mrschainsaw

Everything you ever wanted to know about landmines but were afraid to ask:

"One of the battlefield's most venomous presences. mines carry an endless list of threat. Tread on an anti-personnel mine and you will be lucky to lose only your foot. In over a third of cases, victims are made impotent by the blast of its accompanying shrapnel, or by the grotesque secondary impact of having part of their own foot blown into their groin. Following someone else through a mined area involves a balancing act whereby you need to stick close enough to step in their footprints, but far enough back that you are not scythed by shrapnel if they detonate a device. The process is further complicated by tripwires, double-pressure devices that are primed by the first footfall and initiated by the second, and by bouncing mines that spring to waist or shoulder height before exploding, in which case anyone in the vicinity will be hit, whether they tripped the thing or not. Double impacts are also common: in the shock and pain of a primary explosion, a wounded survivor frequently rolls on to a second mine."

- Another Bloody Love Letter by Anthony Loyd