Anti-Personnel Mine

An anti-personnel mine is a mine built to be used against people rather than vehicles, in contrast to the anti-tank mine, and falls into two basic families: blast mines, which detonate under the pressure of a step and drive a shock wave of hot gas upward with enough force to sever a foot, and fragmentation mines, which project fragments across an area and may be built as bounding mines that launch to chest height before detonating for greater lethality. Anti-personnel mines are sown in static minefields along borders and around strategic positions, and are also used for ambush, base protection, and to deter pursuit. Military doctrine has often favored the wounding rather than the killing effect of these weapons, on the reasoning that a wounded soldier draws more of the enemy's medical and logistical resources than a dead one. The weapon type emerged during the Second World War and was developed further by many nations in the decades after.