 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Mine roller" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Amine roller ormine trawl is ademining device mounted on atank orarmoured personnel carrier, designed to detonate anti-tankmines. It allowscombat engineers to clear a lane through a minefield which is protected by enemy fire.
The device is usually composed of a fork or two push arm assemblies fitted to the front of a tank hull, with two banks of rollers that can be lowered in front of the tank's tracks. Each roller bank has several heavy wheels studded with short projecting steel girders, which apply a higherground pressure than the tank's tracks. This ensures the explosion of pressure-fused anti-tank mines, which would otherwise explode under the track itself.[1]
During theinterwar period, the British were the first to work on mine clearing devices.[2] After being removed from theDover Patrol and joining the newly created Tank Board, AdmiralSir Reginald Bacon designed the Invicta Roller, which was a pair of steamrollers rigged in front of aMark V tank.[3] It was a cumbersome design and the rollers had to be re-rigged every time a mine detonated beneath them, making the clearing process slower and more complicated than "crawling along the ground with a bayonet".[4]
In 1937, the concept was revived with sprung rollers mounted in front of aCovenanter tank. When the rollers detonated a mine, the explosion simply pushed the rollers up against the spring and then rebounded back to the ground, allowing the tank to continue mine clearing without interruptions. This design would become the AMRA (Anti-Mine Roller Attachment),[5] which would be used in theirMatilda II,Valentine, andCrusader tanks in theNorth African campaign duringWorld War II. The rollers only covered the width of each track rather than clearing a tank-width path for subsequent vehicles and troops. To these were added aChurchill tank with the evocatively named Canadian Indestructible Roller Device (CIRD). The British used mine rollers to detect the presence of minefields and then usedmine flails for the clearance.[6]
After great difficulties caused by minefields in theWinter War against Finland, the SovietRed Army assignedP. M. Mugalev at the Dormashina Factory inNikolayev to design a mine-clearing vehicle. Prototypes were tested based on theT-28 medium tank in 1940. Development was interrupted by the start of World War II, but resumed in 1942. T-60 and KV tank chassis underwent trials, but only theT-34 was deemed to have a sufficiently robust transmission and clutch.
Experimental detachments of PT-34 mine roller tanks were formed in May 1942, and saw action atVoronezh in August. The first Independent Engineer Tank Regiment with eighteen mine rollers was fielded in October 1943. At least five regiments were formed during the war.
The PT-34's huge roller fork was semi-permanently mounted on a T-34 or T-34-85 tank. The rollers were usually removed for travel, and only installed for mine clearing operations. Adaptations for later tanks consisted of two lighter arms. The Mugalev system was adopted by U.S. and Israeli forces in the 1980s.
The Germans worked on several designs mounted on different tanks, but none ever entered service before the end of WWII. As early as of 1939, they worked on a radio-controlled miniature tank with a set of toothed rollers mounted behind it. While prototypes were tested, development took a different turn and it ended up becoming theGoliath tracked mine. Another German prototype was the Räumer S: a 130tonne articulated vehicle with two pairs of 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in) diameter roller wheels, each one powered by aMaybach engine to cover as much ground as possible. Heavily armoured, it was impervious to any anti-tank mine, but it was too heavy to cross most bridges. The prototype was captured by the Allies at aKrupp testing ground at the end of the war.[7]
Throughout 1942 and 1943, theUnited States Army Ordnance Department experimented with several mine roller designs. Their limitations were excessive weight, slow speeds, and frequent breakdowns. After testing over 15 different designs, the US Army adopted the T1E3 Mine Exploder, which was first fielded by early 1944.[8] It was attached to theM4 Sherman medium tank and was nicknamedAunt Jemima because of itspancake-like appearance. It had two sets of five disc rollers, 10 feet (3.0 meters) in diameter each.[9]
Since 1945, a number of countries have developed mine rollers including: