Thread: Kamikaze Pole Mines?

They sure did and quite a bit more.

Read all about the Lunge Mine etc here:

Lone Sentry: New Weapons for Jap Tank Hunters (U.S. WWII Intelligence Bulletin, March 1945)

Also:

Viet Minh "death volunteers" fought against the French colonial army by using a long stick-like explosive to detonate French tanks, as part of their urban warfare tactics which would have been a direct result of the above.

Hi.

From the US TM 9-1985-4 (german captions by me):

Lunge Mine:



from top:
- wooden handle
- safety pin
- shear wire
- connection cylinder
- striker
- threaded connecting ring
- detonator
- steel case
- explosive filling
- steel cone
- bottom plate
- legs

pull out safety pin, struck it against target, shear wire breaks, detonation

penetration: 130 mm


A similar construction with more chances to survive the explosion but only for lightly armoured vehicles and soft targets:

Suction-cup mine:

same source



from top:
- pull igniters
- safety fuze
- blasting cap
- connecting sleeve
- primacord
- handle
- charge container
- cast explosive
- blasting cap
- suction cup

total length: 1800 mm
charge container: 135 mm X diameter 112,5 mm
charge weight: 2010 g
charge type: 53 % RDX, 47 % TNT

Two delay elements/primacords are used parallel to make sure the explosion happens.

suck mine against target, pull friction igniters, safety fuze delay time 10-15 sec, upper blasting caps detonate igniting primacord, lower blasting caps ignite explosive



Some of these devices were used during the December 1944 airbourne operations against US airstrips on Leyte and the Philippines

Yours

tom!

Very interesting Tom and a good site.

Tell us a bit more about yourself in the introductions thread.

Cheers

Geoff