Anti-tank mine
Conflict in southern Africa since the 1960s have often involved Soviet supported irregular armies or fighters engaged in guerrilla warfare. What makes these conflicts significant to the study of anti-tank mines is that they featured the widespread use of these mines in situations other than conventional warfare (or static minefields) and also saw the development of effective mine resistant vehicles.
In the Angolan Civil War or South African Border War that covered vast sparsely populated area of southern Angola and northern Namibia, it was easy for small groups to infiltrate and lay their mines on roads before escaping again often undetected. The anti-tank mines were most often placed on public roads used by civilian and military vehicles and had a great psychological effect.
Mines were often laid in complex arrangements. One tactic was to lay multiple mines on top of each other to increase the blast effect. Another common tactic was to link together several mines placed within a few metres of each other, so that all would detonate when any one was triggered.
It was because of this threat that some of the first successful mine protected vehicles were developed by South African military and police forces. Chief amongst these were the Buffel and Casspir armoured personnel carriers and Ratel armoured fighting vehicle. They employed v-shaped hulls that deflected the blast force away from occupants. In most cases occupants survived anti-tank mine detonations with only minor injuries. The vehicles themselves could often be repaired by replacing the wheels or some drive train components that were designed to be modular and replaceable for exactly this reason.
Most countries involved in Middle Eastern peace keeping missions deploy modern developments of these vehicles like the RG-31 (Canada, United Arab Emirates, United States) and RG-32 (Sweden).
[
References
- ^ (2004). "A Study of Mechanical Application in Demining" (PDF). . Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining Retrieved on 2007-07-23.
- ^ Anti-tank mine kills 7 Cambodian de-miners
[
See also
- List of landmines (provides extensive details of different types)
- Examples of Anti-tank mines
- Type 72, China (modern)
- Tellermine, German (World War II era)
- Topfmine German (World War II era)
- TM-83 mine, Russia (modern) an off route mine using the Misznay-Schardin effect
- Mine dispersal systems
[
External links
- German mines of World War 2.
- Mines laid in Bosnia during the 1990s civil war.
- How Stuff Works
- German anti-tank mines
For more information review our copyright contact and privacy policy.