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S.Mi.35 (Sprengen Mine 1935) aka the "Bouncing Betty"

Bouncing Betty, nice. I was a Combat Engineer in the Corps. Our instructor set off one of my practice bouncing Betz. The cardboard cone hit him right in the yam-bag !! He was pissed that he didn't see it. Didn't have to dig his own grave though like we did if we set one off. Here we are at demo school, I'm the "big-un"

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Damn you look like that big Marine guy from the Heartbreak ridge movie! Are you sure you weren't in that movie! :laugh:
 
Damn you look like that big Marine guy from the Heartbreak ridge movie! Are you sure you weren't in that movie! :laugh:

Not the Swede.. lol. But true story, I was due to drum out of the Corps in the fall of 86' so had to remain stateside while my unit was detached to Puerto Rico where they filmed part of that movie. Many of my friends were used as extras for the movie. Our platoon leader was the Major's jeep driver near the end of the movie when he arrived too late for the action. L/Cpl Crocker (his mom's name was Betty too) got chewed out by Eastwood for banging on a door too hard in filming when he was directed to do so and my room mate L/Cpl Dante Delbracco was the guy they rolled over on the bridge and took the cigar from. Eastwood would run PT with 2nd platoon some days too. Rahhh. I have a natural magnetism toward Pioneer items. And Eastwood stole my boonie cover....


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S-mine clearing in North Africa.....
 

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Interesting topic... My step fathers father was killed by one of these in northern Italy, 3 weeks or so before the end of the war. He also won a bronze star, uncertain if it was from this incident or prior. He was interred in the Florence American Cemetery.

Jeff
 
Interesting topic... My step fathers father was killed by one of these in northern Italy, 3 weeks or so before the end of the war. He also won a bronze star, uncertain if it was from this incident or prior. He was interred in the Florence American Cemetery.

Jeff

Very sad Jeff. Having one of these in hand, it's a terrible devise.
 
Mines can be employed in some really twisted ways. Tall grass or brush where you can't get a metal detector or probe in to check for stuff. What's cute is when they stack mines. You dig one deep hole and place a mine at the bottom, some dirt, and then put a second mine on top of the first. You go to pull the first and a pull fuze sets off the second. Or, you pull the first, don't bother checking the bottom of the hole, cover it up and move along, leaving the one live mine in situ to blow up later.

A fellow sapper encountered a total of 5 mines stacked in series, can't remember where, Gaza Strip, or Cyprus.
 
OK, well, finally scored one of these nasty bastards...

There have been some on eBay, all coming out of Russia and Eastern Europe. All appear to be ground dug and in varying degrees of corrosion from very little to relic condition. I was going to pull the trigger on one, but then found one listed out of Georgia (as in here in US, not Georgia the country :thumbsup:). He had it on Buy it Now, and was probably $100 more than most of what could be had in Europe.

But this one is in really primo shape, and not being in Europe, it wasn't going to take 4 weeks plus to get here, and have a higher probability of getting lost/confiscated in customs, so I bit the bullet and pulled the trigger on the domestic one.

It arrived today, and is REALLY nice, great shape. It is missing the three main detonator bodies, and the shrapnel load (being an early one it would have the ball bearing load, not the cut wire load), the string cushioner, and no fuze. I have several S.Mi.35 Zunders, so I will throw one of them on for now, but I have a nice three way, complete with the 2 Zug.Z 35 pull igniters to put on it, but it will be a month likely before it gets here.

I will pick up a bunch of 1/4" ball bearings to fill it, the string cushioner is easy, and I will be able to find the detonator bodies on eBay in Europe I would guess. The reality is you can't see any of them when assembled, but I can't help myself, have to try to really complete it...

Here are some overviews...
 

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I thought I would go through the assembly of the mine, to show how it all works...

So you have the mine base...on the top, you see the hole for the main initiator, and three spigots which connect to the three main charge detonators...

On the flip side you see the main hole inside the space where the spreng charge, the black powder charge which causes the mine to "jump", it is the propelling charge to lift the mine from its container into the air.

Then you have the main initiator tube. This is what the fuzing package attaches to. When tripped the fuze(s) send an initiating burst down this tube, which hits the jumping charge, an initiates launch of the mine upward. This charge going off initiates the delay pellets inside the three spigots which delays the detonation of the main detonators long enough to allow the mine to reach an altitude of about 1 meter. once the delay pellets burn through, the three main detonators go off, setting off the bursting charge, and sending the shrapnel load out in a 360 deg pattern, devastating anything in its path.

The main initiating tube goes into the central hole, and is secured by a screw.

Then the spreng charge would be nestled in its pocket. On top of this goes a lead burst disc. This protects the spreng charge. When it goes off it simply blows through the lead disc and against the outer comtainer.

The burst disc goes atop the spreng charge, then it has the retainer put on top, then secured with 6 screws.
 

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Now the base is fully assembled, set it up-right, now you would attach the three detonators, which I don't have yet, and then you place the inner ring in its machined slot. Then the outer ring goes on.

The space between the two rings would be filled with the shrapnel load, and the cushioning string put on top of the shrapnel. This just helped cushion the impact of the shrapnel due to inertia on the top plate once the mine is initiated.

Then the top plate is put on, and a nut used to tighten everything down. Then put on the three detonator screws, and the filler screw. For transport a bakelite cover would screw onto the fuze spigot to protect the threads.


Looking at the top plate, this mine was manufactured by Richard Rinker (well known manufacturer of stick grenades) in 1940. Still has the white ink stamped WaA, and black loading stamp on it. The quality of the markings and paint and components is what really sold me on this one.


Note the three small holes in the outer case, and the bottom of the mine. When the mine is placed in the case, these lines up and were secured with three small shear screws to keep the mine assembled.

Also not the roughly 1/4" paintless ring around the outside of the top of the mine. On these early ones this was sealed with a soldered on lead strip to waterproof the assembly. The outer case has good original paint on the outside, and the perfect polished interior.

I will post some pics later with the S.Mi.35 Zunder attached, and when I get the three way adapter I'll post more new ones...

Hope these posts were informative....
 

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Last few for now...
 

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Add a 1938 Richard Rinker S.Mi.35 Zunder, and Bob''s your Uncle...

Will do until I get my three way with S.Mi.35 Zunder and two pull fuzes....:happy0180:
 

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Ok, if you ever need to fill an S-Mine, order yourself 500 3/8" ball bearings on eBay for roughly $17 shipped, and pour them into the inner and outer rings, they fit perfect, and it will take roughly 360 or so to fill it...

Found an old piece of thin rope in the garage, made the cushion...I think I can find some brass tube to make the detonators, and it will be complete!

Just waiting on the new fuze setup...:thumbsup:
 

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That is damn cool Mike!

Here ya go!
 

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OK, hope Ya'll don't mind me to keep adding to this thread, since it is stickied…

So, being completely insane as I tend to be...I bought yet another S-Mine located here in the states...mainly because it had the internals I needed, plus a bunch of extra stuff...oh, and the three bottom shear screws.

My plan was to take the internals I needed to truly complete mine, and sell the otherwise complete mine and extras to re-coup the costs...

Well, of course once I received it, I had a brilliant idea....keep both! I will have mine as a complete (externally anyway) display as used, and use the second one as a display to view the internals...:facepalm:

I also received my three way fuze adapter and installed that...so here is the complete display mine with three way adapter. These three way adapters would have two ZuZZ-35 (tension/pull) or two ZZ35 (pull only) igniters plus a pressure S.Mi.35 Zunder attached...so now you could set it off by stepping on it, or hitting the trip wire extending out 4 or 5 feet or more on either side.

Nasty, huh? It gets better....most of the time the Germans would daisy chain up to 6-10 S Mines together with these...the trip wires being connected to another ZZ-35 on another S mine, and so on and so on....so if you trip 1....a bunch more would get set off too...so instead of one bouncing betty going off, you have 6 or more go off, each 6-10 feet or so from the other. It could really tear into a bunch of guys...

You could even piggy back two three way adapter, the first with two ZZ-35's, with the second adapter on top, that one with two ZZ-35's and an S.Mi.Z. 35 on top, for 4 trip wires out in 4 directions....those crazy Pioneers and there deadly erector sets....Mines be scary, yo!
 

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