Got hit by a mine what to do. Anti-personnel horror. Avoiding minefields

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Mines and myths
We live in a turbulent world, and in the coming years it may become even more turbulent. It happens that war comes to those who did not invite it at all, and with war many unpleasant things come into their lives. For example, mines and stretch marks. Let's talk about it.

What do we know about mines from war films? We know that they are, including jumping, "frogs". And as often explained in the films, they work in the following way. You step on a mine - the fuse is cocked, but nothing happens. Happens when you lift your leg. This is how the sapper explained in Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket", the plot of the painting "No Man's Land" by Tanovitch is built on this, well, and in many other places this idea sounds that while you are standing on such a mine - you are safe (unless, of course, the word "safety" combined with standing on a cocked mine).

From here, the viewer has the idea that if you somehow contrive and fix the mine in this “pressed” position, then you can neutralize it. At least to the extent that you can get away from it.

I will say carefully, because you can never be sure that something in this outlandish world does not exist one hundred percent. That's what they thought about lobe-finned fish- until they caught the coelocanth. Maybe the dinosaurs that were not killed by the asteroid have quieted down somewhere. Maybe someone also releases jumping mines that work according to the scheme described above.

But I don't know those. Moreover, I do not know what would be the tactical sense in creating such a "particularly cynical" mine, which would be activated when you step on it, and would work only when the load was removed. Why would some maniac be so embarrassed, complicating the design of the fuse? For more drama? But filmmakers need this - that's why they repeat this stamp over and over again with the unfortunate soldier who stands on a mine and realizes the horror of his situation.

No, in the case of real jumping (and other) mines, whose existence is proven by science, the soldier will not stand on it for long. Three or four seconds. Because the fuse has already worked, as soon as you step on it or touch the wire, the “target sensor”. But he's slow, like hand grenade. For what? Well, a group is walking through the forest. The first touches the wire, which may not be noticed, and in four seconds the rest enter the affected area. The idea is this. And, I believe, it was precisely because of this slowdown that the myth was born that the fuse works when you remove the load from the mine.

In principle, all these mines, that the Soviet OZM-72, that the American M16, that the Yugoslav PROM-1 (it seems that it is she who appears in Tanovic's film "No Man's Land", which is generally excellent, despite the use of this myth) are clones of German S-min from the Second World War. It was the Teutonic gloomy genius who first taught anti-personnel mines to jump. For what? Well it is clear. To cover a fairly large area with fragments and hit even lying fighters.

How is it done? When the fuse is triggered, the powder retarder in the ignition tube ignites, igniting the expelling charge. When a mine, under its action, flies up to 60-80 centimeters, a cable is pulled, which pulls the fuse of the main charge, and a bang occurs.

The exception is the American M16. There is no pull cord. There, it’s just that the fuse of the main charge fires with a slowdown in a split second, so that the mine has time to jump.

But where there is a cable - theoretically, of course, you can avoid a big bang if you do not let the mine jump high enough. And, I remember, when I, at the dawn of my career in the Corporation, to which I have the honor to belong (of course, fictional, like myself) passed the KMB in the Mitsara training camp, and somehow asked Sapsan, a former that moment of our platoon leader, who was steering all this training parsley: “But if you stand on one leg, transfer all the mass to this mine, maybe it won’t jump out?”

He replied: “You know, it is theoretically possible, but I don’t know that anyone has tried to do this. For if he does jump out, he will explode right in your crotch.

Actually, it's a pretty sneaky thing, a jumping mine. Therefore, the only “recipe” if you have hooked something, such as a wire, in a potentially mined area, is to instantly fall prone, cover your head and neck with your hands and pray that by some miracle you will not be cut too much by shrapnel. And no, fuck, "as long as I'm standing on it, it won't explode." How it will explode.

But, someone will say, there are also mines that really work to relieve the load? There is. Let's say the Soviet MS-3 (where MS is a "surprise mine"). But it does not work, as in the films: he stepped on it - activated it, removed his leg - was blown up. It is activated actually during installation, pressed down by something from above, and there are (like any more or less modern mine) a few minutes until the fuse is cocked, for the safety of the sapper, and after that, if you remove the load, there will be a bang.

By the way, especially insidious people - they may well set a mine trap that works instantly when the load is removed, under some other mine. Why it turns out almost completely unrecoverable.

And there is such a trick as the MS-4. Also a booby trap that does not even work to remove the load, but has a tilt sensor (and many other sensors). It seems to you that you have neutralized the anti-personnel or anti-tank mine- and there the MS-4 is attached from below. One wrong move - and you are in heaven in the form of minced meat.

And this is all the technology of the fifties, maximum of the seventies. Now - progress has made great progress in terms of all kinds of tricks that make the mine de facto unrecoverable.

Black Widow - "Black Widow", this name was given to this Soviet mine, known in the world no less than the famous Kalashnikov assault rifle, and just as widespread.

For the first time, this mine was talked about during the Vietnam War of 1964-1975. Along with the fighting, the “black widows” also spread through the jungle: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. In 1967, the "widows" reached the Middle East, where they were actively used by the Egyptian and Syrian troops. Thousands of them were installed during the Soviet-Afghan war from 1979 to 1989. This mine could be found in any country affected by armed conflict in the second half of the last century. It was this mine that deprived Shamil Basayev of his leg when he broke through from Grozny with militants in January 2000. It is quite possible that it was the journalist Dmitry Kholodov who picked her up in his office when the explosion struck.

Like the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the PMN mine was born in the USSR in 1949 and, like an assault rifle, was and is being produced under licenses and without them in many countries. In China, under the designation Type 58, in Hungary - Gyata 64, in Argentina - FMK-1, in Bulgaria - PMN, as well as in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, Cuba, etc. There is no exact data on why the mine was dubbed the "black widow". Maybe because of the black color of the rubber cover, or because a person who steps on it has little chance of surviving. But most likely - because of that irrational fear of mines, which covers even fired and experienced soldiers, paralyzes their will, deprives them of courage and the ability to move forward.

Curse of the Infantry

In fact, mines in all wars killed and maimed far fewer people than from bullets, shells and bombs. Oddly enough, but the main damaging factor anti-personnel mine is not the force of the explosion and not the fragments. Mina cripples not so much the body as the soul of a soldier. Mine fear (another name is mine horror) - that's what stops the advancing infantry, that's what makes the fighters afraid to take even a step. Moreover, the more experienced the soldier, the more he fights, the stronger the mine horror.

But the probability of stepping on a PMN mine in a standard Soviet minefield is only 0.07, that is, out of a hundred soldiers who fall into such a field, only seven will be blown up. And meanwhile, knowing that there is a minefield ahead, the soldiers will refuse to attack or, realizing that they are in a minefield, they will lie down and prefer to become stationary targets for enemy machine guns rather than rush forward or step back.

A soldier in battle is, of course, afraid of both bullets and shells. But he understands that there is a similar soldier on the other side and cannons and machine guns are also firing at him - there is a confrontation. Who is more skillful, experienced, brave, fast, and more likely to win and stay alive. Not so with mine. And the consciousness that you yourself set your killer in action deprives a person of courage and paralyzes his will.

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Let's take a closer look at PMN. This is a Soviet anti-personnel high-explosive pressure mine. Anti-personnel - that is, designed specifically to destroy or injure a person. High-explosive - striking with the power of the explosion. Push action - it means that it will explode only when pressure is applied to it with a force of at least 8–25 kg. To work, it is enough to step on.

Inside the mine is a charge of TNT weighing 200 g. When a mine explodes, the stepped leg usually comes off to the knee. What happens to the second leg depends on whether the person was walking or running. In the first case, he is very likely to lose his second leg; in the second - the leg can survive. In addition, a powerful shock wave deprives a person of consciousness, drives the remnants of shoes, clothes, fragments of his own bones into his body, and hot explosive gases cause severe burns. If a mine striker is not provided with timely first health care death may occur from a painful shock or a large loss of blood.

Frost-resistant option

Along with all its advantages, the PMN also had a very significant drawback: the time to bring the mine into combat position depended on temperature. If at a temperature of + 40 ° C the mine is transferred to a combat position after 2-3 minutes, then at -40 ° C it takes two and a half days - the cold sharply increases the resistance of the safety plate metal to cutting (see sidebar).

Therefore, by the second half of the sixties, the armament Soviet army PMN-2 mine was adopted. It differed from the PMN in that instead of a cut metal element, a rubber bellows was installed in it, in other words, a short rubber corrugated tube, which was in a compressed state in the safety position. Such devices are called "long-range cocking mechanisms" in the language of miners. Pulling out the safety curly brace, the miner released the bellows, which began to fill with air through the calibrated holes and straighten out. At the same time, at the end of its straightening, the bellows released a spring-loaded engine with a detonator, which stood opposite the drummer.

The PMN-2 mine, in addition to the fact that the time it took to bring it into combat position depended incomparably less on temperature (under all conditions from 2 to 10 minutes), had one more valuable property She was always ready to work. The only operation that the miner performed was that he turned and pulled out the safety bracket. But the PMN was first required to be prepared for work: unscrew the plug, insert a detonator into the mine, wrap the plug, unscrew the plug on the opposite side of the mine and check the metal element is working.

The charge of the mine was halved, since it was recognized that 200 g of TNT was a bit too much - a man had enough of half the charge. True, TNT was replaced with a more powerful TG-40 explosive (a mixture of TNT and RDX). The actuation force was raised from 8-25 kg to 15-25 kg in order to increase the mine's resistance to explosive demining. However, PMN-2 turned out to be much more difficult to manufacture and, consequently, much more expensive. She was not popular. If PMN is widely known throughout the world, then PMN-2 was used to a limited extent, mainly in the CIS, Afghanistan and some other countries. And it was produced exclusively in the Soviet Union.

Widow's heirs

By the end of the seventies, it ceased to satisfy the military and PMN-2. Maneuverable nature modern wars, their short duration led to the fact that often their own minefields became an obstacle to the troops. In addition, after the end of hostilities, minefields had to be cleared, which took a lot of resources and time.

It was required that after a certain time, anti-personnel mines either become safe or self-destruct. Therefore, the PMN-3 mine was developed, which outwardly did not differ from the PMN-2, but had an electronic fuse that ensured reliable operation of the mine under the soldier’s foot, excluding the explosion of the mine from the impact of a shock wave on it when demining charges were detonated (due to the difference in duration pressure on the mine of the shock wave and legs) and automatically detonated the mine after a predetermined period. It was possible to pre-set the counter for a period of 0.5 to 8 days, after which the mine exploded without harming anyone. Knowing the time of the combat work of the minefield, the commanders were sure that by the right time this minefield would no longer exist.

But the eighties came, the army's funding began to decline, and a much cheaper mine was needed. It was decided to abandon the production of expensive PMN-3 in favor of the last cheap version of the Soviet high-explosive anti-personnel pressure mine - PMN-4. This mine is smaller both in diameter (9.5 cm) and in height (4.2 cm) and in the mass of the explosive charge (a total of 50 g of TG-40). The cocking mechanism was hydraulic. After removing the safety clip, the rubber gel began to extrude through the calibrated holes, which took from 1 to 40 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature. After that, the mine became in a combat position. The mechanism of self-destruction was abandoned by economic reasons. The era of completely different mines was coming.

Looking for poppy fields, but found a mine while doing drug tourism in Afghanistan? It makes no sense to write about the means of clearing the area with anti-personnel mines, if you accidentally stepped on one of them, this will no longer help you, but if someone else stepped on it, or you were lucky enough to notice the sign in time: “Beware of mines!”, Then knowing the main methods of laying, detecting and clearing anti-personnel mines, as well as the rules of behavior in mined areas, you can safely pass a minefield and even take one of the mines with you as a keepsake.

Attention! Keeping ammunition, mines and unexploded ordnance is deadly and criminally punishable!

How to find a minefield

For those who imagine themselves to be a cool sapper, we immediately declare that clearing mines without special equipment is suicide, and the information provided here is aimed at ways to detect anti-personnel mines, after which their locations are marked and reported to law enforcement agencies.

Knowing that you have entered a minefield before it is too late is not difficult if you have a habit of looking at your feet and around while walking, and not counting the stars or crows in the sky, although a flock of crows in itself can be an indirect sign of a minefield, they probably gnaw at the next victim of the minefield, who did not have time to find it.

Signs of a minefield:

Holes in the ground from exploding mines.
- Dead animals, or rather what's left of them.
- Parallel footprints on the ground may indicate a minefield, especially if the distance between them is several meters, depending on the method of laying the mines.
- Empty boxes and military containers.
- Abandoned houses, unless of course the minefield is part of the home's security system.
- Local residents can independently mark the location of mines in a minefield. You can recognize these signs by the same bright objects or pieces of fabric that do not fit into the local landscape.

How to get through the minefield

If you nevertheless managed to step on an anti-personnel mine, whether you survive depends only on your self-control, speed and composure in making decisions. Apply a very tight bandage in the form of a tourniquet just above the wound, tying a piece of tissue around the injured limb along with a stick, repeatedly turning in one direction, which the piece of tissue will tighten even more around the limb and stop even very heavy bleeding. Take the severed limb with you, if you can quickly get through the minefield and call for help, you can probably sew it back on.
You need to leave the minefield by the same route as you came here, stepping on your own tracks. If there are no traces left, or you recognized the minefield before you found it by stepping on one of the mines, the way back, at least the first two hundred meters, it is best to go in the following way:

Try not to crawl or kneel, thereby reducing the area of contact with the ground, if possible, move on your haunches.

0 Take a knife, a sharp stick, or something like that and carefully, at a 45-degree angle, stick into the ground in front of you, gradually making a safe route through the minefield.

Having found a solid object, do not try to dig and remove it, if the soil is sandy or slightly stony, it would be prudent to go through the minefield in a different way, bypassing the find, if the soil contains a lot of stones and the knife constantly bumps into something hard, when excavating, always adhere to a 45-degree angle and dig under the object, not above, or even better, walk in places of potential minefields with a do-it-yourself metal detector.

Having dug out or found a real mine, in no case do not try to clear it yourself, mark its location, for example, by tying a piece of bright fabric to a vertically standing stick and, having passed the minefield, call the sappers.

Trying to defuse a mine is possible only in a really force majeure situation, when, let's say, your comrade stepped on an old-type anti-personnel mine that explodes after you remove your foot from it, and now stands rooted to the spot, drenched in sweat. Dig the soil around the mine in a familiar way and blow off the excess, being careful not to touch the mine itself. Now carefully unscrew the fuse, usually located in the mine as a separate element in its upper part. Someone got very lucky today.
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We live in a turbulent world, and in the coming years it may become even more turbulent. It happens that war comes to those who did not invite it at all, and with war many unpleasant things come into their lives. For example, mines and stretch marks. Let's talk about it.

What do we know about mines from war films? We know that they are, including jumping, "frogs". And as often explained in the films, they work in the following way. You step on a mine - the fuse is cocked, but nothing happens. Happens when you lift your leg. This is how the sapper explained in Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket", the plot of the painting "No Man's Land" by Tanovic is built on this, well, and in many other places this idea sounds that while you are standing on such a mine, you are safe (unless, of course, the word "safety" combined with standing on a cocked mine).

From here, the viewer has the idea that if you somehow contrive and fix the mine in this “pressed” position, then you can neutralize it. At least to the extent that you can get away from it.

I will say carefully, because you can never be sure that something in this outlandish world does not exist one hundred percent. That's what they thought about the lobe-finned fish - until they caught the coelocanth. Maybe the dinosaurs that were not killed by the asteroid have quieted down somewhere. Maybe someone also releases jumping mines that work according to the scheme described above.

But I don't know those. Moreover, I do not know what would be the tactical sense in creating such a "particularly cynical" mine, which would be activated when you step on it, and would work only when the load was removed. Why would some maniac be so embarrassed, complicating the design of the fuse? For more drama? But filmmakers need this - that's why they repeat over and over again this stamp with an unfortunate soldier who stands on a mine and realizes the horror of his situation.

No, in the case of real jumping (and other) mines, whose existence is proven by science, the soldier will not stand on it for long. Three or four seconds. Because the fuse has already worked, as soon as you step on it or touch the wire, the “target sensor”. But it is slowed down, like a hand grenade. For what? Well, a group is walking through the forest. The first touches the wire, which may not be noticed, and in four seconds the rest enter the affected area. The idea is this. And, I believe, it was precisely because of this slowdown that the myth was born that the fuse works when you remove the load from the mine.

The exception is the American M16. There is no pull cord. There, it’s just that the fuse of the main charge fires with a slowdown in a split second, so that the mine has time to jump.

But where there is a cable - theoretically, of course, you can avoid a big bang if you do not let the mine jump high enough. And, I remember, when I, at the dawn of my career in the Corporation, to which I have the honor to belong (of course, fictional, like myself) passed the KMB in the Mitsara training camp, and somehow asked Sapsan, a former that moment of our platoon leader, who was in charge of all this training parsley: “But if you stand on one leg, transfer all the mass to this mine, maybe it won’t jump out?”

He replied: “You know, it is theoretically possible, but I don’t know that anyone has tried to do this. For if he does jump out, he will explode right in your crotch.

Actually, it's a pretty sneaky thing, a jumping mine. Therefore, the only “recipe” if you have hooked something, such as a wire, in a potentially mined area, is to instantly fall prone, cover your head and neck with your hands and pray that by some miracle you will not be cut too much by shrapnel. And no, fuck, "as long as I stand on it - it will not explode." How it will explode.

But, someone will say, there are also mines that really work to relieve the load? There is. Let's say the Soviet MS-3 (where MS is a "surprise mine"). But it doesn't work like in the movies: if you step on it, it activates it, if you take your foot away, it explodes. It is activated upon installation itself, pressed down by something from above, and there are (like any more or less modern mine) a few minutes until the fuse is cocked, for the safety of the sapper, and after that, if you remove the load, there will be a bang.

By the way, especially insidious people - they may well set a mine trap that works instantly when the load is removed, under some other mine. Why it turns out almost completely unrecoverable.

And there is such a trick as the MS-4. Also a booby trap that does not even work to remove the load, but has a tilt sensor (and many other sensors). It seems to you that you have neutralized an anti-personnel or anti-tank mine - and there is an MS-4 attached from below. One wrong move and you're in mincemeat heaven.

And this is all the technology of the fifties, maximum of the seventies. Now - progress has made great progress in terms of all kinds of tricks that make the mine de facto unrecoverable.

What are the mines? A simple stretch with a grenade can be a little trickier than it seems at first glance.

Here we are in our games (including with my slaves) - we abundantly use mass-dimensional models of mines and grenades that have a light-noise alarm when triggered (and, by the way, I stubbornly don’t understand why regular armies don’t do this, being content only training grenades, which are too expensive, and yet not right).

In principle, we teach how to detect and neutralize stretch marks. But we also teach that it is better not to do this if your opponent is some serious enough people, and not baboons from the wild forest.

Did you find a stretch with an efka installed “in a collective farm way”, as we call it? (That is, for pulling out a ring with a pin, despite the fact that literate people prefer an anti-removable installation when the pin is already pulled out) Decided to pick up this grenade for the collection?

Break off: there is a radio fuse. And the place is viewed from a drone. You took a grenade, the alarm went off, they immediately looked at you, waited until you approached your friends to show them your acquisition - and the code goes to undermine.

We are very fond of radio fuses for grenades and mines, and have been producing them in large quantities for a long time. The same is done, in general, by the state military departments in developed countries (Russia does not count: after the military squalor that it has shown in the last two years, my heart feels we will have to defend it from Mongolia :-) ).

And if there is no air control over the area, this grenade may contain a fuse with a tilt sensor. Nothing complicated. It hangs, the ring with the check is not pulled out - but appearances are deceiving: the fuse is already activated, and the check is a props. You take it off and the timer starts for twenty seconds. Just so you can get back to your group and please your comrades.

There are many insidious and vile undertakings in the name of peace and goodness. Therefore, we, of course, teach our youth how to neutralize all sorts of traps in principle. And when the grenade is training, they even unscrew the fuse with an anti-removable installation (when the pin is already pulled out), holding the lever against the body.

But we also teach that, in principle, one should even approach the trap only in the most extreme cases. For if you see a mine or a grenade, it is quite possible that there is something else there, less noticeable. Perhaps there dick knows what sensors are, with the current development of electronics. And what you see - maybe it was set up for you to see and go to neutralize. And it's better not to risk it.

Here, even clearing stretch marks with a cat or mines with an overhead charge is still foppishness if you are dealing with some kind of serious enemy. No, in this case - better than a shot from a sniper. So safer. Unless, of course, it is not possible to use explosive clearance.

At the same time, of course, we are improving the technologies for actually detecting mines and tripwires on the ground. Where we have some progress. Interesting developments in thermal image analysis programs, when “extra”, like metal, is detected by temperature anomalies in fractions of degrees.

As for civilians, I can say one thing: if you, while walking with a dog, stepped on something resembling a mine, do not believe the movie myths that nothing threatens you as long as you stand on it. Jump as fast as you can - and fall flat. Yes, you can survive. If you're lucky.

PMN-2 - pressure anti-personnel mine In the cinema you could see the following picture: the hero steps on a mine, after which he is tied with a rope and literally pulled off it. Allegedly, this method allows you to have time to leave the affected area and not get harmed. This "method" was called the "Schumann maneuver" and in this article we will talk about whether this is possible in reality. To begin with, the explosive charge in anti-personnel mines is usually small. The ammunition should not kill the one who steps on it, but only cripple. It is believed that in this case, several people will be forced to help the wounded, which will also take them out of the battle for a while. Yes, yes, here is such a military arithmetic ...

That is, theoretically, it is really possible to leave a small explosion area without significant injuries. If not for one but. To be able to maneuver Schumann, we need a mine of an unloading type. Those. one that works not when it is stepped on, but when, on the contrary, they descend. In turn, the vast majority of anti-personnel mines are either tripwires or pressure mines. The above-described unloading mines are usually used for other purposes. For example, we take an anti-tank mine, and hide an unloading one under it. It turns out that when the enemy notices the anti-tank and tries to remove it, he will activate the "surprise" under it - this is an exaggerated example, but the scope of such ammunition, I think, is clear.

MS-7 or unloading booby trap Why is every second mine of this type in the cinema? Only for beautiful shots, because it is always more interesting for the viewer to watch how the hero gets out, it would seem, from hopeless situations. So. The main problem of the Schumann maneuver is not that it is impossible, but that the situation in which it could be applied is practically impossible. By the way, there is not a single documented successful application of the maneuver, however, as well as not successful.

In addition, it is very unlikely that a person will feel that he has stepped on a mine, even if he somehow comes across an unloading type. THIS IS INTERESTING: In fact, minefields are not as dangerous for the enemy as is commonly believed. According to statistics, the chance of being blown up, once in a minefield, is 6%. This means that out of 100 people, six will suffer. However, the psychological factor plays a much larger role. The experience of the two world wars has shown that people with much greater zeal go into hopeless attacks on the enemy than into minefields, where their chances of survival are many times greater. There were even cases when it was only thanks to minefields that it was possible to thwart enemy offensives. So how to escape from a mine if it has already been stepped on? No way. Not at all. In the best case, the attacker will be injured, in a slightly less better case, he will lose his leg, in the worst case, he will die.