Minefield

Land mines are divided into anti-tank, anti-personnel, anti-vehicle and anti-airborne .

Anti-tank minefields include anti-tank minefields, individual mines, land mines, escarpes, counter-scarpes, anti-tank ditches, ground craters, reinforced concrete, wooden and metal ridges, forest and stone blockages, barriers, metal hedgehogs, traps, snow shafts, flooding , fires that impede the movement of troops .

The anti-personnel minefields include: anti-personnel minefields, land mines, surprise mines, earthen ramparts, ditches, wolf holes (hollows in the ground in the form of a truncated cone), notches, blockages, wire fences, nets, spirals, slingshots, hedgehogs, snakes, loops, wire in the wire, electrified and water obstacles, fire rolls, etc.

Anti-vehicle minefields include: anti-vehicle mines, land mines used to destroy the railways and highways, bridges, tunnels and road constructions, road digging, blockages, barricades, roadblocks, road craters, mining of road curtains .

Anti-landing minefields are used against airborne and naval landings. Anti -tank, anti-personnel and other mines, as well as ramparts, pits, poles, stones, ditches, wire nets, hedgehogs, and slingshots are used to counter airborne assault forces.

Against the landing of naval landings (lake, river) landings, as well as to counteract the enemy in forcing water barriers, "explosive and non-explosive" obstacles on the shore and in the water are arranged, which hamper the approach to the shore and the landing of the enemy landing forces and landings.

Sea minefields , also (lake, river) are used to impede the passage of enemy ships on sea (lake) communications, fairways, rivers, canals, as well as to impede the penetration of its ships, submarines, torpedoes and other craft in the harbor, ports , on raids and to landings of sea (lake, river) landings. When constructing such barriers, contact and non-contact sea ​​(river) mines , floating booms, cable nets, dolby, ryazhi, racks, etc. are used.

Minelayer ( minzag ) - a specialized warship designed for setting minefields. Minisags include various ships - from small coastal to large high-speed ships built in destroyer hulls. The displacement of surface minelayers is different, reaching 6000 tons .

Minelayers are intended for setting mines mainly in their waters.

In addition to the possibility of laying mines minzagi equipped with weapons for self-defense. Artillery artillery barriers are designed to repel attacks of destroyers, boats and aircraft .

Also as a "minzagov" can be used and submarines . At the same time, the laying of mines can be carried out both in the surface and in the submerged position, and due to the high secrecy of submarines, it is effective to set off so-called “offensive minefields” in the enemy’s territorial waters and on the busy routes of the enemy ships and ships.

Air minefields are used to hinder the flights of aircraft and other enemy aircraft in near-earth space. As air Z. c. aerostats of air barriers are used, etc. Means for covering the approaches to important objects in order to prevent enemy aircraft operations at low altitudes and to impede dive bombing.

Minefields have a long history. As ground z. since ancient times, earthen ramparts, ditches, wolf pit, stone walls, wooden palisades, forest landings and debris, flooding of the area were widely used; marine z. - overpasses, ryazhy, racks and other means.

In the 18th century for device z. explosives gradually began to be used, and in the defense of Sevastopol 1854–55 - land mines. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, Russian forces used anti-personnel mines, field bombs exploded electrically, and electrified wire obstacles to defend Port Arthur. Large distribution of various z. received during the 1st World War, 1914-18, especially the mining area, the creation of solid strips of wire barriers.

Russian military engineers - Gritskevich, Dragomirov, Revensky, and others developed a number of designs of new anti-personnel and anti-tank mines during this war, which were successfully used in the construction of barriers. In England, Italy and France, anti-aircraft barriers in the form of air barrage balloons were first used to protect London, Venice and Paris in 1916. Before World War II (1939–45) in fortified areas of European states and during the construction of fortified lines of Maginot (France), Mannerheim (Finland), Siegfried (Germany), etc.

Metallic, concrete, reinforced concrete, granite planes, anti-tank ditches, wire nets, flooding and waterlogging, forest blockages, minefields and land mines were widely used. During World War II (1939–45) and especially World War II (1941–45), explosive barriers were widely used in all types of combat.

For their device in the battle of Moscow, the Soviet troops for the first time in 1941 began to use mobile units of the barrier, which were later successfully used in other operations. During the war, the Soviet Army spent more than 70 million different mines, including about 30 million anti-tank ones. Simultaneously with the mining of the area, non-explosive sand formations were used.

In the post-war period, the means used for arranging various types of weapons, especially explosive ones, received considerable development. For this purpose, nuclear explosive devices (nuclear land mines) as well as ground (underground) explosions of nuclear weapons can be used.

A land mine is an ammunition designed to be installed underground, on the ground or near the surface of the earth or other surface, for an explosion from the presence, proximity or direct impact of a person or moving vehicle.

Mines are serial and homemade; the latter can be made from shells, air bombs and similar ammunition, from charges of explosives and a variety of striking elements.

There are mines "anti-personnel" and "anti-tank . "

Mines can be used in various ways: it is possible to place single mines, including booby traps, and create minefields.

• Minefields are usually arranged in such a way that the troops who installed them have the opportunity to completely survey the minefield and sweep through it, preventing the enemy from making passages.
• Minefields are used both in field and in long-term fortification , often in combination with wire and other barriers.
• Minefields can only consist of "anti-personnel" or "anti-tank" mines or be mixed.

From the moment of the appearance and the beginning of the use of anti-personnel mines, and then of anti-tank mines, means and methods of overcoming mine fields and mined areas of the terrain have been continuously improved.

Making passes

Mine Trawl

Mine trawl is a device for making passages in minefields by catching sea ​​mines or neutralizing (undermining) anti-personnel and anti-tank mines on land (by analogy with a trawl , a fishing gear ).

According to the method of application are divided into "Contact and Non-contact . "

• "Contact" are divided into trawls with cutters and trawls with blasting cartridges.
• "Non-contact" are divided into: acoustic, electromagnetic and hydrodynamic .

Disruptive charge

Disruptive charges can be used to clear aisles in minefields using the directional explosion method. Used in various forms since the Russian-Japanese war . At an early stage of development, they represented a primitive combination of one or several TNT sticks on a long pole or rope, in such a way they were stacked or thrown away and undermined remotely using a bickford fuse , detonation cord or other devices. During the Cold War, they took the form of special engineering ammunition or missiles fired or launched from barreled or raked launchers and undermined remotely above the surface of the cleared area.

Mine clearance

Self-propelled or towed demining installations with jet charges, as an independent subspecies of military engineering vehicles, emerged and developed in the 1960s. One of the first installations of this type was the Skidz system developed by the Picatinnes arsenal and manufactured by Martin Marietta in 1966 (the English Mine-Field Demolition 'Skids', in the trans. " Carriage "), clinging as a trailer to vehicle and armored vehicles ^{[1] [2]} .

Volumetric explosion

The commencement of the use of volumetric explosive ordnance with an aerosol- type explosive to clear minefields dates back to the mid-1970s. A system called SLUFAE (Surface Launched Unit, Fuel Air Explosive) was developed by Redstone Arsenal specialists in conjunction with laboratories of the US Army and Navy ^[3]

Prepared transition

Safe Corridor

In the absence of time for demining, or the impossibility of its implementation at the moment for one reason or another and in the absence of intensive opposition from the enemy, the sappers prepare a safe corridor by arranging flags or other visually noticeable objects, with a white nylon thread or others stretched or laid along route of the ribbon-like segments of matter, denoting the boundaries of the safe area.

Foam Stones

The use of polyurethane foam on the consistency of a similar construction and installation fillers with a shorter curing time to overcome inert minefields was carried out experimentally in the early 1970s. The idea and ways to implement it were developed and tested in the military laboratories of Martin Marietta under a contract with the Center for the Development of Mobility Aids for the US Army in Fort Bellevour , Virginia . The device with a liquid foaming agent weighed 27 kg and its appearance resembled an industrial sprayer of building or gardening tools; one filling was enough to create 30–35 “foamy stones”, which was enough to create a thirty-meter safe route through a mine hazardous area. The “stones” were about 43 cm in diameter and 10 cm thick, they reduced the pressure on the ground, due to which the impactors of standard anti-personnel mines did not work. This kind of means did not reach mass production, it was limited to experiments ^[4] .

• Mine Bank
• Mine line
• Mine strip

• V. Baluev. The development of military engineering electrical engineering, M., 1958.
• Ivolgin A. I. The development and use of mine-blasting means, 2nd ed., M., 1956.
• Karbyshev D. M. Selected Scientific Works, M., 1962.