"Land Mines Under Water" Topic

I've meant to ask about this for years, but for some reason kept forgetting.

Some years ago, I ran a training session on battle procedure for a local reserve engineer unit. One of the things the exercise controller did was have a river ford mined. IOW, the land mines were under water.

This was supposed to be a modern scenario, but can mines be laid underwater in:

a) a WWII era scenario; or

b) a modern (current day) scenario?
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Tim

Normandy beaches had obstacles with mines attached to them, which worked, so they could certainly be made waterproof. laying them directly in the sand wouldn't be too smart, but I think they figured that one out.

Absolutely.

There was a shortage of the waterproofed mines in normandy, so most of them were waterproofed on the spot. The Germans knew this was not going to last very long, but they planed on only putting out a few at a time, and changing them as they saw the deterioration.

Added to the water was that it was SALT WATER.

In any case any waterproof mines would be quite rare in WW2 as they would e a specialized item and due to shortages sent to places like beaches where they were really needed.

In place of waterproof mines it would have been more realizsic to just use trip wires connected to explosives on the shore out of the water.

We used to train that way; I recall mining a ford site near Fort Lewis as a couple of fisherman drifted by, one fine summer day. The beauty of putting AT mines underwater is that they are so much harder to see and detect, and if the sand is too soft, you can put a rock or board under them to reduce the tendency to sink in. Most modern mines are sealed to the extent that you can use them this way, too. For APERS mines, I'd likely mount them in a tree or bush near the water and then run a tripwire, like jgawne suggested. Since US tripwires come in two colors, OD and sand yellow, you can usually find one that blends well enough with the shoreline.

Other than the mines attached to the beach obstacles, every reference I've read or diagram I've seen places the minefields in Normandy well above the high-tide line, usually inland from the seawall. This makes perfect sense. Even if the mine was truly waterproof, the wave action and shifting sands would soon either uncover buried mines, or bury them so deeply they would be useless. Mines places in river fords would probably only be effective for a couple of days at most. I was just reading about how mines placed by the Americans in the Ardennes before the Bulge were largely rendered useless by deep snow or ice in the trigger mechanism.

Cool beans, thanks for the responses, folks.

I think I can safely assume that it would be unusual for WWII, then.
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Tim