Mines

Background

Almost the entire arsenal of mines used in the war ( of all factions ) was from the Yugoslavian army stockpiles....which was huge, and while a few of the mines designs were home grown, the bulk of the mines were either Soviet or exact copies/licensed maufactured from Soviet mines.

However, quite a few modern mines were being used...made in Italy mostly.

This mean's that a great many of the mines used were made of plastic in their entirety of had the min amount of metal required by international law ( for detection purposes )...the metal content was easily removeable though....being a metal band or clip in the case of the ones from Italy.

On a practical level this means that the mines used were an utter sod to detect, and are still causing massive problems now for that reason. They were also thought at the time to be quite resistant to corrosion, however their pressure plates and other parts rotted quicker than the casing, making them quite fragile anyway. A lot of Soviet mines, especially the anti-personel stuff could stay active for a very long time.....Some western designs were meant to deativate after a certain time period.

AP or Anti-Personel

These are the smaller mines, that can range from a charge designed to take off a foot to a far larger charge, designed to take out a section of soldiers. Due to their size and simplicity these mines can be all over the place, and it was a known tactic for hundreds of them to be just sown at random around a fighting position and just left there when the troops moved out.

Quite nasty and (I would imagine very unstable now... if still in one piece ) quite a threat in woodland. One type was in a form of a grenade with a hollow core that you placed onto a wooden state that was hammered into the grenade ( minus the mine at this point ) that was triggered by tripwire. 20 years of rot on that wooden state is not a good thing.

Other types were cannisters that were anchored to the ground by a chain, and when triggered by either wire or one of their exposed prongs being tilted....shot up into the air on a small charge, and when reaching the endof the chain ( about 1 to 1.5 metre ) exploded.

Due to their size, I would guess a lot of these will have degraded beyond use or would have detonated by various means by now.

AT or Anti-Tank mines

Big mines that most people would being able to guess at what a mine looks like, normally round or square in shape, holding approx 8 kg of high explosive.

Yugoslav mines had a feature that made them stackable..basically you could have a stack of mines buried into the floor that would be a case of severe overkill. 10 x AT mines..over 80kg of HE.They also had a built in feature that meant you could effectively boobytrap them against demining.

A rather common tactic was to also place them inside buildings, under door flagstones and to hang them up in trees to explode down on the target.

These are the mines that often survive the longest due to their bulk and sturdiness....( they are still a threat in the deserts of Africa where WWII battles were fought ). They are big enough to be washed away in floods and landslides, and survive being thrown around by another detonation...simply put, they can move beyond their original area.

Their pressure plates or tilt fuzes ( Stalk pointing up that detonates when something tilts it ) get very sensitive with age, and where a 250kg pressure might have been needed to detonate when manufactured, it will be much less now.

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Just some bits of information if you want to delve into it.

An App for your phone, with mine information on it.

How your phone could save your life: Army bomb disposal expert creates app to help spot landmines | Mail Online

Landmine awareness by Eigo is the name in the itune store..

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id51...mber_121445248


The Croation Mine centre ( HCR ) is a very good resource, if you are taking the threat seriously.

" Current status of mine suspected areas in the Republic of Croatia amounts to 830 km2 and it is a result of humanitarian demining and general survey operations. Mine suspected area (MSA) covers 12 counties i.e. 100 towns and municipalities contaminated with mines and unexploded ordinances. It is assumed that the MSA is contaminated with 90 000 mines. Mine suspected area is also contaminated with large number of unexploded ordinances, especially in the areas of combat operations during the Homeland war. In line with the Law on Humanitarian Demining, the MSA is categorized into areas for mine search and demining. 25% of the MSA is scheduled for demining and 75% for mine search operations The entire MSA on the territory of the Republic of Croatia is marked with 16.000 mine warning signs "

Croation Mine Centre..... CROMAC - Croatian mine action centre

Bosnia

BH MAC Bosnian Mine Centre, BH MAC : News

" Bosnia and Herzegovina is still on of the most mine contaminated countries in the South Eastern Europe region.

Total supect area currently covers around 1.274,20 km2 or 2,5% of total country size
9.958 - defined microlocations
200,000 - mines and EODs still to be found
19,182 minefields recorded.
4119 - mine action projects still to be implemented "

Bosnia saw the bulk of the fighting and the conflict lasted a substantial time longer in Bosnia than Croatia.


This is starting to go into the technical and strategic realms, but a interesting read if you are into this stuff.

Landmine and Cluster Munition Moniter. Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor

Do not get too overwhelmed by all this info....the basic common sense rules are enough for anyone.

Thank you all so much, there information is definitley great.

I was in Bosnia 3 weeks ago and asked about this cos I was there for hiking.

They said pretty much the same as ^^

-ask the locals, buy a coffee, only about 80c and say where you are thinking of going..everyone I talked to was helpful/friendly although they didn't all speak english
-the known mined areas are mostly well signposted
-they said the national park was ok and there are cattle grazing up high in summer so i figured safe.
-lower down there are a lot of marked tracks which are ok
-camping (and rooms) are cheap, I guy who runs a restaurant/bar let me camp in his garden for free for 2 nights
-there are camping areas in the national park but (they said) wild camping was not legal unless you were 'too tired to continue'

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I just have to go till the sides of the road touch in the distance, then I can stop travelling and settle down