MPM

This is the oldest mine in service with the Russian Armed Forces. It was adopted by the USSR in the late 1930s.

Designed to damage or disable moving and stationary objects with metal parts. The object is damaged by the force of the explosive charge.

This mine is extremely simple. It is a bakelite (phenolic) body, which has a cavity inside for the explosive charge and two cavities for placing magnets. On one of the ends of the body there is a niche for a detonator, which has a socket for a fuse at the end. Instead of a special VZD-3M detonator, there can be a MUV, VPF or a detonator tube. The width of the mine was chosen based on the height of the ZN rail post. The mine is fixed to the object to be blown up by two arc-shaped magnets fixed to the bottom of the mine. The magnets ensure reliable holding of the mine on the rail. However, the mine is more often used not as a poison charge to damage ZN rails, but as a sabotage one. Basically, the mine hits unarmored objects (tanks, pipelines, electrical fittings, hydraulic fittings, shut-off devices, cars, airplanes, helicopters). The most effective use of the mine is as a sabotage against small-capacity tanks (up to 10 m3), gas tanks of cars, transformer cabinets, electrical cables and communication cables, for terrorist acts. It is impractical to use it against tank destroyers, because the charge power is not enough to pierce the tank wall in its lower part.

The mine explosion occurs after the specified deceleration time of the VZD-3M time-delay detonator with MD-2 fuse. The deceleration time is determined by the mark of the metal element that the miner installs in the detonator in advance.

Forbidden

The color is dark brown. The marking is standard, applied with black paint on the lower end and contains: − MPM– mine code; − 121-3-73 – manufacturer’s code– batch number– year of manufacture (the numbers may be different); − TG-50 – equipment code.