Nov 4, 2014: Shrapnel

[Diaphone Jim]

I have a little trouble figuring out how all those pieces are only 6 ounces. In any case an awful lot of material to carry around for all those years.
In Vietnam, among the most devastating mines were Claymores, which put out a horizontal spray of fragments and were fired by command or trip wire.
American Claymores were rectanglar, 4 or 5 inches by 12+, with a curved face and loaded with ball bearings.
Chinese or Vietnamese or ? were usually round, dinner plate or pizza size and loaded with just the kind of junk in the photo, with the addition of pieces of cut up re-bar.
When American soldiers were treated for little uniform round wounds, medics knew they were the victims of captured US mines.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The newspapers said it was a mine, I added "booby trap". Looking at that pile of hardware, it looked to me more like a homemade device, than factory made ordinance. But I guess by mid-'44 their normal manufacturing capacity was greatly diminished, thanks to the RAF* and 8th Air Force.
Of course it could have been a French underground device, also.

*Check out this diagram of one RAF raid on Dresden.