"Instructions on Setting Up Anti-Tank and Anti-Personnel Fire Obstructions: Fire Walls and Bottle Fields
1. General concept
Fire walls and bottle fields are used in anti-tank and anti-personnel engineering obstruction systems. Their purpose is to delay the advance of tanks and infantry and upset the enemy's fighting order to guarantee success for our counterattacks.
Fire obstructions are built on tank-accessible directions and are echeloned in depth, covered by rifle/machinegun and artillery/mortar fire from defending units.
Tank destroyer groups are located close to the fire obstructions, completing the destruction of enemy tanks when they are forced to stop.
2. Makeup of a fire wall
1. General concept
Fire walls and bottle fields are used in anti-tank and anti-personnel engineering obstruction systems. Their purpose is to delay the advance of tanks and infantry and upset the enemy's fighting order to guarantee success for our counterattacks.
Fire obstructions are built on tank-accessible directions and are echeloned in depth, covered by rifle/machinegun and artillery/mortar fire from defending units.
Tank destroyer groups are located close to the fire obstructions, completing the destruction of enemy tanks when they are forced to stop.
2. Makeup of a fire wall
- Available materials are used to create a fire wall (straw, dry wood, peat, etc).
- In order to increase the intensity of ignition and fire, the fire wall is covered generously in a flammable liquid (furnace oil or crude oil mixed with gasoline and kerosene, diesel fuel, creosote, etc).
- The width of the fire wall should be at least 5 meters at the base, and the height at least 2 meters.
- One meter of fire wall 5 meters thick and 2 meters tall takes up 7-8 cubic meters of wood, one to one and a half cubic meters of uncompressed straw (hay, dry pine needles), and 60-70 liters of fuel.
- Logs or dowels are used in the foundation to improve air flow. The straw (hay, pine needles) and wood are laid on top in dense layers, after which the wall is covered with fuel from buckets or aerosols.
- The wall is ignited in the following way:
- With static flamethrowers. The flamethrower is placed near the wall, one flamethrower every 50-60 meters. This is the best way of igniting the wall.
- Using fuses for the static flamethrowers. Wrap the fuses in parchment paper and lay one every two meters. The fuses are connected in series of 10-20 and ignited electrically.
Explosive triggers, BAS-60 and BAS-80 dry cells, car batteries, etc. can be used to trigger the fuses. - Using incendiary bottles or AZh-2 ampules filled with KS fluid. Bottles are thrown by hand or fired from rifle launchers. Ampulomets are installed 50-80 meters from the wall. One bottle is needed every 2-3 meters, or one ampule every 3-4 meters.
- With torches, matches, etc.
- It takes 2-3 seconds for the wall to ignite when flamethrowers are used. Other methods can take up to a minute.
3. Bottle fields
- Bottle fields are based on the following principle: a tank drives through a field and crushes several self-igniting bottles, which cause fires and detonate nearby bottles. The tracks throw the burning fluid up on the tank's armour. The tank is forced to stop and is destroyed by tank destroyer teams. A burning field will also cut off infantry from its tanks.
A bottle field can also be used against infantry that is attacking without tanks if it is ignited by artillery or mortar fire.
Bottle fields are built in especially important tank-accessible areas. - Bottles filled with KS or other incendiary fluid are used for bottle fields. Bottles are placed in clumps of 4-5 each in a checkered pattern with no more than one meter between groups and are camouflaged thoroughly.
- 50% of each group can be composed of KS filled bottles, and the other 50% can use other fluids.
- The depth of the field should be at least 50 meters.
- 20-25 thousand bottles are needed to create a field 100 meters wide and 50 meters deep.
In each specific case, bottle fields and fire walls can take different shapes and sizes.
Chief of the 5th Department of the UHO, Red Army Chief Directorate of Chemical Weapons, Major Zhiv
Chief of the Field Department Experimental Unit of the Red Army Chief Directorate of Chemical Weapons, Military Engineer 3rd grade Kakushkin"