Amine plow (plough inBritish English) is a device designed to clear a lane through aminefield, allowing other vehicles to follow. A mine plow is typically mounted to atank ormilitary engineering vehicle. Buriedland mines are plowed up and pushed outside the tank's track path or tipped over. Since modernanti-tank mines rely on afocused explosion to destroy armored vehicles, they are useless when turned upside-down; as the tank runs over the mine, it will expend its blast down instead of upwards, causing insignificant damage, if any.
Towards the end of theFirst World War, the French mounted a plow on theirRenault FT tank.
The British started work on plow designs in 1937, and a successful design was introduced for theMatilda Mk I tank though it was not used.[1]
The first recorded combat use is by a "Bullshorn" plow on aChurchill tank of the British79th Armoured Division, onSword Beach during the Allied invasion of Normandy (this was one of "Hobart's Funnies" specialized vehicles). The "Bullshorn" was one of a number of plow designs which were tested and used by the British Army.
The mine plow is still in use by many combat engineering units. TheRoyal Engineers have deployed theTrojan toAfghanistan[2] where it was usually fitted with a plow on the front, which enables it toclear mines, either detonating them on contact, or pushing them out of the way to clear a safe channel for following vehicles.
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