Landmines Of Afghanistan

Some sources report that the 3rd-century Prime Minister Zhuge Liang of the Kingdom of Shu in China invented a land mine type device. This claim was made by Jiao Yu in his Huolongjing Quanzhi (Fire-drake Manual in One Complete Volume), his preface written in 1412 AD (although the book was originally published in the mid 14th century), and that Zhuge had used not only "fire weapons" but land mines in the Battle of Hulugu Valley against the forces of Sima Yi and his son Sima Zhao of the Wei Kingdom. However, this claim is dubious, considering that gunpowder warfare did not exist in China until the advent of the flamethrower (Pen Huo Qi) in the 10th century, while the land mine was not seen in China until the late 13th century.
The first land mine in Europe was created by Pedro Navarro (d. 1528), a Spanish soldier, who used it in the settles of the Italian castles, in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
At Augsburg in 1573, a German military engineer by the name of Samuel Zimmermann invented an extremely effective mine known as the fladdermine. It consisted of a fougasse (or later, sometimes a shell fougasse, that is, a fougasse loaded not with stones but with early black powder mortar shells, similar to large black powder hand grenades) activated by a snaphance or flintlock mechanism connected to a tripwire on the surface. Combining the effects of a tripwire activated bounding fragmentation mine with a cluster bomb, it was devastating to massed attackers but required high maintenance due to the susceptibility of black powder to dampness. Consequently it was mainly employed in the defenses of major fortifications, in which role it continued to be used until the 1870s.