Watching the film Monuments men the other night and saw the scene where Matt Damian accidentally steps on a land mine but doesn't go off but is told not to step off it as it may explode. So the monuments team take his weight off the mine by placing bricks on the mine to counter his weight. When he steps off the mine it explodes but is not a full charge. Now being clued up in German mines the first question i would ask is why didn't the Germans booby trap the mines, especially when the stolen art couldn't be moved elsewhere and rather fall into allied hands, "if we can have them, nobody can" attitude killing those who attempt to retrieve them. The second bugging thing is that i have never heard of a mine fuze or type of mine where you activate it by standing on a mine where it explodes by removing your weight. In most mechanisms a mine is set off be one action downwards pressure, pull, release or chemical not downwards pressure and then release in a standard land mine. I can understand the delay where he steps off the mine and explodes about a second or two after but that is characteristic of a chemical mine fuze where the two chemicals react and flash to set of a detonator similar to a Buck ignighter as in some cases if not most a slight delay.
Most land mines for vehicles have to have a fair bit of weight to set a mine off to break the shear wire. Most men in service back then were skinny and light not like us lardy lot today and could get away stepping on a land mine, unless he had a heavy pack or was carrying a heavy bit of kit like a PIAT etc.
Or is this as i suspect a bit of usual Hollywood buls***t.
Most land mines for vehicles have to have a fair bit of weight to set a mine off to break the shear wire. Most men in service back then were skinny and light not like us lardy lot today and could get away stepping on a land mine, unless he had a heavy pack or was carrying a heavy bit of kit like a PIAT etc.
Or is this as i suspect a bit of usual Hollywood buls***t.