Ken-On a Hatchet team mission I witnessed two indig step on the M14 not a pretty sight. Believe me after that rest of us were concerned where we walked in that area. The mines were assumed to be planted by previous Recon team or enemy placed them from captured equipment earlier.

Me-how big of a blast did they make? like frag grenade big? or like an S-mine (bouncing betty)?

Ken-I must have been 15 to 20 feet from the blast. We had just halted on a long up hill trek through thick grass and brush. Setting up perimeter security . I was instructed to take three indig 200 meters up a high speed trail and Recon the area, upon returning no sightings

I was about to sit down then a muffled boom off to my right. Not like a grenade more like a 40mm less immediately we hit the dirt thinking incoming looking toward the blast a indig squad member was laying on the ground not yelling or screaming he showed he was hurting. However before someone could get to him a indig next to him approached him and boom another explosion he fell near the first guy. Someone yelled mines and someone reached both of them dragged to a safe spot and I observed the damage.

One hit the mine with the toes of the boot and it cracked open hos jungle boot like a V all I saw was half of his foot was split wide. The second guy stepped on the mine with his heal of the boot. Pushing his heal up his leg bone about 5 inches must have shattered his ankle. Still cannot believe how quite they were not making any sound with serious injuries. I did not observe the actual ground where the mines were. We assumed they were old m14s left by earlier Recon teams.

M14 Anti-personal Mine “Toe popper”. The M14 mine is a US small anti-personnel landmine first fielded in the late 1950s. The M14 mechanism uses a belleville spring to flip a firing pin downwards into a stab detonator when pressure is applied. Once deployed, the M14 is very difficult to detect due to its mainly plastic design. Because of this the design was later modified to ease mine clearance via the addition of a steel washer, glued onto the base of the mine.In order to activate the M14, the base plug is removed and discarded and a stab detonator is screwed into the base of the mine. Then the mine is placed into a shallow hole in the ground and the pressure plate is carefully rotated from its safety position to the armed position using the special arming spanner supplied in each crate of mines. Finally, the U-shaped safety clip is removed from the pressure plate and discarded. At this point, the mine is fully armed.The top of an M14 has a simple arming indicator (a yellow-painted arrow) on it which can point to either A(rmed) or S(afe), giving a clear indication of its status. When the arrow points to ‘A’, the M14 will detonate if stepped on. Disarming the M14 requires the arming steps to be performed in reverse. However, due to the possibility of a booby trap or some other type of anti-handling device being fitted underneath, it is often standard demining practice to destroy landmines in situ, without attempting to remove and disarm them.