hehehe, well according to my Pogue the way to find a russian designed anti-tank mine is to look for the penlike fireing device that sticks up out of the ground. personally i disgard what he says half the time as he is full of shit.


Personally I prefer to simply pick up a demolitions disposal manual. Heck my local borders has a faily recent US Army guide to boobytraps.

I'm not seeing the justification for the minefield in that wooded area myself.
Why?
No military just mines the crap out of an area for the hell of it, there has to be a reason for it, nobody on the planet has that many mines that they can just place minefields willy nilly and mining a forest in the middle of nowhere is not worth the resources and effort.

The recent mine concentration would have been the possible avenues of advance during the 1997 NATO offensives culminating at the siege of Warsaw and Czestochowa and those woods are not it.

Just don't see the reason for anything more than a small hasty minefield placed or artillery delivered during the battle of Kalisz and the area in front of the woods is where the smart commander places them as he then places his defenses inside the woods to take advantage of the cover and overall terrain advantage.

I can see the reasons in mining a forest, just not THAT forest.

How willy is nilly depends a good deal on the context. We should bear some things in mind.

• The Soviets maintained by far the world’s largest stockpile of mines. Even on the attack, they planned to use them by the million. Soviet defenses rely heavily on the minefield.
• The primary purpose of the mine in mechanized warfare is not to destroy enemy vehicles, though obviously if the enemy loses a tank once in a while it’s a bonus. The primary purpose of the minefield in mechanized warfare is counter-mobility. The enemy is supposed to realize that mines are present and look for a bypass—preferably into a friendly kill sack.
• A bypassed obstacle is worse than useless. A bypassed obstacle has consumed manpower and resources for little or no gain.
• Therefore, after establishing the primary defensive position, the engineer scouts examine the possible bypasses and help the brigade/division/corps engineer devise a plan for dealing with them.
• Forests in populated areas of Europe are different creatures than forests in much of North America. European forests have seen a lot more human traffic for a lot longer (this is a generalization, not an identifier for each and every forest on the continent). There are paths, passages, and unimproved roads in many, many locations.
• If a defensive position were to be established in or around Kalisz in 1997, the engineers would go out looking for bypasses that would appeal to NATO.
• The woods, having concealment and muffling the noise of engines and tracks to some degree, would appeal to NATO.
• The Soviet engineers would know this.
• Although the primary purpose of mines in mechanized warfare is counter-mobility, they are also quite useful for establishing blocking obstacles in restricted terrain.
• Therefore, a small minefield in the woods south of Kalisz does not have the willy-nilly character that it appears to have at first glance.

I think folks who are claiming that the whole woods wouldn’t be mined with AT are quite correct. I’m not talking about mining the whole thing. I’m talking about putting down a few mines at selected points as part of a bigger plan.


Webstral

All good points, but the entire battle starts out as a meeting engagement. Any minefields in the area are going to be along the lines of hasty emplacement. I could see a series of FASCAM drops, even some roads being mined or bridges prepped for demo. But it would be far more likely for the Soviets to send out fighting patrols to round up survivors or detach companis to set up block positions then for widespread use of mines.

This is absolutely true for the July 2000 fight at Kalisz. I should have been more specific. The mines I talked about in my last post would date from 1997. While there would have been some meeting engagements during NATO’s eastward drive in 1997, the campaign as a whole was characterized by set piece battles, if the timeline given in the v1 chronology is any indication. The steady eastward progression of the fighting would have given the Pact time to establish new defensive lines as NATO advanced.


Webstral

As I touched on earlier, a minefield laid in 1996-97 could by 2000 be overgrown by brush and small trees, especially if located close to a source of seed stock (aka another group of trees).

Ahhh, that makes more sense!

mines for hunting
 

I think people would stack a few bushels of fodder around an AP minefield and wait for the deer/boar to sizzle through.

I have seen that this is a way for poachers in Asia.

I like Horsesoldiers idea of travelling EOD gypsies,

disarming,arming,selling AND buying new and used munitions Gov`

As for economics -these types might even lay a few mines of their own to boost business...