The Shitotsubakurai or lunge mine was a suicidal anti-tank weapon developed and used by the Empire of Japan during the Second World War. It used a HEAT type charge. This weapon was used by the CQC units of the Imperial Japanese Army. The weapon itself was a conical hollow charge anti-tank mine, placed inside a metallic container and attached to the end of a wooden stick. The weapon was officially adopted by the Japanese Army in 1945; in that year it caused its first victims in the Pacific Theater, where it commonly saw action against American armour. Later that year, some Japanese Imperial Army manuals of the weapon were discovered by US troops.
A drawing of a lunge mine and its operation
Schematic of the mines components.
Viet Minh soldier Nguyen Van Thieng holding a lunge mine at Hàng Đậu Street in December 1946.
Statue of an anti-tank lunge mine being used by Nguyen Van Thieng in 1946. Military History Museum, Hanoi, Vietnam.
The fire lance was a gunpowder weapon and the ancestor of modern firearms. It first appeared in 10th–12th century China and was used to great effect during the Jin-Song Wars. It began as a small pyrotechnic device attached to a polearm weapon, used to gain a shock advantage at the start of a melee. As gunpowder improved, the explosive discharge was increased, and debris or pellets added, giving it some of the effects of a combination modern flamethrower and shotgun, but with a very short range, and only one shot. By the late 13th century, fire lance barrels had transitioned to metal material to better withstand the explosive blast, and the lance-point was discarded in favor of relying solely on the gunpowder blast. These became the first hand cannons.
Earliest known representation of a fire lance (upper right), Dunhuang, 950 AD.
A double-barreled fire lance from the Huolongjing. Supposedly, the barrels fired in succession, with the second barrel lit automatically after the first barrel's firing.
A fire lance from the Wubei Zhi by Mao Yuanyi, 1621.