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The Canadian pipe mine, also known as the McNaughton tube, was a type of landmine deployed in Britain during the invasion crisis of 1940-1941. It comprised a horizontally bored pipe packed with explosives, and once in place this could be used to instantly create an anti-tank obstacle or to ruin a road or runway thereby denying its use by an enemy. ==Inception== In November 1939 Lieutenant-General Andrew McNaughton travelled to Toronto for a meeting with Lieutenant-Colonel C.S.L. Hertzberg (Commanding Royal Engineers, CRE) and Lieutenant-Colonel Guy R. Turner, both of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, Oliver Hall of the Mining Association of Ontario and Colin Campbell, an experienced mining and construction engineer and Minister of Public Works under Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn. The meeting participants discussed military possibilities raised by experimental diamond drilling, an initiative that had been broached by R.A. Bryce, president of the Ontario Mining Association, among others. McNaughton's recognized the possibility of placing explosives under fortifications or introducing poison gas into them for military use. | width = 35% | align=right }} As he prepared Canadian forces for departure to Britain, McNaughton proposed that a section of the 12th Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers should be formed from experienced diamond drillers. He said: "We will start in a small way to see what is in the scheme and then expand if the results warrant it" McNaughton offered the command to Colin Campbell Campbell accepted and initiated plans to obtain recruits from the mining districts of northern Ontario. McNaughton, now General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division travelled to Britain with his staff and the bulk of his division in December 1939. Early in January 1940 McNaughton inspected the Allied defences in northern France and on a four-day inspection of the Maginot Line he found defences to be unsatisfactory. He requested – and received – working drawings of fortifications so that his diamond drillers could help clear out German defenders if they captured portions of these areas. At a meeting with senior British engineers at Aldershot, McNaughton suggested that the pipes might be used to construct surprise obstacles in front of a German advance. This would be accomplished by pushing pipes into the ground at a shallow angle and packing them with explosives ready to be detonated. The pipe could be easily and quickly pushed by a hydraulic jack fitted to a tank transporter, numbers of which were available. According to McNaughton's biographer, John Swettenham, he got the idea of using hydraulic jacks from the bootleggers of Windsor, Ontario who, during the prohibition, pushed pipes from a brewery to other premises where drink could be safely loaded. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Canadian pipe mine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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