Lock 'n Load: sappers destroy town with TNT in WWI: which town?

[Snowdog]

A buddy and I were discussing an episode of that he missed of Lock 'n Load (hosted by R. Lee Ermey on The History Channel).  In this episode about bunker-busters, Ermey briefly talked about a town in WWI that had sappers of the British, Canadian and Austrailian forces pack tunnels dug underneath the town's fortifications with 480 tons of TNT (or Dynamite, I can't remember), destroying the town and killing 10,000 Germans.  He had never heard of such a thing (neither did I before the episode) and asked the name of the town, an important detail I can't remember.

Does anyone know what the name of this town was?  Searching Google isn't helping a bit.

Thanks in advance!

[Hawkmoon]

Seems unlikely. It would have required the entire duration of the war to dig enough tunnel to hold 480 TONS of TNT. And it would have had to be carried in by hand -- 480 tons is 960,000 pounds. If we figure each man carried 100 pounds on each trip (which might be an unlikely assumption with TNT), we'd be talking 9,600 trips.

Colour me skeptical.

[MicroBalrog]

It requires a man about two hours of work to remove a cubic meter of soft soil, or at least so the military engineering manuals I read say.

TNT's density is about 1.6 grams/cubic centimeter. So it would require about 300 cubic meters of soil to be removed at a minimum, which would take about 600 hours of work to build if the soil was soft.  Say 1200 hours, to accommodate for the soil not necessarily being soft. A platoon of sappers, [about 50 men?] would require 24 hours of work to build it (or maybe 3 days of digging). Now this is just for the hole to stuff the TNT in. There'd probably be far more stuff to dig here, but it could be done.

Also, your calculation figures that there's only one man carrying the TNT. Again, imagine there being a platoon of sappers. They could split the work between them. I've read in the past about massive combat engineering jobs being carried out in stages by groups of people using only basic tools. So while I have doubts about this I'll withhold judgment until a more knowledgeable poster confirms or negates this story.

[RocketMan]

Micro provided some interesting information there.  It's also possible that some existing tunnels and catacombs were tapped into, thereby shortening the job.

[MicroBalrog]

I rely in this on a Russian site, by Lt. Colonel Yuri Veremeev.

Though upon checking, he states digging speed (utilizing the standard sapper shovel of the Russian Army) can reach a cubic meter per hour in soft soil, and 0.5 cubes per hour is for a man utilizing an entrenchment tool. Either way, he specifies that trained sappers can carry out very elaborate projects using only basic tools [bear in mind Lt. Colonel Veremeev is a sapper himself and believes combat engineering to be the end-all and be-all of military operations. On his site, he rants against the other branches of the Russian Army for abusing the tools of his trade and failing to appreciate sappers properly.]

[French G.]

I think this is what you are referring to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines Somewhere else I have read that there are some of these type mines out there from other battles that failed to detonate. The article talks about one of the missing mines from Messines that detonated by lightning strike some years later. Who will be the lucky welldriller that finds the next one?

Mining operations

Over a period beginning more than a year before the attack, Canadian, Australian, and British engineers tunnelled under the German trenches and laid 21 mines totaling 455 tonnes of ammonal explosive.[9] To solve the problem of wet soil, the tunnels were made in the layer of "blue clay", 80–120 feet (25–30 m) below the surface.[9] The galleries dug in order to lay these mines totalled over 8,000 yards (7,300 m) in length, and had been constructed in the face of tenacious German counter-mining efforts.[10] On several occasions, German tunnellers were within metres of large British mine "chambers". One mine was found by the Germans, and the chamber was wrecked by a countermine.[11]
"Lone Tree Crater" in November 2009

The largest of the 21 Messines mines was at Spanbroekmolen; the "Lone Tree Crater" formed by the blast was approximately 250 feet (80 m) in diameter, and 40 feet (12 m) deep.[12] The mine consisted of 41 tons of ammonal explosive, located in a chamber dug 88 feet (27 m) below ground.[12]

The evening before the attack, General Plumer remarked to his staff, "Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."[13]

Detonation of the mines

At 02:50am on 7 June, the artillery bombardment ceased. Expecting an immediate infantry assault, German defenders returned to their forward positions.[17] At 3:10am, the mines were detonated, killing approximately 10,000 German soldiers and destroying most of the fortifications on the ridge, as well as the town of Messines itself.[17] Reports were made that the shockwave from the explosion was heard as far away as London and Dublin.[18] To make matters worse for the Germans, the explosions occurred while the front line troops were being relieved, meaning both groups (relieving and relieved) were caught in the blasts.[18]

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

how wide is the tunnel leading in that folks can go more than one at a time?

heres some pretty big stuff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1986186/posts

[Viking]

I think this is what you are referring to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines Somewhere else I have read that there are some of these type mines out there from other battles that failed to detonate. The article talks about one of the missing mines from Messines that detonated by lightning strike some years later. Who will be the lucky welldriller that finds the next one?

I was thinking of that one too, but I couldn't remember the name of the battle. That IS some impressive work done there, and an even more impressive blast!

[AJ Dual]

It requires a man about two hours of work to remove a cubic meter of soft soil, or at least so the military engineering manuals I read say.

TNT's density is about 1.6 grams/cubic centimeter. So it would require about 300 cubic meters of soil to be removed at a minimum, which would take about 600 hours of work to build if the soil was soft.  Say 1200 hours, to accommodate for the soil not necessarily being soft. A platoon of sappers, [about 50 men?] would require 24 hours of work to build it (or maybe 3 days of digging). Now this is just for the hole to stuff the TNT in. There'd probably be far more stuff to dig here, but it could be done.

Also, your calculation figures that there's only one man carrying the TNT. Again, imagine there being a platoon of sappers. They could split the work between them. I've read in the past about massive combat engineering jobs being carried out in stages by groups of people using only basic tools. So while I have doubts about this I'll withhold judgment until a more knowledgeable poster confirms or negates this story.

You also have to appreciate that during static trench or siege warfare, they had plenty of time to dig and shore up the tunnels. So they would not even need to work this fast.

Or conversely, if they have the men to spare and can work them to exhaustion for that one cubic meter of soil, then bring in a fresh man, they could work even faster than that.

[Gewehr98]

http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/messines.htm

[Hawkmoon]

Okay, colour me corrected.

I was a combat engineer, so this kind of stuff fascinates me. The fact that it took them 18 months to set up the big bang sort of validates my initial skepticism. I would not have thought that any line remained THAT stationary for that long, even in WW1.

[InfidelSerf]

I finely downloaded that episode.
Yep is was the Battle of Messine in Belgium that he refers to.
Impressive