Eismine 42

[madoc44]

Hi

last week,running on the web,I saw a splendid color picture showing german pioneers with some eismine ready to fight,behind them.This picture was taken in winter,with snow.I hope to found again this photo ,specialy for the colours of the explosive inside the bottles.
Thanks so much at all for your time
Regards

 

[sudelmuk]

Hallo, Madoc44

of course icemines ready for action should be seen on winter pics, as in summer they would have been rather senseless (except for some fishing).

the explosive inside looked like freshly whipped chocolate milk and was called Gelatine-Donarit.

 

[madoc44]

Hi Sudelmuk

Thanks so much for your very quick answer.i like so much this photo.Few eismines,ready and in color,it's great!
Congratulations to have found this so quickly.I'm very happy!!!
Have a very nice afternoon.

 

[pointblank0]

What was the purpose of these mines? I have never heard of them before.
Rob

 

[sudelmuk]

Normally they were used to break up larger areas of ice, for restoring a deeply frozen river as an obstacle again.
Set in a depth of about 2m in rows with spacing of 5m between the mines, an icecap up to 30cm could be broken up. For thicker layers they were to set in pairs or with reduced spacing.
Ignition was electrically on the first mine of the row (Glhznder 28), the others were fitted with a special icemine-fuze (see below), each activated by the pressure wave of the preceding blast.

View attachment 53986

But back again to the first shown picture.



A nice and rare colour pic, but mysterious as well.
The mines shown are well fitted with wood board and wire, so far ready to lay, but very unusual fuzed.
I seriously wonder what they intended to effect with a 75-100cm time fuze and a Zndschnuranznder 29?

 

[sudelmuk]

Just found these pics from a contemporary French field manual;





showing the scheduled use of the Eismine and some makeshifts as ap-mines.

 

[EOD]

These mines were a Finnish development, the Germans just copied it.

The Russians for example used used long after the war (1963) TM-46 AT mines with two special fuzes for them. One for the initiation and the others as the Finnish/German ones had a pressure sensitive fuze hich was set off by the transmitted pressure wafe (what water is a perfect medium for since it does not compress).