Suicide weapon

A suicide weapon is a weapon designed to be used in a suicide attack, typically based on explosives. Suicide weapons have been used both in conventional warfare, as well as in terrorism. In the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese used suicide bombing against the Japanese with explosive vests. A Chinese soldier detonated a grenade vest and killed 20 Japanese at Sihang Warehouse. Chinese troops strapped explosives like grenade packs or dynamite to their bodies and threw themselves under Japanese tanks to blow them up. This tactic was used during the Battle of Shanghai, where a Chinese suicide bomber stopped a Japanese tank column by exploding himself beneath the lead tank, and at the Battle of Taierzhuang where dynamite and grenades were strapped on by Chinese troops who rushed at Japanese tanks and blew themselves up. During one incident at Taierzhuang, Chinese suicide bombers obliterated four Japanese tanks with grenade bundles. The Pacific War of World War II bore witness to the Japanese kamikaze suicide attack pilots ("kamikaze" was not a term used by the Japanese themselves). Late in the war, as the tide turned against Japan, kamikaze pilots were deployed to attempt to crash their aircraft into American and allied ships in the Pacific. The Japanese even developed specialized aircraft for the tactic, such as the Yokosuka Ohka flying bomb. A successful kamikaze attack would both kill the plane's pilot and damage the target ship, possibly even sinking it. Related tactics included the kaiten suicide minisub, a human torpedo which a single Japanese pilot would steer into an Allied ship. North Korean tanks were attacked by South Koreans with suicide tactics during the Korean War. American tanks at Seoul were also attacked by North Korean suicide squads, who carried satchel charges on their bodies. A North Korean soldier named Li Su-Bok, who destroyed an American tank during one such attack, is hailed as a hero in North Korean propaganda.