As mentioned, there was a big stack of Osprey books at my favorite used books store, so I was picking up a few at each visit (they were gone the last time; apparently someone with more disposable income bought the lot). At any rate, this one intrigued me – for entirely innocent reasons, of course. (The author considers the possibility of not innocent reasons and devotes an introductory paragraph to “don’t try this at home” type warnings, just in case you were planning on manufacturing your own Bouncing Bettys).

This has the usual high quality Osprey illustrations but the text is somewhat mixed. Most of the written material comes from two series of Allied wartime publications: the War Department’s Intelligence Bulletin, intended for junior officers, and Tactical and Technical Trends, for more senior officers. I had never heard of either of these; they sound like they might be worth investigating. Thus the book is mostly contemporary WWII material coupled with modern and contemporary illustrations.

The Germans tended to booby trap everything and everywhere, and sometimes got really “cute”:

The Germans identified a house that advancing Allies would find suitable for a command post. A picture on the wall was hung crooked. There was a Teller mine behind the picture; the Germans assumed that only an officer would care enough about a crooked picture to straighten it.

A Luger was left lying in plain sight. The squad leader assumed it was trapped, gingerly hooked a wire through the trigger guard, then instructed everybody to take cover in a nearby ditch while he jerked the wire. There was no trap on the Luger; unfortunately, there was in the ditch.

Germans made extensive use of Allied hand grenades in booby traps; Allied grenades were spring-loaded while most German grenades – including the ubiquitous “potato masher” – had a friction pull igniter, which made them unsuitable for most booby traps (although German grenades could be easily disassembled to remove the delay fuse, then left lying around for unwary Allied soldiers to find and try to throw back). An Allied grenade could be left in a can with the pin removed; if the can was tipped by a trip wire or other method, the grenade would fall out and arm. For the same reason, Allied grenades were popular as “antilift” device under conventional land mines. German mines almost always employed at least one and sometimes two additional antilift devices – in fact, the standard Teller mine incorporated an additional fuse pocket for a pull detonator in the underside of the mine.

The Japanese didn’t employ booby traps quite as much as the Germans – perhaps because they never acknowledged that they might have to retreat from a position. Japanese grenades had a percussion igniter and thus were also difficult to incorporate in booby traps, although one documented method was to use a section of bamboo big enough to allow a grenade to fall. The grenade was suspended by a trip wire, when the wire was tripped, the grenade fell to the bottom of the bamboo tube, hit a previously placed rock, and armed.

It was interesting to note that the use of surplus artillery and mortar projectiles as IEDs was quite popular in WWII, by both Japanese and Germans. An example given was three 150mm shells wired together in a drum incorporated in a hasty roadblock. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, there do not seem to be any examples of command-detonated devices, doubtless because WWII radio technology wasn’t up to it; nor are any directional mines (like the Claymore) mentioned.

I suppose the main flaw I find is that this is a pretty expensive book – even at half price from a used bookstore – for what is essentially a rehash of previously printed material. ( )

I have liked other books in this series, but this one relied a bit too much on simply quoting from contemporary materials. Not as much analysis. Illustrations are well done, as usual. ( )

While the illustrations were nice its a very dry book, 3/4's of it is devoted to the ETO leaving only a few pages for the PTO. Either way the text itself is just edited reports from the governments findings on these types of weapons. Extremely dry reading. ( )