I couldn't help but notice the disc on the back too. I'm not sure if its heavy enough to trigger an anti-tank mine, but that information could be looked up and calculated. Not that hard.

It's the kind of thing I can see myself thinking of, for one last pass of security. A plow would stir the dirt, potentially shifting a mine without detonating it. The disc applies more pressure directly downward, much higher chances of triggering one I'd think.

And a disc is also easy to replace if blown to smithereens. And the tractor might survive, so, its working and you can keep going.

Maybe a half a dozen passes or something before I'd start to feel comfortable actually stepping foot in a former minefield?

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That tiller (if that's the correct term) in the back is a farming tool meant to break ground for seeds, it's the modified snow plow at the front which is meant to clean mines. As it's got pretty much the whole tractor keeping it on the ground it most definetly has enough pressure to trigger mines, the rollers might not take more than one direct hit, but they seem to be relatively simple to replace.

Personally I'd go after something which military uses instead of rollers, where it has motors to spin chains which then detonate the mines, but that's a bit more complex to build and you need more parts than a few bearings and a grinder+welder, so that might not been an option for the guy who built the thing.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I've always just heard it referred to colloquially as a "disc", and you use it to "disc a field". In some cases this is a common second step after a first step that plows much, much more aggressively and deeply. I don't know what kind of soil that is and what he plants though, so that first step might be unnecessary.

I don't think it'd be wise to prepare the field for planting and clear the field of mines in the same step, though, at any rate. It would be extremely inappropriate to feel confident that a single pass of your implement has successfully cleared every last mine. When its life on the line, you want near-certainty.

So, he's gonna go over his field with that thing many, many times, not just one. If he's smart. Which means the disc is for mines, not to prepare the field for crops.

My thinking anyway, I don't actually know anything about mine clearing. I do know some about farming though.

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

My thinking anyway, I don’t actually know anything about mine clearing. I do know some about farming though.

I'm in a very same boat, I've been sitting my share on a tractor cabin turning ground around and smoothing it, but our fields don't luckily (now, at 1940s it might've been a bit different at the eastern border) have mines to worry about.