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Concept
Anti-handling device
Summary
An anti-handling device is an attachment to or an integral part of a landmine or other munition such as some fuze types found in general-purpose air-dropped bombs, cluster bombs and sea mines. It is designed to prevent tampering or disabling, or to target bomb disposal personnel. When the protected device is disturbed, it detonates, killing or injuring anyone within the blast area. There is a strong functional overlap of booby traps and anti-handling devices.
Anti-handling devices prevent the capture and reuse of the munition by enemy forces. They also hinder bomb disposal or demining operations, both directly and by deterrence, thereby creating a much more effective hazard or barrier.
Anti-handling devices greatly increase the danger of munitions to civilian populations in the areas in which they are used because their mechanisms are so easily triggered. An anti-tank mine with an anti-handling device fitted is almost guaranteed to detonate if it is lifted/overturned, because it is specifically designed to do so. Munitions fitted with anti-handling devices increase the difficulty and cost of post-conflict clearing operations, due to the inherent dangers of attempting to render them safe.
Not all munitions will have an anti-handling device. Perhaps one in ten antitank mines in a large defensive minefield will have boobytrap firing devices screwed into their secondary fuze wells. Even so, deminers and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel are forced to assume that all items they encounter may have been boobytrapped, and must therefore take extra precautions. This has the effect of significantly slowing down the clearance process.
Anti-handling mechanisms have been used in fuzes since at least 1940, for example, in Luftwaffe's ZUS-40 anti-removal fuze which was used during the London Blitz and elsewhere.
ZUS-40s were designed to fit underneath most Luftwaffe bomb fuzes. When a delayed-action bomb containing a ZUS-40 was dropped on a target, the impact when it hit the ground freed a ball-bearing inside the ZUS-40, thereby arming a spring-loaded firing pin.
Official source
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