Land mine

A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automatically by way of pressure when a target steps on it or drives over it, though other detonation mechanisms are also sometimes used. A land mine may cause damage by direct blast effect, by fragments that are thrown by the blast, or by both.

The name originates from the ancient practice of military mining, where tunnels were dug under enemy fortifications or troop formations by sappers. These killing tunnels ("mines") were at first collapsed to destroy targets located above, but they were later filled with explosives and detonated in order to cause even greater devastation.

Nowadays, in common parlance, land mines generally refer to devices specifically manufactured as anti-personnel or anti-vehicle weapons. Though many types of improvised explosive devices ("IEDs") can technically be classified as land mines, the term land mine is typically reserved for manufactured devices designed to be used by recognized military services, whereas IED is used for makeshift devices assembled by paramilitary, insurgent, or terrorist groups.

Landmine (Transformers)

Landmine is the name to several fictional characters from the Transformers series. The first Landmine was a heroic Autobot Pretender who shouldn't be confused with Lander, a similar character.

Transformers: Generation 1

Landmine is one of the first Autobot Pretenders to be created. The Autobot Pretenders are Transformers who have an armored shell usually resembling a humanoid. As with many Pretenders, Landmine did not appear in a cartoon shown in the U.S.; his only appearance was in the Marvel comics.

Reception

One of the hotels in Walt Disney World is called Disney's Pop Century Resort, which has different buildings from different decades of the later half of the 1900s. In the lobby are a series of shadow boxes with memorbelia from each decade. In the one from the 1980s are various items including a Transformers Landmine robot.

Animated series

Although the US Transformers animated series stopped making new episodes before Landmine was brought out, his Japanese counterpart Lander appeared in the Masterforce anime series.