The history of land mines can be divided into three main phases: In the ancient world, buried spikes provided many of the same functions as modern mines. Mines using gunpowder as the explosive were used from the
Ming dynasty to the
American Civil War. Subsequently, high explosives were developed for use in land mines.
Before explosives Some fortifications in the
Roman Empire were surrounded by a series of hazards buried in the ground. These included
goads, pieces of wood with iron hooks on their ends;
lilia (lilies, so named after their appearance), which were pits in which sharpened logs were arranged in a five-point pattern; and
abatis, fallen trees with sharpened branches facing outwards. As with modern land mines, they were "victim-operated", often concealed, and complicated attempts by the enemy to remove the obstacles by making them vulnerable to projectiles such as spears. A notable use of these defenses was by
Julius Caesar in the
Battle of Alesia. His forces were besieging
Vercingetorix, the leader of the Gauls, but Vercingetorix managed to send for reinforcements. To maintain the siege and defend against the reinforcements, Caesar formed a line of fortifications on both sides, and they played an important role in his victory. Lilies were also used by Scots against the English at the
Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and by Germans at the
Battle of Passchendaele in the
First World War. A more easily deployed defense used by the Romans was the
caltrop, a weapon across with four sharp spikes that are oriented so that when it is thrown on the ground, one spike always points up. As with modern antipersonnel mines, caltrops are designed to disable soldiers rather than kill them; they are also more effective in stopping mounted forces, who lack the advantage of being able to carefully scrutinize each step they take (though forcing foot-mounted forces to take the time to do so has benefits in and of itself). They were used by the
Jin dynasty in China at the
Battle of Zhongdu to slow down the advance of
Genghis Khan's army;
Joan of Arc was wounded by one in the
Siege of Orléans; in Japan they are known as
tetsu-bishi and were used by
ninjas from the fourteenth century onward. Caltrops are still strung together and used as roadblocks in some modern conflicts. A 14th-century military treatise, the
Huolongjing (
Fire Dragon Manual), describes hollow
cast iron cannonball shells filled with gunpowder. The wad of the mine was made of hard wood, carrying three different
fuses in case of defective connection to the touch hole. These fuses were long and lit by hand, so they required carefully timed calculations of enemy movements. Another victim-operated device was the "underground sky-soaring thunder", which lured bounty hunters with
halberds,
pikes, and
lances planted in the ground. If they pulled on one of these weapons, the butt end disturbed a bowl underneath and a slow-burning incandescent material in the bowl ignited the fuses.
Western world At
Augsburg in 1573, three centuries after the Chinese invented the first pressure-operated mine, a German military engineer by the name of Samuel Zimmermann invented the
Fladdermine (flying mine). It consisted of around a kilogram (a few pounds) of black powder buried near the surface and was activated by stepping on it or tripping a wire that made a
flintlock fire. Such mines were deployed on the slope in front of a fort. They were used during the
Franco-Prussian War, but were probably not very effective because a flintlock does not work for long when left untended. The
fougasse, was a precursor of modern fragmentation mines and the
claymore mine. It consisted of a cone-shape hole with gunpowder at the bottom, covered either by rocks and scrap iron (
stone fougasse) or
mortar shells, similar to large black powder hand grenades (
shell fougasse). It was triggered by a flintlock connected to a tripwire on the surface. It could sometimes cause heavy casualties but required high maintenance due to the susceptibility of black powder to dampness. Consequently, it was mainly employed in the defenses of major fortifications, in which role it used in several European wars of the eighteenth century and the
American Revolution. Many on both sides considered the use of mines barbaric, and in response, generals in the
Union Army forced Confederate prisoners to remove the mines. In 1847,
Ascanio Sobrero invented
nitroglycerine to treat
angina pectoris and it turned out to be a much more powerful explosive than guncotton. It was very dangerous to use until
Alfred Nobel formulated a solid mixture he called
dynamite and paired it with a safe detonator he developed. Even then, dynamite needed to be stored carefully or it could form crystals that detonated easily. Thus, the military still preferred guncotton.
Second World War '', the most common mine used in the Second World War Tens of millions of mines were laid in the
Second World War, particularly in the deserts of
North Africa and the steppes of
Eastern Europe, where the open ground favored tanks. However, the first country to use them was Finland. They were defending against a much larger Soviet force with over 6,000 tanks, twenty times the number the Finns had; but they had terrain that was broken up by lakes and forests, so tank movement was restricted to roads and tracks. Their defensive line, the
Mannerheim Line, integrated these natural defenses with mines, including simple
fragmentation mines mounted on stakes. The Soviets learned the value of mines from their war with Finland, and when Germany invaded they made heavy use of them, manufacturing over 67 million. At the
Battle of Kursk, which put an end to the German advance, they laid over a million mines in eight belts with an overall depth of . In the
Korean War, land mine use was dictated by the steep terrain, narrow valleys, forest cover and lack of developed roads. This made tanks less effective and more easily stopped by mines. However, mines laid near roads were often easy to spot. In response to this problem, the US developed the
M24, a mine that was placed off to the side of the road. When triggered by a tripwire, it fired a rocket. However, the mine was not available until after the war. Countries that provided land mines during the Iran-Iraq War included Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Italy, Romania, Singapore, the former Soviet Union and the US, and were concentrated in the Kurdish areas in the northern area of Iraq. During the Gulf War, the US deployed 117,634 mines, with 27,967 being anti-personnel mines and 89,667 being anti-vehicle mines. The US did not use land mines during the
Iraq War. Landmines and other unexploded battlefield ordnance contaminate at least of land in
Afghanistan. Only two of Afghanistan's twenty-nine provinces are believed to be free of landmines. The most heavily mined provinces are Herat and Kandahar. Since 1989, nearly 44,000 Afghan civilians have been recorded to have been killed or injured by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) averaging to around 110 people per month. Improvised mines and ERW from armed clashes caused nearly 99 percent of the casualties recorded in 2021.
Invasion of Ukraine During the
2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used land mines. Ukrainian officials claim Russian forces planted thousands of land mines or other explosive devices during their withdrawal from Ukrainian cities, including in civilian areas. Russian forces have also used remotely delivered anti-personnel mines such as the
POM-3.
Chemical and nuclear In the First World War, the Germans developed a device, nicknamed the "Yperite Mine" by the British, that they left behind in abandoned trenches and bunkers. It was detonated by a delayed charge, spreading
mustard gas ("Yperite"). In the Second World War they developed a modern chemical mine, the Sprüh-Büchse 37 (Bounding Gas Mine 37), but never used it. The Soviets developed the KhF, a "bounding chemical mine". The French had chemical mines and the Iraqis were believed to have them before the invasion of Kuwait. In 1997, the
Chemical Weapons Convention came into force, prohibiting the use of chemical weapons and mandating their destruction. By July 2023 all declared stockpiles of chemical weapons were destroyed. For a few decades during the
Cold War, the US developed
atomic demolition munitions, often referred to as nuclear land mines. These were portable nuclear bombs that could be placed by hand, and could be detonated remotely or with a timer. Some of these were deployed in Europe. Governments in
West Germany,
Turkey and
Greece wanted to have nuclear minefields as a defense against attack from the
Warsaw Pact. However, such weapons were politically and tactically infeasible, and by 1989 the last of these munitions was retired. The British also had a project, codenamed
Blue Peacock, to develop nuclear mines to be buried in Germany; the project was cancelled in 1958. ==Characteristics and function==