One thing that most veterans of military service, and specifically the Army, is that they share certain things in common. For example, they share a uniform and they share several training experiences with weapons qualification, weapons, familiarization, and/or weapons training. Along the way, they even learn about the do’s and don’ts with regard to specific weapon systems. Take the M18A1 Claymore mine as an example. The Claymore mine is an anti-personnel mine that most soldiers if not all receive familiarization training on the characteristics, nomenclature, components, deployment considerations, deployment of the mine, recovery of the mine in cases where the mine was not used, and safety considerations. Now you see those last two words in that last sentence. Do you see them? Pay close attention to those last two words. Cuz that’s what this post is all about. Those last two words. Safety considerations. Those last two words are so important that there is an entire M68 Claymore mine Inert Training Kit designed to familiarize soldiers with the placement and arming of a real Claymore mine. A light blue or black plastic M33 inert anti-personnel mine (an integral piece of the M68 training Kit) is also available as a training aid for soldiers. Some variants of the M33 training mine are green with a light blue band around them. But the primary difference between the M33 training mines and the M68 training kits versus the M18A1, is that the training mines and kits do not contain any explosive filler. This is a very good thing. I want to stress that this is a VERY GOOD thing. Sometimes this could even mean the difference between life and death. But one thing. Well actually, there are a few things that all of these models have in common. And if you look at the Chinese variant or the Russian variant of the Claymore mine, they have the same identifying characteristics. I guess everybody knows a good thing when they see it. You see, the U.S. Army identified the need for an anti-personnel mine during the Korean War and implemented the Claymore during the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, everybody else got a really good look at that weapon in action. What makes the Claymore work is a directional fragmentation effect originally developed during World War II by a Hungarian and a German, go figure. It seems that all of the really good munitions, weapons, and explosive shit was developed by the Germans. The concept behind the Claymore or similar directional explosives is that, when a sheet of explosive detonates after coming in contact with a heavy backing surface such as a metal plate, the resulting blast is directed away from the surface of that metal plate in a single direction. Nice, huh? So, you build a case, you put a piece of a hardened steel in the back of that case, then you put in a bed of some C4 explosive (and of course, we’ve all got that laying around), and then you put in your bed of projectiles which in this case are some soft steel bearings about 1/8 inch around embedded in epoxy to hold the bearings in place. How to make a Claymore 101. But I digress. Identifying characteristics. Yes, that’s where I was. The first identifying characteristic, and this is a doozy, printed in big letters right on the front of the actual weapon, whether it’s the M18A1, the M68, or the M33, are the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY. The second identifying characteristic, and this is another dead giveaway, is the word BACK printed on the back of the mine. The third identifying characteristic is that the shape of the mine itself is a convex rectangular plastic casing where the convex face of said casing is the front and the concave portion is the back. So, in pure theory, you should be able to identify the front of the weapon from the rear of the weapon by those three characteristics, and those three characteristics alone. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it. Believe it or not, people screw this up all the time. I don’t know how. But they do. If they screw it up with a real live mine, really bad things could happen. If a real mine goes KA-BOOM, and somebody screwed something up with the deployment of the mine or the placement of the mine, really bad things could happen. Let me give you a ‘for instance’. For instance, I witnessed familiarization training on the Claymore mine where the soldiers were using the M68 Claymore mine Inert Training Kit. Just as a reminder, the M68 is the fake mine. During the training, the characteristics and features of the real mines were discussed, deployment considerations and deployment of the mine were discussed, and safety features were also covered. During the safety features portion of the familiarization training, the instructor spent a painfully long time stressing the importance of making sure that the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY could not be read by the person putting the mine into operation. The instructor also stressed that the person putting the mine into operation was also the soldier who would be firing the mine. The instructor said, “If you are the soldier responsible for deploying and firing this Claymore mine, the only word you should be able to read is the word BACK.” Well, there’s always got to be one. One person that is. It never fails. There always has to be one. You can tell them. You can show them. You can put it in big flashing red letters with arrows pointing at it. Oh, by the way, the it in this case is the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY. Likewise, you can also put big flashing blue letters with arrows pointing at it. The it in this case is the word BLUE. I don’t think it would matter. Some people just don’t get it. You remember that old line, “What we have here is failure to communicate.” So, the first instance of a mistake that I witnessed was a soldier that did everything right until he got to the part where he placed the mine. He put the mine down on the ground, he opened up the little scissor legs just like you’re supposed to, and he screwed in the detonator. There was just one little problem. When he got up to move back to his defensive position, the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY were facing him. When the instructor asked all of the soldiers to test, then detonate their training devices, he simulated blowing himself and a few of his buddies to smithereens. Lucky for him, that was a fake mine blast. What a great way to almost ruin your day. It was a good thing the training involved the use of the M68 Claymore mine Inert Training Kit. In the second incident that I witnessed, a soldier placed the mine with the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY fully visible to him and his buddies. Then he connected the detonator to the mine and proceeded to test the M57 Firing Device or clacker without using the M40 Electrical Test Set. Do you see the problem here? If the mine had been a real mine, and the soldier had started testing the clacker as he had. Well, KA-BOOM. Once again, our soldier was fortunate in that the mine was fake. So once again, our soldier experienced a fake mine blast. In both cases the outcome could have been deadly. As it was, everybody but the embarrassed soldiers had a great laugh. But I gotta tell you folks, the manufacturer had the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY and BACK printed on the M18A1 and the M68 Claymore mines for a very good reason. Somewhere along the line, a real soldier or maybe more than one blew himself apart because he didn’t deploy the mine properly. Weapons are not forgiving tools. Please do not let the characteristics, nomenclature, components, deployment considerations, deployment of the mine, and safety considerations of the M18A1 Claymore mine become another tragic exercise in futility for you.
by 
by 