Talk:Bangalore torpedo

Are the pieces of threaded pipe 5 feet in length or 3 metres?


 *  lengths of threaded pipe, one of which contained the explosive charge

Couldn't several lengths in a row be filled with explosive, to clear a path through a wide minefield or wire obstacle? —Michael Z. 2005-10-24 14:25 Z 

Weren't they in The Longest Day as well?

In fact, I believe it was quite common to link a number of explosive filled lengths together. This is the form I am familiar with from my experience in Nam, where we used it to clear not wire but weeds growing around the perimeter of fire bases, in order to improve visibility. Wschart 13:08, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Giant Viper
It says in this article that the "British Giant Viper has largely replaced the Bangalore, as it is both lighter and faster to use." According to the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Viper

the Giant Viper uses "rockets to launch a 250-metre-long hose, packed with plastic explosive, across a minefield" and is a "a trailer-mounted, vehicle-pulled, mine-clearance system", making it much like the US Army's towed MIne Clearing LIne Charge, or MICLIC, which is not mentioned at all in this article. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how dragging 250 meters of explosive-filled hose is neither lighter, nor faster than shoving five foot segments of bangalore tube thru wire. This article needs to be revised; preferrably by a Sapper!

-Daniel Davis 58th Combat Engineer Company


 * The Giant Viper uses the rockets to drag the hose across the minefield. It's very fast. 250 metres is roughly 250 yards or 750 feet.


 * ... or 150 five-foot lengths of Bangalore torpedo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.73 (talk) 21:49, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Long, not deep?
"It has been estimated that the modern Bangalore torpedo is effective for clearing a path through wire and mines up to 15 meters deep and 1 meter wide." That suggests a hole 15 meters into ground, 1 meter across, like a well. That sentence should be 15 meters long, not 15 meters deep.--TDKehoe (talk) 19:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I fixed it, not that it much matters, since the claim is uncited and will have to go anyway if a citation doesn't show up soon. Xihr (talk) 00:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Sam Fuller The Big Red One Quote
I returned the full quotation from Sam Fuller's The Big Red One with the obscenity censored. I understand people's concerns about the obscenity, but deleting that entire part of the quote takes away the sense of Fuller's disdain.PhantomWSO (talk) 19:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Vague description
This article does not clearly explain how the "torpedo" is deployed. Is it a missile of some sort, as the name implies? Or is it more like an unusually long pipe bomb? If the former, how is it launched? If the latter, how is it directed into position and directed so that it detonates only the area in question? As is, the article presumes a lot of knowledge about its subject and contains confusing/contradictory info as to whether all or some of the pipe would contain explosives. Jtcarpet (talk) 07:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Article unclear - how is the Bangalore torpedo used?
I read the entire article, word-for-word, TWICE, and still have no idea how this thing is used. So it's a stick filled with explosives intended to clear obstacles, but how is it actually used to do this? Is it fired from something else as a projectile? Is it thrown by hand? Do you walk up to an obstacle and beat it with the stick until the shit goes "Boom"? Jade Phoenix Pence (talk) 22:57, 13 January 2015 (UTC)Jade Phoenix Pence
 * I believe it had a long fuse and the exploding pipe, placed under the wire fence, cuts away the wire. See this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKEV7gyjJpo Will have to look for reliable sources to get something into the article though. Shyamal (talk) 03:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Pole Charge Redirects here - why?
For some reason "pole charge" redirects here - which would seem inappropriate since this page is, quite properly about a the wire clearing device, whereas pole charges are generally meant to be poked into an enemy position and detonated. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 16:03, 21 May 2015 (UTC)