Posted: 2007-11-25 23:07
Shooting an M18A1 Claymore mine with an M82A1 or other high-caliber weapon would not cause detonation. If you managed to hit the top portion of the mine where the cap inserts into the plug well, then you might be able to disable the cap and therefore prevent the mine from detonating at all. Shooting a round elsewhere will just put a useless hole in the C4/Shot housing. About as useful as putting a hole in Swiss Cheese.BloodBane611 wrote:C4 can be detonated only if you apply great amount of both heat and pressure. A bullet can apply the pressure, but without heat there isn't enough energy to start the reaction. Depending on the type of mine I imagine some are capable of being detonated with a large caliber rifle round, but I wouldn't pretend to know.
This would apply to any compound-based explosives (CA, CB, C4, Semtex, RDX, TNT, etc). You can shoot, bite, stab, or cut those items without any risk of explosion. They require a booster or initiator charge in order to set them off. Simple fire or fuzes will not work without the smaller charge.
AT and AP mines vary though. Some can be detonated via heavy rounds due to impact, while others require a specific minimum weight to be applied over a specific area of the pressure plate. Some mines pop on the downward application of weight, some on the reverse release of the weight. In general, with remote disarming of mines your best bet is not rifle fire but secondary explosives. You can try shooting it, but there is only about a 40-50% chance it will cause detonation. Your best bet (and fastest) is to just blow the thing up. But as with the Claymores, shooting them in the right spots with a high-caliber weapon can disable them. Mines have several components inside which can be fractured or jarred loose. In many circumstances, if even one of those components fails, the whole mine will fail. This can give you a 20-30% chance of disabling a mine with rifle fire, even more if the mine is not buried.
In PR, shooting the mines (either claymore or AT) should not cause them to blow up. Instead it would be better if they were just disabled, maybe disappear after a 30-second delay. Not sure if it was disarmed? Send in the FNG to test it out. "Hey, Private! Go tell me what the front of that mine says!"