a. Antitank Mines. Antitank mines are designed primarily for immobilizing tanks. Although all of the major foreign armies have antitank mines, occasionally the amount of explosive in one mine is not sufficient to immobilize a tank. To accomplish the mission two or more mines are sometimes placed togehter.

b. Antivehicular Mines. Antivehicular mines are designed primarily for immobilizing tracked or wheeled vehicles other than tanks. However, two or more of these mines are often placed together to immobilize tanks. All of the major foreign armies employ antivehicular mines. They are referred to as antitransport mines in the Soviet Army.

c. Dual-Purpose Mines. Dual-purpose mines are designed both to immobilize vehicles and to produce casualties among personnel. Normally, these mines can be distinguished by the pressure-pull fuze used in them. The fuze is designed to be detonated by vehicles (pressure) and by personnel (pull). Many of the foreign armies use dual-purpose mines.

d. Antipersonnel Mines. Antipersonnel mines are used primarily to produce casualties to personnel. They may be placed to protect antitank mine fields and other obstacles, to give local security and warning, or as nuisance mines to harass and delay the enemy. Normally, they are not effective against ar-mored vehicles but may inflict some damage on other vehicles. Antipersonnel mines found in foreign armies are of two general types: shrapnel mines which are designed to injure or kill more than one person and concussion mines designed to kill or injure only the person who steps on or actuates the mine. Anti-lifting devices and booby traps are classified as antipersonnel mines since they are pri-marily designed to inflict injuries personnel. All of the major foreign armies employ anti-personnel mines.

Antilifting device. An antilifting device is a mechanical or a combination mechanical or a combination mechanical and explosive device designed specifically to cause a mine to detonate when an attempt is made to lift or move the mine (fig. 13). Anti-lifting devices are primarily designed for an antipersonnel role. Certain types of fuzes, perticularly pressure-release fuzes, are in effect antilifting devices as well as booby-trap mechanisms. Some armies, notably the German and Soviet, have produ-ced antilifting devices for the specific purpose of placing them under antitank and anti-vehicular mines to prevent safe removal of the mines.

Figure 13. Antilifting device placed under a mine.

A booby trap is a mine or charge that is hidden in or attached to an apparently harmless object (fig. 14). The firing mechanism is so placed that an unsuspec-ting person detonates the hidden mine or charge when he disturbs the object.

Figure 14. Booby-traps installation.

Booby traps are especially intended to inflict casualties on and to destroy the morale of opposing forces. They are normally installed during a retrograde mo-vement or during raids or patrols into the positions of the opposing forces. Booby traps may be encountered under any circumstances. They may be found attached to equipment, dead soldiers, and supplies. They mal also be installed in abandoned buildings. Ingenuity of installation largely determines their effec-tiveness.

e. Railroad Mines. Railroad mines are designed specifically to wreck trains. In most in-stances, railroad mines incorporate a delay rather than an instantaneous type of fuze and are used as initial charges to detonate larger supplemental charges buried in railroad beds. Germany, Italian, and the Soviet Union employed railroad mines in World War II.

f. Beach Mines. Beach mines are primarily designed to destroy landing craft and amphibi-ous vehicles, to hinder the landing of an opposing force, and to disable vehicles that have landed. They vary greatly in size, explosive content, and type of fuze used. The Japanese, in particular, employed beach type mines in World War II.

g. River Mines. River mines are used to destroy floating bridges, fixed bridge piers, and river shipping. They vary considerably in size and explosive content. The usual method of functioning is by the use of pressure or pull fuzes. Germany and the Soviet Union em-ployed river mines in World War II.

h. Inprovised Mines. Improvised mines are used when standard mines are unsuitable or unavailable for a particular mission. They are made by filling with an explosive any type of container, such as bottles, crates, sacks, barrels, and tin cans. Improved mines may also be made of bombs, shells, or grenades and are fitted usually with a pressure or pull fuze. They are extremely dangerous to handle. The Soviet Army places much emphasis on improvised mines.

i. Dummy Mines. Dummy mines can be made of any material available. They may be in-stalled in dummy mines fields or may be used to supplement real mines in a live mine field to delay and confuse the enemy by marking it necessary for him to consume time in in-vestigating and removing them.

j. Training Mines. Mines used in training contain no explosive charges but are similar in construction to standard mines. Various means are available for simulating detonation of the training mines. Training mines are called practice mines in United States mine warfare terminology.

k. Others. A number of other types of mines are found in some of the foreign armies but the types listed above are common in most foreign armies and are employed in greater numbers.

6. Mine Laying, Marking, and Recording Equipment and Supplies

a. Mine Laying Devices. Most armies today rely upon manpower to fuze mines, to prepare holes for them in the ground, and to arm and conceal them. Mine spacing cords and spe-cial tools are used by many armies to aid in spacing mines within a mine field and in ac-tually preparing holes for individual mines. Some countries are experimenting with mecha-nical mine laying devices. The Germans developed a mine laying vehicle in the early part of World War II, but the device proved impracticable.

b. Mine Marking Equipment. Mine marking equipment includes all items, such as special tags, flags, and tracing tape, used to mark mine fields and individual mines.

c. Mine Recording Supplies. This type of material usually includes special reports, forms, maps, and other pictorial aids used to record the location of mine fields and individual mines.

7. Mine Detecting Equipment

Mine detecting equipment includes all devices, such as probes and electronic mine de-tectors, designed specifically for locating mines. Some countries experimented with sub-stituting trained dogs for equipment to detect mines, but such practices proved impracti-cable.

8. Mine Clearing Equipment

Mine clearing equipment includes vehicle-mounted devices and manually operated devi-ces. Vehicle-mounted devices are tank-mounted flails, rollers, and drags, and propelled explosive devices. Manually operated mine clearing devices include grapnels, rollers, and explosive charges.