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interesting s-mine handout
- Thread starter kiwieod
- Start date
In the early part of the war in the desert campaign the Allies carried out a lot of testing and evaluation of the S-mine menace. The work was carried out by the New Zealand forces in the Sudan experimenting and testing the effects to best deal with this device, the mines tested were from captured stock., as you see the results of the leaflet. The problem you will have taking evasive action was hearing and knowing that you set a S- mine of in the first place. The pop of the primer from the three prong igniter would most probably be difficult to hear in battle noise conditions, or to sense it under foot that you stepped on something, then you had about 4.5 seconds to do something and alert you mates. Hopefully you were lucky that the S- mine you stepped on had a defect which was shown in the report.
The S-mine was a very well thought out device but had drawbacks, it first problem was that the initiating compound the 4.5 second delay, the propellant charge and .5 second fuzes x 3 were black power and was prone to damp, condensation from within was the cause even though it was sealed with petroleum tape or a tin soldered cap. You had mines that didn't go off, mines that bounded out of the ground 10 feet (3 or 4 feet normal) even 20 feet, some went off some didn't. Life expectancy before a S- mine started having problems was 3 months in the ground and that was tested for in desert conditions. This is why the S- mine 44 was a more efficient mine with its pull wire on the end of a pull igniter and sealed propellant in a celluloid sealed tube, moisture free etc, the for runner of bounding mines in post war times.
What does the had written note say, cant read it.
The S-mine was a very well thought out device but had drawbacks, it first problem was that the initiating compound the 4.5 second delay, the propellant charge and .5 second fuzes x 3 were black power and was prone to damp, condensation from within was the cause even though it was sealed with petroleum tape or a tin soldered cap. You had mines that didn't go off, mines that bounded out of the ground 10 feet (3 or 4 feet normal) even 20 feet, some went off some didn't. Life expectancy before a S- mine started having problems was 3 months in the ground and that was tested for in desert conditions. This is why the S- mine 44 was a more efficient mine with its pull wire on the end of a pull igniter and sealed propellant in a celluloid sealed tube, moisture free etc, the for runner of bounding mines in post war times.
What does the had written note say, cant read it.
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thats great info,i will try to find out more on the NZ testing of the s-mines.i also read that some went off in the ground without jumping in the air.
the hand written note says,"i saw one of these gerry s mines exploded on my course, and beleive me its wise to get down quick"
the hand written note says,"i saw one of these gerry s mines exploded on my course, and beleive me its wise to get down quick"