Camouflet
A camouflet ( fr . Camouflet ) is an underground explosion in which no earth funnel is created, but a cavity, such as a cavern .
Camouflet is also used to refer to an explosive device that is supposed to collapse underground (enemy) tunnels.
etymology
Camouflet is derived from the French term chault moufflet (≈ hot kid ) and is referred to in Émile Littré's Dictionnaire de la langue française as "thick smoke that someone breathes in when you maliciously hold an inflamed roll of paper under your nose"
application
The explosions were triggered by the counter-demolition masters during fortress sieges to destroy underground passages that had been built by their opponents under bastions , curtains and other fortification structures. During the First World War, camouflets were used to destroy underground enemy tunnels (also called miners ' mines ).
The impact of artillery shells, mines or aerial bombs that penetrated deep into the ground without forming a crater was later also referred to as camouflet . The British bomb Grand Slam was intended, among other things, to undermine the construction site next to a building in order to bring it to collapse.
In the mining industry , camouflage explosions are triggered to forestall mountain attacks.
literature
- Rittig von Flammenstern: Encyclopedic War Lexicon, or overview of all art expressions occurring in land and sea wars with added French terminology (etc.) , Publisher: Catharina Gräffer, 1813, p. 112 ( online book preview )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dictionary.com: Camouflet ( Memento of August 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ "fumée épaisse que l'on souffle malicieusement au nez de quelqu'un avec un cornet de papier enflammé" Littré: Dictionnaire de la langue francaise, vol. 3, p. 459.
- ↑ Fortification dictionary: Camouflet ( Memento of December 12, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Rittig von Flammenstern p. 112