MKI Hawkins Mine- Replica

The MKI Hawkins mine was a British made anti-tank mine that was used extensively by US paratroopers on D-Day but until now, no companies have replicated them.  The replica Hawkins mines that have been available on the market for the past decade were the later MKII versions which look quite different than the MKI and they were not used by American paratroopers.  After years of development we have finally succeeded in replicating the complete MKI Hawkins mine.  

Features include:

1. All steel construction
2. Proper metal stamped nomenclature
3. Properly shaped crush plates
4. "Detonator windows" cut into the top and bottom brackets
5. Vertical "detonator channels"
6. Proper red oxide paint finish
7. Proper "live ordinance" red paint markings

We have worked tirelessly to recreate every detail of the MKI Hawkins mine that we possibly could.  We started by making a heavy gauge steel body then metal embossing it with the proper manufacturer nomenclature.

From there we started on the brackets that hold the crush plate.  These brackets differ from MKII mines as they are diagonal mounted to the body of the mine rather than being vertical.  Additionally the top and bottom of the bracket need to have small windows cut in them to allow access to the "detonator channels" that are welded to the body of the mine beneath the crush plate (on MKII mines these channels are diagonal so the user wouldn't need to access them through windows in the bracket).  From there the crush plate was pretty straight forward as we have been making those for years.

Lasty we wanted to match the paint scheme of original mines.  MKI Hawkins were original painted in red oxide primer but were not painted with a top coat so we created ours the same way.  As far as the paint markings on other repo Hawkins mines, this is a detail guys always get wrong.  Most guys paint their mines to have a white cap and a white stripe or sometimes "X's" on the top and bottom endcaps as seen on many originals in museums and private collections, however this is incorrect.  White paint markings on British mines identified them as training dummies that were filled with inert contents which were usually a combination of oily sand and sawdust.  Live Hawkins mines had different paint colors for different explosive contents.  For our mine we copied the paint scheme of an original Hawkins mine that was dug up in Normandy which had a red oxide body with its cap painted red.

After a few events if you wish to repaint your MKI Hawkins we suggest using Rust-oleum rusty metal primer (see attached picture) as it is a perfect shade of red oxide to match original mines. 

Note that the caps of these mines will have slight paint chips from the install process, these can easily be touched up using acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby or other craft stores if desired.

Note that these replicas are not able to be shipped outside the United States