs are even more insidious bastards. I’m assuming your brother is still doing well, seeing as how it looks like he’s doing some public work.
But for the OP:
It is a complete and utter Hollywood fabrication. If the applied weight does not immediately detonate the landmine, then the removal of weight will. Theoretically, the individual could find the IED and hold his or her weight on the triggering device and defuse it, but the chances of that are putting it into the realm of Hollywood fiction. Why would an enemy want to give Hero a chance to save himself? If it didn’t go “BOOM!” it did not function as designed.
Tripler
Oh, and just for shits and giggles, there’s usually a secondary real close to that landmine–especially antitank mines mixed with antipersonnel.
Just for those that ain’t up on their acronyms, MICLIC = Mine-clearing line charge.
Basically think, a length of garden hose filled with explosives dragged through the air over the minefield by a rocket, then (usually) BOOM when it’s on the ground, a nice mine clear path safe for infantry and some (most?) vehicles to take. (Are any of the current “MiCLiC” systems guarantied to take out an anti-tank mine intended for the current generation of MBTs? (Main Battle Tanks))
I was surprised to learn that they’re older than I thought (WWII) (and of course the M58 is just one of a few in use).
CMC fnord!
The “removal of the weight detonating the mine” is the Hollywood version. The question was whether any “weight removal” triggers (at opposed to “weight application” triggers) actually exist.
You don’t need to sign up (the box that comes up is just to prevent spambots, as it says the password is “foamy”) it is a wiki after all. That said I’ll add it for you.
EDIT: Nevermind, someone already has.
Nothing.
Hijack alert:
The OP sort of describe how many buttons on your computer screen work. Many people don’t realize this, but when there’s a button on your screen, nothing happens when you click it. Rather, something happens when you let go of the mouse button. Therefore, if you click something by mistake, and you realize this mistake while your finger is still holding the mouse button down, what you should do is keep the mouse button down while you move the mouse pointer away from that screen button, and then you can safely lift your finger, and nothing will go BOOM.
As a programmer I feel obliged to point out that this depends. It is possible to have a given application react on “key up” or “key down”.
Speaking of “Bouncing Betties,” my dad was in the American Infantry in WWII, and he definitely recalled the BBs (the German S-mine) with intense loathing. By contrast, he wasn’t nearly as afraid of the famous 88mm guns, which were high-velocity anti-vehicular weapons, because they usually wouldn’t even shoot at dismounted infantry, and when they did, the shells tended to burrow deep into the soil, which minimized the blast.
Regarding “visible” mines as a deterrent – in the North African desert theater of WWII, where supplies were always at a premium, both sides used clearly marked minefields – and equally clearly marked fake minefields, to stretch the supply of mines farther. They probably put a few real mines around the fringes of the fake minefields just in case someone was inclined to test things. The idea was to channel the enemy by limiting the avenues of attack. Keeping the fake minefields covered by vigilant machine gunners would (in theory) prevent the enemy from probing them thoroughly enough to be confident about crossing them in strength – it’s pretty hard to carefully dig up mines by hand while under direct fire, and there’s very little cover in the desert.
I don’t know if fake minefields were used extensively in other combat theaters or other wars.
I’ve read that many of the precisely-mapped minefields – and boy, did they take care in mapping them, no one wants to step on his own minefield, and the desert is largely featureless – still remain, and scientists now use them to track the expansion or contraction of Saharan desertification in the decades since the war.
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At the risk of offending, I will add some levity to a very grim thread. No offense intended to the brave EOD folks.
There were some very ingenious but nasty “toys” created during WW2, particularly for Stategic Operations Executive, the cloak-and-dagger bunch who supplied resistance and sabotage groups in occupied Europe.
This link shows a variety of the detonator switches created; note the Number 8 Mark I, which is simply a tube with spring-loaded firing pin which used the standard .303 cartridge to shoot upwards when trod upon. It was known colloquially as “the castrator.”
The Number 3 uses a spring-loaded release switch, which could be used in applications like pulling a door shut, opening a desk, or raising a toilet seat.
I see what I did–I didn’t phrase it well. My apologies.
Yes, you can rig firing devices to function with a pressure-release option, say a M142. Theoretically, you could have someone disarm the firing device while their body weight is still applied. However, in that scenario, and even more in the hypothetical you propose in your OP (where the Hero renders it safe himself), the chances of success are so far in the realm of astronomical, you might as well start writing a script.
Those pressure-release are more apt for booby-traps to require movement of an object (i.e. a rock, book, or tripwire) than they are for direct “foot traffic” purposes. For the “anti-Hero purposes”, you’re more apt to place a pressure-fired firing device; don’t give Hero the chance to save himself.
There are no “instant-add-a-pressure then pressure-release” firing devices that are in any common, mass-produced inventory. It’s one or the other. There are cumulative pressure firing devices, but those are a discussion for another day. As mentioned earlier in the thread, it’s a possibility, but they’re maybe one or two experimental/improvised firing devices amongst thousands of other firing devices.
Tripler
My apologies for the confusion.
Thanks. The Hollywood version never did really make sense, but you never know. I can see “Arm ‘weight application’ trigger; someone steps on mine and it goes boom” and for some purposes I could see “Place weight on ‘weight removal’ trigger, then arm trigger; someone removes weight, mine goes boom”. No particular reason for a minelayer to give anyone a chance to hear the “click” and then have time to cut the red wire* and escape safely, except maybe if we’re talking about some sort of strictly amateur psychopath who gets off on the sadism involved**.
*Yes, I know, another inaccurate Hollywood cliche.
**Hollywood writers feel free to use this idea, if you haven’t already, which you probably have.
Logically the owner wouldn’t want a Bouncing Betty mine to launch until after the foot was removed from it, lest it detonate prematurely or get deflected to scurry across the ground instead of reaching optimum dispersal height.
Which would be why they were fitted with an instantaneous trigger and a four-second delay to the launch charge. Gave the unlucky detonatee the choice between flinching off the trigger and having the thing go off at waist height, or standing on top of the thing and first having the launch charge bang the mine against their foot, followed by the main charge detonating half a second later. No clever disarm-after-stepping options, and only four seconds to get behind shelter or very far away.
A very nice design, as human-maiming devices go.
You can see why they were so hated.
All have either a pyrotechnic delay (slow burning fuse from an instantaneous firing device, as slaphead mentions) or the ‘kill mechanism’ is physically seperated or adjacent to the firing device.
Tripler
The psychological impact of landmines is elegantly beautiful, in my humble opinion.
Dunno about Hollywood, but that’s pretty much the rationale behind the main plot point of No Man’s Land. In the movie, a Serb (or was it a Bosniak ?) bastard laid a mine with a Hollywood-trigger under a presumed dead man, just so that it would bounce up and explode in the face of any person who’d try to move or bury him. The man, of course, isn’t really dead and wakes up later. Hilarity ensues.
No, really, it does. It’s one of the funniest abysmally depressing movies that I’ve ever watched.
It’s actually a pretty old trick. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, people are hiding either mines or IEDs in the carcasses of people or animals. A dead dog on the side of the road could hide a 155mm round. Basically makes one large, command-detonated mine.
Tripler
“Now, why does that dog have wires leading into that building?”
Also, wasn’t there a scene like this in “Killing Fields” where the unfortunate mine-stomper has to argue with the others to keep going and leave him?