The Giant Viper was a trailer-mounted, vehicle-pulled,

mine clearance Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By contr ...

system, designed to be deployed in areas containing

land mine A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

s. It was developed for the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

in the 1950s. It was designed to be towed behind a

Centurion A centurion (; la, centurio , . la, centuriones, label=none; grc-gre, κεντυρίων, kentyríōn, or ) was a position in the Roman army during classical antiquity, nominally the commander of a century (), a military unit of around 80 ...

gun tank, FV4003,

AVRE Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE), also known as Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers is the title given to a series of armoured military engineering vehicles operated by the Royal Engineers (RE) for the purpose of protecting engineers during ...

(Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers);Foss, p. 144 and also the

FV432 The FV432 is the armoured personnel carrier variant in the British Army's FV430 series of armoured fighting vehicles. Since its introduction in the 1960s, it has been the most common variant, being used for transporting infantry on the battlefie ...

Armoured personnel carrier An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world. Acc ...

. The Giant Viper used

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

s to launch a 250-metre-long hose, packed with

plastic explosive Plastic explosive is a soft and hand-moldable solid form of explosive material. Within the field of explosives engineering, plastic explosives are also known as putty explosives or blastics. Plastic explosives are especially suited for explos ...

, across a

minefield A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

. In the 1970s, the Giant Viper hoses were filled at

ROF Chorley ROF Chorley was a UK government-owned munitions filling Royal Ordnance Factory (Filling Factory No. 1). It was planned as a ''permanent'' Royal Ordnance Factory with the intention that it, unlike some other similar facilities, would remain op ...

.Nevell, 48–49 Once it lands the charge is detonated, clearing a six-metre-wide path of anti-personnel and

anti-tank mine An anti-tank mine (abbreviated to "AT mine") is a type of land mine designed to damage or destroy vehicles including tanks and armored fighting vehicles. Compared to anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines typically have a much larger explosive c ...

s by

sympathetic detonation A sympathetic detonation (SD, or SYDET), also called flash over or secondary/secondaries (explosion), is a detonation, usually unintended, of an explosive charge by a nearby explosion. Definition A sympathetic detonation is caused by a shock wav ...

. This cleared path has a length of around 200 metres. For safety, a vehicle fitted with a

mine plough A mine plow (plough in British English) is a device designed to clear a lane through a minefield, allowing other vehicles to follow. A mine plow is typically mounted to a tank or military engineering vehicle. Buried land mines are plowed up and ...

is driven through the cleared path before any other personnel, in order to push any undetonated mines safely out of the way. This system has been superseded by the

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

, employing the same clearance methodology, but using more modern components. It improves accuracy of delivery, deployment speed, and the size of the cleared path, which is now 230 metres long and 7 meters wide. Python was designed to be towed behind an AVRE. The

Hellenic Army The Hellenic Army ( el, Ελληνικός Στρατός, Ellinikós Stratós, sometimes abbreviated as ΕΣ), formed in 1828, is the land force of Greece. The term ''Hellenic'' is the endogenous synonym for ''Greek''. The Hellenic Army is the ...

's Engineer Corps still utilize the system.

Notes

References

* * {{cite book , last = Foss , first = Christopher F. , title = The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Tanks and Fighting Vehicles: A technical directory of major combat vehicles from World War I to the present day , year = 1977 , publisher = Salamander Books , location = London , isbn = 978-0-86101-003-5 , url-access = registration , url = https://archive.org/details/illustratedencyc00foss Military engineering vehicles of the United Kingdom Mine warfare countermeasures Military equipment introduced in the 1950s

See also

Notes

References