Abstract: An explosive body such as a rocket, bomb, cluster shell, or the like is pided with a safety mechanism which assures that the explosive body cannot explode in its launching tube nor shortly after leaving the launching tube. The mechanism also makes sure that a body which has been accidentally cocked cannot be inserted into its launching tube. For these purposes the safety mechanism has a slide (3) carrying a detonator and slidable in a housing under the control of a spring loaded see-saw lever (2) having one lever arm (16) cooperating with a plurality of position controllable stops (11, 12, 32) and another lever arm (17) cooperating with stop shoulders (5 or 6) of the slide (3) whereby shifting of the detonator into its arming or "life" position takes place in at least two steps. An arresting device (21) prevents the shifting of the slide back into the safety-on position once the slide has moved to any extent in the arming or safety-off direction.