mine

mine, in military and naval operations, a usually stationary explosive device that is designed to destroy personnel, ships, or vehicles when the latter come in contact with it. Submarine mines have been in use since the mid-19th century; land mines did not become a significant factor in warfare until a hundred years later.

(Read Nobelist Jody Williams’ Britannica essay on landmines.)

Submarine mine

A submarine mine is an underwater weapon consisting of an explosive charge fitted with a device that causes it to explode when a ship or submarine enters into close proximity. Usually emplaced by specialized vessels called minelayers or dropped by specialized aircraft, submarine mines are steel spheres or ovate shapes that contain enough air to enable the mine to float in the water. The mine is anchored in place, its depth beneath the surface depending on the length of the cable by which it is tethered. When touched or approached by the hull of a vessel, the mine explodes. Highly destructive yet relatively cheaply built, mines are effective naval weapons. They are used offensively by being placed where enemy vessels are expected to pass, especially in or just outside enemy harbours. Defensively, mines are placed in carefully and secretly charted locations adjacent to the defender’s harbours and installations, and they are usually staggered at varying depths to protect against both submarines and surface vessels. Saboteurs or commandos sometimes covertly attach mines to vessels’ hulls for later explosion by timer or remote control. The typical submarine mine contains about 225 kg (500 pounds) of explosives.

The most common type of detonator used in submarine mines is a contact device; rods or antennae protrude from the mine’s surface and activate the firing mechanism when the hull of a passing ship strikes them. Other types of detonators used on submarine mines include magnetic, pressure, and acoustic ones. The magnetic mine is triggered by the approaching ship’s magnetic field. The pressure mine employs the principle that beneath every ship in motion in shallow water there is an area of reduced pressure. The pressure mine contains a chamber divided by a diaphragm, with one side of the chamber open to the sea. Any sudden decrease in pressure on the seaward side deflects the diaphragm and closes a firing circuit in the other chamber to explode the mine. The pressure mine reacts only to a pressure change produced by a ship larger than a minesweeper, thus making it difficult to clear. Acoustic mines once depended on hydrophones to pick up the sound made by a ship’s propellers when the ship came within range. They had limited lifetimes owing to deterioration of their components, but techniques related to sonar and microelectronics technology have made acoustic mines more effective and less prone to breakdowns.

In World War I the mine was the most effective antisubmarine weapon. Mines were even more important during World War II; in that conflict, mines sank 1,316 Axis ships and damaged 540. Great Britain, the United States, and their allies lost 1,118 vessels to mines. The Axis and Allied nations laid a total of more than 550,000 submarine mines in World War II.

Land mine

A land mine is an encased explosive charge buried just below the surface of the ground. It may be fired by the weight of vehicles or troops on it or by the passage of time or by remote control. Though improvised land mines in the form of buried artillery shells were used in World War I, particularly by the Germans against French and British tanks, the land mine became important only in World War II. Easily manufactured and transported, the weapon in a variety of types was sown in extensive minefields in the Soviet Union, in North Africa, and on the Western Front. Most early mines had circular or square metal cases, but to prevent magnetic detection later models are sometimes made of plastic. Land mines are typically used to disrupt or prevent the massed attack of tanks and/or infantry.

There are two basic types: antitank mines designed to destroy or damage vehicles, especially tanks; and lighter antipersonnel mines. A standard antitank mine contains about 5 kg of explosives and weighs about 9 kg in all. Antipersonnnel mines, which can kill or wound soldiers upon exploding into many small fragments, usually contain less than 0.5 kg of explosives and can be detonated by a footstep on them. Land mines have been widely used since World War II, with increasing ingenuity going into both their design and their detection.

Antipersonnel mines became an especially important weapon in the guerrilla wars that proliferated in Asia and Africa during the second half of the 20th century. Millions of antipersonnel mines were laid, for example, in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Angola by both guerrilla and conventional military forces. Once the wars in these countries ended, vast numbers of active mines remained in rural or sparsely inhabited areas, and the efforts mounted by civil governments to locate and clear these mines often proved limited or ineffective. As a result, by the end of the 20th century, an estimated 60 million to 100 million antipersonnel mines in almost 70 countries throughout the world caused about 25,000 deaths and maimings each year to civilians and military personnel alike.

On May 3, 1996, more than 120 countries set in motion the process to ban the manufacture, use, and export of antipersonnel land mines. The resulting treaty, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, entered into force in 1999, and it committed the signatories to destroy their stockpiles of mines within 4 years and to clear all minefields and mined areas within their borders in 10 years. The United States, Russia, and China did not sign the treaty.