New Ideas on Clearing Land Mines?

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

[DRACO-]

I remember reading something in pop sci or pop mechanics about a helo with a chain net that would get dragged across mined areas to disturb the mines and cause them to blow.

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

[XoXus]

A while ago, there was a New Scientist article about the Bush Administration wanting to break the Ottowa Treaty, because they wanted to create a so-called "intelligent" mine field.

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

[alen]

America has always used it's best scientists for military research. Do you know that an M1 tank can ride at 30-40 miles an hour over rough terrain jumping up and down. But the computer will compensate and keep the sights straight and level on the target. Then it will shoot out a laser that when it returns will tell the computer the weather conditions, wind etc to compute the firing solution. An M1 tank has something of an 80% chance of hitting a moving target from 1 mile away in this enviroment.

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

[SuiteSisterMary]

The M1 tank is an amazing weapon. Even takes into account how many shells have been fired through the barrel overall, and lately, as that affects performance. As to the TCP/IP network, are you talking about IVIS? Turns the battlefield into a video game; absolutely amazing.

Re:Smart landmines

[GooberToo]

And don't forget that it uses two lasers to determine and correct for the amount of barrel warpage and heat expansion to fire more accurately.

Minerats

[ktakki]

Hacker/genius John Walker (founder of Autodesk) proposes the construction of minerats [fourmilab.ch], autonomous mine-clearing robots.

k., Lego Minestorms?

Here are some links

[ksheff]

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.

[elrick_the_brave]

The company I work at is developing fast and effective detection equipment. Best thing of all it's remote controlled. No worries about being blown up! Somehow I don't think it's cheap though. It's meant for clearning paths for relief convoys and the like. See here: Foresight [computingdevices.com]

how Afghani's clear land mines

[cpfeifer]

This article [google.com] defines & explains the afghani land mine problem in full. Excellent article!

For a start :

[Betcour]

Maybe before trying to get rid of existing landmines, the US could finally sign the treaty banning landmines. Along China, they are the last to oppose banning of landmines. It is nice to know that the profit of the US military industry is more important than stoping more kids of loosing one leg (or their life for the less lucky ones).

Re:For a start :

[duffbeer703]

The anti-landmine treaty is about as useful as the much-heralded treaty that banned war in the 1920's.

The only thing more frightening than "hawks" are prattleing "pro-peace" morons like yourself.

Re:For a start :

[Betcour]

It is useful - many countries have stopped manufacturing mines and destroyed the stocks they owned. Even if small quantities are manufactured in secret (much like chemical and bio warfare which are forbidden), the dissemination in third world countries (which is were land mines are used and cause so many injuries and death) would be greatly reduced.

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 :

[Betcour]

Yeah - it is so much better to make sure that everybody and their dog is armed to the teeth... I even propose that the government subsidise guns so that even the poorest people can go around with the latest Glock. The streets will be so much safer this way...

Re:For a start :

[Mr. Foogle]

Ever thought that maybe, just maybe, it's not the Evil US Military Industry, but just perhaps that the US Army is quite GOOD at utilizing AND cleaning up their own landmines?

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

[unitron]

It just occurred to me that a few suggestions on how to clear land mines could be the choices for the next Slashdot poll. I vote for the cowpoke. If he was involved in trying to fix Slashdot's server problems a while back, he already knows how to navigate a minefield.

On second thought, maybe the last choice in the list should be Anne Tomlinson.

mad cows :-)

[StandardDeviant]

Ship livestock to the mined areas that have been diagnosed with BSE [usda.gov] (no, not BSD [openbsd.org]). Let them roam free, and tell the inhabitants not to eat the gibs. This concept has made it into a game [cheapass.com] called Unexploded Cow.

And before anyone flies off the handle, I'm just kidding. :^)

Re:mad cows :-)

[DoubleD]

How dare you! oh wait you said you were just kidding :).
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

[Carey]

From the Landmine Monitor Report: 2001 at Asia-Pacfic [icbl.org]

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 !

[osolemirnix]

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 ..

[nick-less]

look here [army-technology.com]

Landmine Clearing Suggestions

[justanyone]

Blowing up the landmine is often avoided by clearing crews, though I don't know why. My ideas are as follows:

• lightly armored steamroller-type vehicles with human-foot-sized and weighted but very dumb appendages that stomp on the ground.
• spring mounted human-weighted pogo sticks on a square platform suspended by a wheeled crane. Driver drives forward and bounces platform on ground ahead. Clears anti-personnel mines on rough ground.
• vertical concentric steel tubes chained together, placed over active mine, with slack between tubes, held up by center tube. When lowered over mine, explodes up, channeling debris vertically.
  • Just Some Ideas from JustAnyone

How to eliminate future mines.

[Partisan]

Tape a CD-R containing Metallica MP3s to each mine.
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...

[josquint]

We might as well NUKE'M anyways. Take out the land mindes, taliban, and Osama Yo Mama all with 1 ICBM with multiple independant warheads... :->