Avalanche release with weapons
For Triggering weapons are military , large-caliber devices used and the ammunition not specifically for the triggering of avalanches is designed, but approximately suitable standard ammunition from the armory and arsenal is used. The possible damage to the vegetation as a result is accepted.
Example: with a rocket tube 80 ( Switzerland ) a load of around 600 grams of military explosives can be fired around 600 to 800 meters.
As a civilian variant, Hamberger AG (Switzerland) offered a system with solid rockets ( avalanche rockets ) with a range of about 600 to 700 meters (see: Avalanche triggering by explosives - mobile systems ) for a few years .
For the right time to trigger an avalanche, see: Artificial avalanche triggering - triggering time .
history
What is certain is that artificial avalanches took place along traffic routes (1934/35 first blast attempts in Switzerland with a 8.1 cm mine thrower) near the Bernina Railway . Above settlement areas z. Some avalanches have been artificially triggered in Switzerland with military weapons since 1945.
In 1942 the Swiss WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (SLF) is founded by the federal government. In the idea of the Reduit , among other things, it was also planned that the Swiss Army would withdraw to the Swiss Alps and possibly use snow and avalanches as strategic means. Until 1945 the army was responsible for avalanche warnings in Switzerland, then the SLF.
In Afghanistan , Canada , Russia , Switzerland , the USA and other countries, avalanche explosions are still carried out with military equipment.
Situation in Germany and Austria
In Austria and Germany, due to experiences before and during the Second World War, the use of military weapons domestically is subject to strict legal and political restrictions (see: Military use in Germany and military use in Austria ). Here were z. B. as a civil alternative created avalanche explosive ropeways , which transport the explosive charges over a circulating rope to the danger spots and detonate there.
In Germany, shortly after the avalanche disaster at the Schneefernerhaus on the Zugspitze in May 1965, further masses of snow were triggered by HE shells. Anti-tank missiles were originally intended to be used for this purpose, but they were not convinced of their effectiveness. Therefore, a howitzer from a German armed forces unit in Bad Reichenhall was dismantled and flown to the Zugspitze with helicopters.
Detection
The person responsible must check whether the detonation and the success of the explosion occurred and to what extent.
See also
- List of avalanche accidents , list of avalanches and landslides, landslides and list of disasters
- Search for avalanche victims , avalanche shovel and avalanche cord
Web links
- Watch Canadian troops use artillery to control avalanches , youtube.
- Russian soldiers create avalanche by firing artillery , youtube, March 17, 2011.
Individual proof
- ↑ Avalanche detonation with mortars
- ↑ Lukas Stoffel: Davos Artificial Avalanche Release: Blasting Effect, Methods, Use, Problems , WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Innsbruck 2010.
- ↑ Cathrin Caprez: Swiss avalanche protection becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site , website: SRF from November 29, 2018.
- ^ History of the SLF, website: slf.ch.
- ↑ Guideline for explosives training for artificial triggering of avalanches - Avalanche blasting (LA) , Switzerland.
- ↑ Detonating avalanches with a World War I howitzer , 20 minutes from January 11, 2017.
- ↑ For Germany z. B .: Frank Bräutigam, what applies to the Bundeswehr deployment in Germany? , ARD from August 3, 2016.
- ↑ Hans Eckart Rübesamen: Overdue , Zeit online from November 21, 1975.
- ↑ Passauer Neue Presse No. 114 of May 19, 1965