Slashdot Mirror
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?
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.
Hacker/genius John Walker (founder of Autodesk) proposes the construction of minerats, autonomous mine-clearing robots.
k., Lego Minestorms?
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Howstuffworks has a page about clearing landmines and here is another page that describes how it can be done. The US Army even has a page about different ways to detect and remove mines. There is a UK company/charity 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.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
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).
Ship livestock to the mined areas that have been diagnosed with BSE (no, not BSD). Let them roam free, and tell the inhabitants not to eat the gibs. This concept has made it into a game called Unexploded Cow.
:^)
And before anyone flies off the handle, I'm just kidding.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
The full spec sheet on Afghanistan can be found here: Afghanistan
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.
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.
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.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.