Mines are still uncovered in fields in Europe and Africa, but today Iraq is now the most saturated country in the world with landmines. Even today, around the world there are countless unexploded landmines that continue to claim victims long after the actual fighting has ended. By some estimates, more than twenty-six thousand people were the innocent victims of landmines each year in the 1990s due to leftover mines from those regional wars. Mines were employed throughout both World Wars, but it was the regional conflicts that occurred during the Cold War that the use of mines became an issue. ![]() In the Boer War, the British employed mines against the Boer forces and that included a mix of real minefields and fake minefields to confuse the enemy. The mine was detonated by direct contact with the friction primer.Īfter the Civil War, the British Army showed few scruples about using landmines, and during the 1884–85 Siege of Khartoum, the British commander Charles “Chinese” Gordon employed mines to hold off the larger Sudanese Mahdist force for some ten months. Military Academy (West Point), Rains apparently had a high aptitude for chemistry and artillery and his “Rains Patent” was a mine made of sheet iron, with a fuse protected by a brass cap covered with beeswax. North Carolina native Gabriel Rains is largely forgotten from history, but he may have the dubious distinction of perfecting the modern landmine. Frieherr von Flemming as a weapon that “consisted of a ceramic container with glass and metal fragments embedded in the clay.” However, it wasn't until the American Civil War that such weapons were routinely employed on the battlefield. The first true pressure-operated landmines came about two centuries later, and were described by eighteenth-century German historian H. However, these were not all that reliable. These were essentially cannons that were buried underground and when detonated could shower rocks and other debris over a battlefield. ![]() The use of landmines dates to the sixteenth century when the “fourgasses” were employed in Italy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |