How Sticks Decimated Tanks in WWII

        Japan during WWII became famous for one major type of attack, kamikaze. Japanese kamikaze soldiers would board planes and crash them into enemy vehicles to deal massive damage. While those are the more popular forms of suicide attacks, other less prominent forms also existed during WWII. One of these is the lunge mine, a weapon that was both ingenious and idiotic all at the same time. In 1945, Japan had two big problems: American tanks and no money to fight them. Since they did not have anti-tank weapons, they needed a cheap and effective way to take down 35-ton tanks, and they needed it fast. That was where the lunge mine came in. The lunge mine was a giant stick with 6.5 pounds of explosives attached to its end. The soldiers would take the stick and ram the explosive part into a tank, penetrating the armor and disabling the vehicle. Now, this sounds like an effective weapon but if you dig a little deeper, it starts looking less appealing. The big problem was that getting only a few inches away from a tank was extremely difficult. If a soldier that was trying to get close to the tank got caught, he was out of luck. Guns were pointed at his head and all he had to defend himself was a bomb on a stick. Even if someone did get close enough to the tank, they did not have a 100% chance of completely taking it out. Sometimes the best the mine did was deal some minor damage. Overall, the lunge mine was an interesting idea with rather mixed results. 

Source: 

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/japanese-lunge-mines.html