mmm@uunet.UU.NET (03/03/90)
From: <ames!ames!claris!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@uunet.UU.NET> Here's a relevant paragraph from MODERN ARMS AND FREE MEN, a most excellent book by Vannevar Bush (Simon & Schuster, 1949): "One of the new primary aids to the defense that appeared in the interval [between Dunkirk and D-Day] was the use of great quantities of land mines. A field of such mines, covered by antitank guns, distributed in depth, interspersed with machine-gun nests, backed by artillery, is a formidable defense line indeed. In the contest between land mines and the means for removing them, the mine won out. Portable devices for detecting metallic mines were successfully developed; they worked along much the same lines as the defective radio set that whistles when one waves his hand near it, but they were avoided by the plastic mine. Dogs were taught to smell out mines, and they did, but there are too many ways of tricking dogs for this to be of much use. Great rollers, pushed ahead of tanks, capable of with- standing mine explosions, had some success, but not much; an occasional very large mine could wreck them. Snake--pieces of hose full of explosive, capable of being pushed ahead or pulled ahead by a small rocket--could be exploded to clear a lane. Tanks equipped with a succession of these devices could and did proceed a way, provided the tank itself was not destroyed, but this was a laborious method indeed for fields of great depth. Very light vehicles, in particular the Weasel, a treaded vehicle of low-unit pressure originally developed for use in snow fields, could proceed over mine fields set for heavy vehicles, but this vehicle was not armed or armored, and mines set for light pressure could stop it. The Russians apparently merely ignored the fields, moved ahead, and accepted the losses. These could be very large, for example when mines were built to project a can of explosive into the air to explode there and spread fragments over an area. The ratio of losses on the eastern front as the Russians advanced reflects this fact. The days when hordes by their mere number could overwhelm fully prepared positions approached their end."