Munitions land mines

If no other sources exist, artillery and mortar shells, bombs, land mines, and other munitions may be cannibalized for the high explosives they contain. These munitions usually contain cast explosives, which require extra strong blasting caps or boosters to detonate. However, some of the simpler cannibalization techniques will be discussed. 

Source Generated as a waste from munitions and defense industries, leaching from unexploded land mines. 

The determination of explosives in soils has been mostly commonly associated with the detection of unexploded ordnance such as land mines (both anti-personnel and anti-tank). Chambers et al. [70] designed sampling subsystems for soil/vapor sampling. A probe was used to extract and concentrate vapors of explosives in the pore volume of soil in the vicinity of land mines with sub-part-per-biUion detection limits for TNT and related explosive munitions compounds [70]. As an... 

Refs l)Anon, "Ammunition General , TM 9 1900(1956)-not found 2)Anon, "Land Mines , TM 9 1940(1956)-notfound 3)Anon, "Ground Chemical Munitions , TM 3 300 (1956), 64-8. 4)Anon, "Ammunition Complete Round Chart , Book III, PicArsn, Dover, NJ (1961), Sheet 21-not found 5)Anon, "Mine,... 

Placed Placed munitions are delivered to a target by hand and include land mines and smoke pots. These weapons usually contained from 3.8 to 191 (1-5 gallons) of liquid so they could be transported by one person. Explosive components, when used, were either installed or stored in the same container used to store the weapon. As with other munitions, fuzes or activators were not typically installed until ready for delivery. An example of a chemical land mine is shown in Figure 10. Smoke canisters typically used a slow-burning material to cause chemical fills to form a smoke. 

After the munitions are disassembled and drained of agents, the munitions components, metal parts, chemical agents, and packaging will be destroyed or decontaminated in four different furnaces. Rocket segments, land mines, and explosive components will be destroyed in a deactivation furnace capable of containing explosions and surges of agent. Projectiles... 

The United States began to produce sarin in the early 1950s, and VX in the early 1960s, for potential military use production continued for about a decade.6 The U.S. munitions inventory today contains these two nerve agents in 30- to 45-year-old M55 rockets land mines 105-mm, 155-mm, and 8-in. projectiles 500-lb and 750-lb bombs wet-eye bombs (one of a family of eye bombs, which has liquid chemical [wet] contents) spray tanks and bulk containers.9 These munitions are stored at six depots within the continental United States (CONUS) and one outside the continent the locations of these depots are public knowledge.10 The six CONUS depots are near Tooelle, Utah Umatilla, Oregon Anniston, Alabama Pine Bluff, Arkansas Newport, Indiana and Richmond, Kentucky the seventh depot is on Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. 

In some cases, these devices are able to positively identify the chemical constituents inside a steel shell. They can locate plastic land mines by the same technique, for that matter. They save valuable time in eliminating the careful handhng of expended ordnance. Neutron beams can identify chemical, explosive, smoke, and incendiary munitions, each of which may require special handling. 

A particular type of chemical munition is represented by the so-called "Spruhbiichse 37" (101. SpBii). This spray canister was intended to be used as a land-mine for ground contamination. A longitudinal cut-through is shown as Figure 12. 

Figure 4.4 is a similar diagram that would apply to a mine or other munition buried in the bed of the sea, a lake, or a stream. In Figure 4.4 the munition is shown partially buried, both to illustrate the different possibilities and to remind us that, while partially buried objects on dry land are usually found visually, submerged objects demand different search techniques. The exploitation of plumes will be discussed in Section 4.3.4 and in Chapter 5. 

The detachment from the ist Platoon, which landed on the right flank of Red Beach, was led by Capt. Sam Kesner, assistant chemical officer of the 3d Division. For some reason the landing craft dropped its amphibious tanks some 1,000 yards from shore. Consequently, Kesner s party, which remained in the LCT, had to unload its pots the hard way. Some were thrown into two 6-man rubber boats and towed to the beach. The rest of the smoke munitions were tossed overboard and floated ashore in their crates, an expedient made necessary by the pressure of enemy small arms fire. The situation was made more difficult because the LCT had landed 400 yards to the right of its assigned area in order to avoid mines. The smoke plan called for four positions on the beach, a number soon increased to twelve because of the adverse winds. The smoke detail soon pushed inland about loo yards, suffering four casualties in the early hours. 

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