New Ideas on Clearing Land Mines? 30
LaoK asks: "Afghanistan's millions of land mines continue to pose
a threat to civilians, and a potential hazard for
international forces mobilizing to strike the terrorist
suspects and their Taliban protectors. After reading the
recent comments brainstorming the idea of hydrogen fuel
for jetliners, a discussion of practical (and hopefully
inexpensive) ideas for clearing mines seems like another
good topic for this technically-minded gathering. One of the most useful things the international community can do to aid the Afghan people in a post-Taliban era is to finish cleaning up this mess." Such techniques would find ready use all over the world. Has anyone heard of safer techniques in mine removal, or is it still a large and dangerous guessing game?
I remember once (Score:1)
I also once saw an article about some kind of tank with a plow like front end that would upturn the ground. It took care of the mines, but probably is slow work.
FP
DRACO-
Smart landmines (Score:1)
The basic idea was that the mines could move themselves around, and communicate with other mines, so that when some were blown up or cleared the other remaining mines would rearrange to cover the whole area.
Kinda scary, huh? And that's coming from the Americans!
Dave.
Re:Smart landmines (Score:4, Interesting)
The next generation of weapons are supposed to be so called brilliant weapons. They will distinguish between friend or foe. The next generation cruise missiles are planned to fly around the battlefield for hours until they spot a valuable target worth destroying.
The US army is planning a Unix based TCP/IP network on the battlefield for instantaneous sending of information up and down the chain of command. From the combat vehicle fighting a battle to a corps command center hundreds of miles behind the lines.
Re:Smart landmines (Score:2)
Re:Smart landmines (Score:1)
Minerats (Score:4, Informative)
k., Lego Minestorms?
Here are some links (Score:3, Informative)
Howstuffworks has a page about clearing landmines [howstuffworks.com] and here [ukdf.org.uk] is another page that describes how it can be done. The US Army even has a page [army.mil] about different ways to detect and remove mines. There is a UK company/charity [dervish.org] that is developing an anti-mine robot. During the Gulf War, the military used small rockets to shoot lengths of explosive cord into a mine field. When the cord exploded, it would detonate the mines near the surface. Detonation of fuel-air bombs is another technique that I've heard about. Unfortnately, most of the land mine resources on the web that I've found appear to be charity/activist pages about the need to get rid of land mines, but very little on how to actually do it.
Detection vehicles being made. (Score:1)
how Afghani's clear land mines (Score:1)
For a start : (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For a start : (Score:2)
The only thing more frightening than "hawks" are prattleing "pro-peace" morons like yourself.
Re:For a start : (Score:2)
What you are saying is that because making murder illegal doesn't stop murders, then we should keep it legal. I'm sorry, I don't buy your logic...
Re:For a start : (Score:1)
Re:For a start : (Score:1)
Damned things are just too effective.
Or maybe, just maybe, someone recognizes that it's futile to sign a treaty that doesn't actually do any good?
Cowboy Neal (Score:1, Flamebait)
On second thought, maybe the last choice in the list should be Anne Tomlinson.
mad cows :-) (Score:2)
And before anyone flies off the handle, I'm just kidding.
Re:mad cows :-) (Score:1)
I like the idea of sending healthy livestock like a million sheep. Take a herd of sheep and a bunch of hungry people. Drive said sheep over minefield in question. Have large mutton feast celebrating the clearing of the minefield. Breed remaining sheep and repeat. This would help the land mine problem in a sick kind of humorous way and also help the people eat. See this thread at Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] for the original reference.
"An idyllic, peaceful expanse of sheep, the contented "Baaah"ing, punctuated with explosions and sheep flying into the air."
--Kaki Nix Sain (on kuro5hin)
DD
Afghanistan Land Mine Info (Score:2, Interesting)
The full spec sheet on Afghanistan can be found here: Afghanistan [icbl.org]
Afghanistan. In the year 2000, an average of about 88 mine and UXO casualties per month were recorded, a sharp decline from recorded casualties in 1999.
In 2000, mine action organizations marked and mapped about 126 million square meters of mine and UXO contaminated land, and cleared about 104 million square meters of mine and UXO contaminated land.
A total of 13,542 antipersonnel mines, 636 antitank mines and 298,828 UXO were destroyed during these clearance operations.
Mine awareness organizations provided formal mine awareness training to more than one million people. MAPA experienced a severe shortage of funds in 2000 and as a result could not achieve its operational targets for the year and had to lay off five manual mine clearance teams, two technical survey teams and two international experts.
Mine action operations were suspended in Badghais and Faryab provinces after seven mine awareness workers were killed in August 2000.
The Taliban and their opposition, the Northern Alliance, have accused each other of laying new landmines. The Northern Alliance denied use to Landmine Monitor, but admitted to an EU mission that they continued to use antipersonnel mines.
Cook 'em ! (Score:1)
After reading some info on HERF devices and microwaves recently:
How about building a strong microwave emitter and sweeping the ground with it. Would that cause the mines to explode (due to heating up)?
Alternatively a strong electromagnetic field could fry the electronics, so the trigger wouldn't work anymore. If the mines are covered mostly in plastic, to avoid easy detection, they don't have a faraday cage to protect them from EM pulses either?
Only works for mines close to the surface I guess.
Disclaimer: it's just an idea, I don't know anything about mines and little about EM beam devices.
older methods also work .. (Score:1)
Landmine Clearing Suggestions (Score:1)
How to eliminate future mines. (Score:2, Funny)
Create a detailed map indicating the location of each mine as it is deployed.
When it's time to clear the mines notify the RIAA and give them the map.
Boom! go the mines and the lawyers.
Clear the whole country in a few minutes... (Score:1)