Full credit for thinking of this goes to my friend Bernie Forde.

Mine clearing devices such as Conger and Viper cannot always be used due to overhead obstructions. The only current alternative are manually deployed Bangalore torpedoes. Armoured vehicle deployed systems were in use in WW2, but no current equivalent exists. I’ve previously described ways this could be done but they involve the vehicle halting for sometime near the edge of the minefield, making it vulnerable. Bernie’s idea can be deployed by a vehicle at greater distance.

The device is basically a large diameter hose, to which is added an airline, control wire and fibre optic cable.

At the end of the hose is a pointed device we’ll call a “ferret”. This is basically a small hovercraft powered by compressed air, supplied by the airline. Most of the air is used to lift the ferret but some is used for propulsion. Air is also bled at certain points on the hose to prevent it dragging. The ferret is steered by two free-turning wheels and by differential ducting of the propulsive air.

The operator guides the ferret in the desired course through an obstacle by means of the fibre optic link and command line. Once the hose is in position, the supply of compressed air is cut and liquid explosive pumped into the hose and detonated to clear a path of wire and mines.

The book “Taming the Landmine” by Peter Stiff has the following interesting entry about a vehicular system for deploying Bangalores.

“One most interesting mine clearing device was the Snake, invented by Lieutenant Colonel Willott CRE. It was a development of the Bangalore torpedo, a long explosive device laid across barbed wire entanglements and detonated to blast passage through. The Snake in its original configuration consisted of eight pipes, four per side, fitted to a Churchill and then later to a Sherman tank.

The device consisted of lengths of tubing filled with gelignite. At first the lengths were fitted with rocket heads capable of shooting them from the tubes at the tank’s sides, a distance of something under ten yards (9 metres). This was supposed to explode and detonate any mines along its path.

After detonation the tank would advance into the cleared ground and fire another Snake, repeating this procedure until the minefield was breached. It was claimed during the initial stages of development that the tank’s load of sixteen Snakes, was sufficient to blast passage through a minefield one hundred yards (91 metres) wide.

After many trials, however, it was found the rocket propulsion method of laying was unsatisfactory. After this lengths of Snake were joined together, fitted with a special nose cone that prevented it from burying itself in the soil, and pushed across a minefield by a tank.

In this later and more sophisticated application it was towed behind a tank to a minefield, rather than carried in the tubes on the tank. Where carrying tubes still existed, however, they were still apparently utilised.

The Snake was first used in action during the attack on Le Havre on 10th September 1944”

This source indicates that a Bangalore of up to 400ft length could be pushed ahead of a tank.

PW: There have been improvements in rocket propulsion over the subsequent decades, so the original method of projecting the Bangalores may now be more practical. Other systems such as pyrotechnic charges, compressed air or magnetic means may also be tried.

In many armies the end of a Bangalore is fitted with a device that resembles a grappling hook. This is in fact a skid unit designed to push through undergrowth and wire. Some models have small wheels fitted, and a rollers may be used instead. A innovation used by the Russians is to fit the end of the Bangalore with a small shield to prevent enemy fire detonating it prematurely.

One possible system is for a vehicle to have a small hatch built low down on the front of the hull. This would literally be a “torpedo tube”. The vehicle would be driven to the edge of the obstacle and the end of the Bangalore (fitted with a skid unit) pushed out of the hatch. Additional sections would be added to the rear until the correct length was reached. The fuse is then activated and the vehicle withdraws.

By the Author of the Scrapboard : Blog of the Books.
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