Slashdot Mirror
Robot Mine Smasher
A reader writes "
Robotsotre had a link to a Japanese story about a new landmine-hunting robot that covers the mine with a protective dome and then smashes it with a high-velocity hydraulic piston. The company's called Cos Co, the robot is 3.5m long, and the cost about $75K (USD).
Robot mine hunter does job quietly
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20020213wo71.htm
Not that I know much about landmines, but does this mean the detonator cap is smashed without detonating? Or separated from the explosives before it can?" As this article also points out, this will help remove mines in Afghanistan, which after 20 years of war has more then a few around.
Good to hear this is really what tech is surposed to do.
I would like to see its, any pics any1 ?
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
...lego mindstorms!!!
forget the robotic lego rubik cube solver! This is the REAL DEAL!
Imagine small khaki-colored legos going into actual battle.
-the lego death squad
EAT BRICKS YOU SOBs!!!
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Why detonate the mine when you can put it on fire without any explosion.
Most explosives can burn without exploding.
A simple burning bullet might do the trick.
The problem is often not disarming the mine but finding it.
/Tobias
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
They say "The hammer can strike mines at velocities of up to three meters per second.".
So, that's 3m*60s*60m = 10800m/h = 10.8 km/h.
That's fast? I smell some misinformation in here.
I was just telling my friend that technology is way over rated sometimes. This is a fine instance where it is not. I just dont see how it could be silent however.
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Slashdot rocks! Keep up the good work guys!
One of the things that I miss is how such a robot would move around. Mines usually aren't all hidden in easy accesible places on a road, so how does this droid come to the mines? Let's hope that the test version did not count on human beings carrying it. I can already imagine 10 people lifting this piece of iron, lugging it towards the mines when suddenly one of them hears a click under his foot.
"Sorry Jim, but we're going to defuse the bomb through your foot. This will only hurt a bit."
I intend to live forever, so far so good.
The company has a webpage here but they don't have an article/photos (at least in the engrish section of their site). Anyone read Japanese?
but how does it locate the mines, and how fast? If I remember correctly the most cost-effective method of removing mines is training local personel for the job. Although this costs $$$ and takes *lots* of time I can't imagine a $75K beeing more cost effective.. And, at he bottom line it's all about $$, right? (Corrections wanted, needed and apreciated) -Typos added for xtra effect
I'd rather a "Robot, Mime Smasher" Not a smasher of Robotic Mimes. Well, maybe them too. Just something that smashes mimes. Disturbing group of people. *shudder*
Them and mime attachments. Hey, could be an e-mail virus killer.
:)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Did anyone find information on what this cover is all about? I don't know about the rest of you, but I just had a vision of a lego man covering a landmine with a hankerchief before hitting it with a hammer. So I wonder what exactly the cover is made of.
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
I don't think so.
You may one day become a genuine skeptic if you can find a way to point that skeptical eye at your own uncritical thinking.
<bart
Even if one blows up by accident it will have been less expensive than loosing a trained soldier. Seriously though, my brother who is in the Army Reserves here in Canada (we have an Army?) took a three-week basic trainning course. Apparently the course cost the Canadian government $30 000 CDN (currently 18,869.11 USD thanks to Bloomberg) for each to-be-infantry-unit. The scary thing is that it's only the first of several courses which get him to the rank of private (the lowest rank in case you didn't know.) I can't image what the cost is for the highly-trained enlisted men, especially the engineers who continue to search for landmines in person.
As always, and more importantly than cost, if it can save lives, it's a worthwhile piece of gear. It will be interesting to see, if these robots are a success, just how much the units, the robots are "posted to," mod their little mine finders. "Mine serves beer too!" (It's even a pun! Forgive me.)
Peace.
could this be the beginning of the end of landmines? think about it, if this robot works as well as claimed, military forces will probably be quick to integrate what appears to be inexpensive technology into anything they can. if tanks have this tech built into the front or underside of the vehicle then they could just roll right over landmines. further, footsoldiers could be equipped with the detection aspect of the system and perhaps eventually a variant of the 'smashing' technology itself.
so at that point (sometime in the future obviously), why bother buying and placing landmines that are totally ineffective against military forces? I'm not a big fan of war, so I'm not sure that unstoppable ubertanks are a great idea, but then again I'm not so sure about many of the militarys' plans and ideas. At any rate, the elimination of landmines and the elimination of their use would be a great thing for civilians.
in case you didn't know its usually civilians who end up finding the land mines. Actually, I have a doctor friend who travels to areas heavily ridden with landmines in order to teach reconstructive medicine because so many civilians not only find the mines, but are then unable to recieve proper medical care.
there are also some graphic pictures there of various other trauma he teaches reconstructive medicine in relation to, so be forewarned. and hit up my website and download some music that I am paying these stinky bandwidth bills for while you are at it!
riaa untouched. no login required. advertisement free.
full length albums complete with print resolution artwork -- earth2willi.com
Isn't this all hypocrisis to bomb Afghanistan and to drop thousands of mines on them, and to declare helping them after by taking out the mines.....?
This was not a troll but indeed something offtopic that a *mindless* pro-american have decided to hide from the common-sensed people around!
How may you praise antimining devices ?
maybe because your military-weapon-lobbyists will increase their gains by not only sending these but also such devices.
moderators are morons.
moderation is moronism (aka "political correctness").
I unchecked the willing to moderate box one year ago
BTW: this is flamebait, yes, but a moderator made it.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The parent comment is currently at (Score:0, Troll). It is not a troll, it is completely accurate.
From the article:
That cannot be correct. A metre or meter is roughly a yard, so "three meters per second" is about 9 feet per second. By comparison, the bullet from a .45 acp, one of the slowest rounds fired from modern firearms, can do 1000 feet per second or more, and many rifle rounds will break 3000fps. Shooting mines is known to set them off, not to disarm them safely because of the high velocity of the bullet. "Three meters per second" is simply not high velocity, by any standard that would seem to fit the context.
This could be a typo, a translation error, or simply a case of information having been mangled by a reporter who didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but it definately does look like some incorrect information.
As to the moderation of the parent post... be looking for this joker on meta-mod folks. And if you have mod points today, bump it up a point or two please.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Article says the detection is optical.
That's cool. But not all AP mines have a probe above ground AFAIK. Modern types have minuscule amounts of metal in the detonator to boot, too.
I don't think that looking for turned earth in any warzone's going to get you very far.. So just how is the mine detection gear supposed to work? Xray?
To prevent further mines being used it would help if the companies that made the components were publicly listed so we could choose wether or not buy theirs or their subsiduaries products (ICI? for example). Same goes for banks that fund dictators. Instead of the press saying this person is bad they should name the bank funding them with loans thus empowering the public to actually do something about it i.e take their business elsewhere. Without bank loans no countrye can afford a modern war. Welcome to ethical business.
Sounds like Battlebots has got a new contender for next season..
Now, what are they gonna name it? Defuzor? Super Happy Fun CrushBot?
Tim Dorr
Owner/Manger
A Small Orange
I'm a tech guy myself and a /. reader to prove it, but when it comes to disarming mines one must turn to other means. Reason:
1. The machine will very likely get stuck in the not-so-ideal terrain mines are dug into.
2a. There are no good logistics for things like spare parts, fuel etc in third-world, mine-ridden countries.
2b. A techy machine is very valuable as, exactly, spare parts. Therefore, it will be looted rather than used as intended. example A large European aluminium manufacturer made studies of using aluminium beams in Catastrophe Shelter Housing. It became obvious that the alum would create riots, and therefore, one had to use bamboo. Good for India, bad for Big Industry.
3. Third-world labour is M-U-C-H cheaper than industrialised-world labour. To design, manufacture, deploy, operate, service and even protect an anti-mine machine, whatever the kind, requires tenfold the resources than paying unemployed, higly motivated locals to do the job. The job is ACTUALLY not very dangerous if education and overseeing is done properly.
4. Auto-mine-cleaners remove a smaller percentage of the mines than human workers. Therefore, it is NOT SAFE to enter an area that has been "cleaned" by machines.
What REALLY PISSES ME OFF is that industrialised countries makes easily-digestable "foreign aid budgets" by giving domestic industry R&D money that can never be translated into a better situation for the ones that really need it. Check out the way your Foreign Aid is distributed, Americans. It sucks, big time, and sadly, that makes the rule rather than the exeption.
What about magnetic mines. I mean there are combination mines that are both for personal and anti vehicle use (disgusting, right). These mines can be stepped on for explosion, also they feel vehicles by the magnetic mechanism and explode.
That could be a problem if the robot is not constructed in material other that metal.
Like USA, who refused to sign the paper concerning that issue. But then again it's an republican president now, meaning WEAPONS WEAPONS... like that stupid anti missile shield, when everybody know that the most dangerous attacks come from actions inside the country not outside, like Olkahome, Wold trade center etc etc .....
hmm i'm going off topic in here so I will just shut up :)
Migx
How sad then, that America has almost single-handedly prevented the banning of anti-personnel land mines, principally because it is afraid of losing its ability to interfere in Korea.
...not laying them in the first place is a lot more cost / effort / human-life efficient than removing mines once you have...
ta mere etait bien plus polie avec moi quand je lui ai defonce l'anus avant-hier soir.
depuis elle m'a quitte pour un chien et te voila, fruit de son union contre nature.
j'espere que tu aboyes comme tu tapes, je pourrais te vendre tres cher a un zoo.
Robot Wars got boring when it became apparaent that a small wedge shaped robot with self righting capabilities and loads of torque would beat anything.
I haven't seen one yet with a bad-guy-detector on it.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Some of the minefields there were hit by massive
floods recently. Now the mines are shifted,
so mine maps are no good, and they're oriented
every which way. Build a robot that can
handle that, and you will prove yourself a
major stud.
"We want to contribute to reconstruction efforts (in Afghanistan) by combining the knowledge and expertise of private firms and universities," he said.
Right. They were all sitting around drinking bud and watching the superbowl ads. At first they were upset that there was no wazaaabi followup. Then something struck them in the head when the fridge won the robitics battle.
I'm glad we can finally deploy landmines without a bad conscience. Hooray technology. Now if someone made an SDI-style defense system we could also use those expensive nuclear missiles we've been stockpiling. Go, scientists. Protect the innocent (that's us), so we can dish out more.
Interesting. If the detonator were destroyed inproperly, made unstable, you would end up with a more deadly less predictable mine. I hope it works, but lets not beta test it on people who need human support too. A human would have to deal with the un-detonated mine that has a broken fuse, if the shell is cracked the explosives are potentially very unstable.
OK, the article was a bit light so the above could be making five from two plus two.
e4 e5
It's probably not the ideal tool but wouldn't it make sense to let this thing loose on a strip of land to search for mines before real humans try to search the same strip. After all, people may be cheap in some parts of the world but they're never disposable.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
This page has what is possibly an early photo of the droid.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The best mine smasher was made by the Mules on Junkyard Wars. A large, rotating metal cylinder with chains coming off of it. It certainly did a good job thrashing the ground and the mines in the ground. I think we should make a robot based on that design and let it loose.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Some factoids from the Gruaniad:
I hope this will be useful for all unexploded ordnance (UXO), not just mines. Iraq and Kuwait are still full of US UXO from the Gulf, and in a karmic twist, this report for the US army actually focuses on US troop casualties (based on Gulf data) as a prime consideration of US UXO, with civilian casualties as an "Oh yeah" afterthought. When even the military starts getting worried about the amount of explosives they're scattering everywhere, it's time to take stock.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
A couple of quick items from someone trained to handle mines.
No, not all mines have probes or trips above the ground - there are both anti-personnel and anti-armor mines that are completely buried with no above ground protrusions.
"Not that I know much about landmines, but does this mean the detonator cap is smashed without detonating? Or separated from the explosives before it can?"
No, this would blow the whole thing.
I can't help it - I'm a 19D.
Everytime the bot gets blown up they can just snap it back together.
Though in solving the problem of stepping on landminds you will be CAUSING the problem of stepping on Lego pieces while walking barefoot through the fields at night. "Ouch!! Goddammit!!!"
I was in the Army for a while and even spent some time working with the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit learning about bomb defusal. I think this robot is a great idea and could even work, but it has some definate drawbacks. There are a lot of mines where this would work very well.
The Army uses small explosive charges themselves to disarm the mines while at the same time the explosion throws them out of the way. As far as everyone talking about the non-ideal terrain that it would have to find mines on, I don't entirely agree. Military disposal is usually limited to making a wide enough path through an area so the rest of the force can travel through. The military doesn't waste time (according to them a waste of time) disarming every mine they come across. They just take care of the ones directly in their way and move on. As long as the mines in the area were not of a very few specific types of the mines out there, it would be great to not have to risk human lives and use the robot to disarm the mines.
A few issues that would need to be addressed are the sensing, disposal after the crushing, and different triggers. The robot would need a density sensor on it to accurately find mines that contain a small amount(sometimes none)of metal. These make up only a small amount of the land mines that industrialized countries drop, but there are tons of homemade landmines out there in the world.
Disposal after the crushing with the piston is another issue. Just because the main detonator is destroyed doesn't make the landmine safe. There are plenty of landmine configurations that have secondary detonators that are much harder to destroy.
As for the different kinds of triggers, yes this would probably not work with magnetic triggers. There are plenty of different types of magnetic triggers, and I'm sure it would work for some of them. This almost doesn't matter because of the low frequency at which you will find those few kinds of triggers I can think of where it wouldn't work, but it will happen from time to time. It depends on how big of an area the magnetic field covers. Most of them just cover a small area right above the mine, but I have heard of a few whose only option for removal is to have the EOD guys strip naked(don't want your zipper or any other stupid thing setting it off) and do it by hand.
So could this be a great idea? Yes. Does it have limitations? Yes. Do I think 75K is worth spending and not risking a human life? Absolutely.
One of the most time consuming ( difficult ?) tasks is preparing the terrain for the robot or the well traind human to work on. Especially when mines stay for tens of years ... you can imagine the bushes/rock/trees/ground drifts! ... I live in Lebanon and I have seen such mountains filled with mines (planted by Israel when it was occupying the south part). The UN here estimates they need 50 years to remove them all, they seriously doubt any robot will be able to handle the job well.
This reminds me of one of the scrapheap challenge tasks, as far as I remember the winning design was to smash the sand (the mines were buried on a beach) with spining chain flails. Much more fun, and far more dangerous :)
Finding the unexploded ordnance is the tricky bit, but it's nice to know the demolition/deactivation tech is being developed. I also heard about a high-pressure water disruptor cannon for bomb disposal a couple of years ago, so this must be the same principle? (ie: smash device before it can trigger and detonate)
Of course the REAL reason land mines are so costly to remove is because they are usually deployed without ANY thought to how they will be recovered.
Putting aside the issue of civilian casualties, the forces who deploy these weapons should be responsible for paying for their clean up. Maybe they they'd keep better deployment records and maps, and avoid the use of air-deployed mines.
I can only think of a few ways in which you could use mines legitimately (Fort Knox, nuclear power stations, max. security prisons, etc.) and only then when they are in areas that are clearly marked. Putting mines in areas used by civilians is negligent to the point of evil.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
One of the rather interesting things about Mines (well, anything w/ explosives), is the fact that they become chemically unstable after time. To the point where disabling them mechanically does not remove the actual danger.
You could have a mine w/ the detonation system completely destroyed, but if it is dropped/mishandled, it will go off and do just as much damage to the disposal team. I honestly don't see any other way to dispose of them, without using fire to fight fire (blowing up a mine w/ an explosive).
re locating mines: almost all mines "leak" substances that can be detected with proper sensors.
This is true, but the USAF is dropping cluster bombs all over Afghanistan. Many of these bombs do not full explode, effectively mining the land with small yellow bombs which look pretty similar to the small yellow food packets. In other news, did you know that more Afghan civilians have now died as a result of the American action than Americans died on September 11th?
Americas action is racist, it is clear that Afghan civilians ('colateral damage') have no worth in the eyes of the US, whilst Western people do ('Terrorist outrage')
I sure wouldn't feel safe going to a field after it'd been inspected by a bunch of robots,
however sophisticated mine detection gadgets they might have.
Wonder if any common antipersonnel/vehicle mines could survive the hammering this monster can offer?
RA-140
theres also one in action:
Raisu in action
(ok pics, sorry about the Finnish..)
The robots might do a good job on really unaccessible terrains but for clearing up bigger areas, these offer more *bang* for a buck I think.
Cheap, easy to operate and robust.
/T
i assume it uses the same idea as a controlled explosion. A bomb/mine would need a detonator to produce an explosion. if you use an external shock to the detonator that will dislodge its link to the mine/bomb it will become safe. Rememeber robots have been used for a long time to defuse or place controlled explosions, this therefore maybe the next step. I am no expert but makes some sense
Perhaps a better way to rid the world of mines would be for the us to sign the multilateral agreement not to use or traffic in them. I still can't see any but sinister anti-civilian uses for these things.
check
:http://www.clw.org/atop/landmines_latimes.html
or any other reference to the accord.
earth turning device to remove mines. It shuffled all the earth in and shreddered it, either destroying or letting explode (it was armored) the mines.
The problem with these maschines seem always to be anti tank mines. Anti personal mines can be blocked by armor, but if you hit exidentally an AT mine, it will probably blow whatever machine you have.
Some "minesweepers" (the term is probably trademarked by Microsoft ;)) actually depend on detonating the device, a common historic tank had a drum with flailing chains, it's a lot easier to replace a chunk of chain then someone's leg.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
You mean more than.
The mine is then crushed by a hydraulically operated hammer positioned beneath the cowl, but it does not explode, because of the hammer's high velocity, the company said. The hammer can strike mines at velocities of up to three meters per second.
Awhile back there was a bit of research into high speed projectiles for busting up concrete. The soft plastic projectile was accelerated by helium piston (about 3 meters tall) downward. When striking it was able to cleanly break a piece of concrete in excess of 1foot thick.
;P Just remember- it's over a very short distance, so air resistance doesn't start to build up.
The technology of getting ultra high speed projectiles over short distance isn't anything new- have you ever seen what a 3 mile/sec plastic ring can do to a block of aluminum (sorry, this photo sticks in my head) - it peeled it back like the shots of Doc Edington did in Stopping Time - a 1foot x 1foot x 1foot block was about 80% empty after the impact.
So getting the speeds aren't that terribly difficult and firing the 'bullets' only would need gas and a way of powering the ultrasonic pressure waves....
We just aren't used to having items travel that fast
I've alway beeno wondering why don't they just isolate the minefield and drive a huge steam-roller over it. What kind of damage could a landmine do to a huge piece of steel anyway? Just get everyone far enough away.
I always thought that plastic explosive's big selling point was that it used an electrical trigger. You can drop it, throw it, mould it in to any shape you want and it won't go off... not until you run an electric charge through it. I even thought you could shoot it and it wouldn't explode. Or is it the combination of fire *and* pressure that sets it off in this case?
Just curious.
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Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Didn't some beer company demo this thing during the Superbowl??
HI-TECH PRODUCTS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION IN THIS CASE
I think Hobarts Funnies prove otherwise, because Tech solutions are designed to save lives not money.
Slashdot could adopt a field with landmines and we could do our own landmine-robot-war.
Great opportunity for the Lego Mindstormers and robo-freaks among us
I'm thinking of some ideas myself, well that is if my manager leaves me alone for a sec.
Here is a good starting page with some methods used for finding mines.
42 + 1 = 42
We didn't drop thousands of mines on them, you don't just drop an antipersonnel mine. The country has been in constant war for 20 years, which means that it has accumulated land mines all over the place. These land mines usually end up killing civilians, which is why removing them is such a good idea.
If we don't help Afghanistan rebuild after this then there was no point to the war. Look at Japan, we fought them, and then helped them rebuild (and in our image). Now they're a model pacifist country. Look at Germany; the same thing happened there. It is not hypocritical at all to help the Afghans now, it is absolutely vital to our future safety and theirs.
I'm sorry but the USA has about as much common sense as... well as much as they have always had. They are "attacked" as all the American news called it. And now they think the whole world should feel sorry for them, none of them knows or cares that more people die in terrorist actions in the world then dies on 9/11/01. I'm sorry but just because for once someone hit them now the hole freaking world must be on their side, and must kill everyone of the culture that attacked them, All I have to say is thank god it wasn't a bunch of Americans, they would have probably leveled the whole continent saying there were finding the mastermind.
And no I am not Moslem or Afghanistanian, I am your average guy in your average city.
Last year I was traveling across the Sahara (West to East), when we were in Libya (traveling sans papers), we saw these funny little cannisters in the desert. Our 4WD nearly hit one. We wondered what they were, we were later told that we were very lucky-- apparently there were anti-tank land mines lying around from the time of WWII (Rommel and Montgomery fought in the Jughbub region that we were traveling across.
We promptly hired a guide.
The good John Walker, founder of Autodesk, Inc. has a very interresting site at http://www.fourmilab.ch/
There is a lot of info about anti-personnel mines and mine clearance:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/minerats/
http://www.fourmilab.ch/minerats/hackers96/
I once found some mpeg movies demonstrating how nasty these devices are. Can't find them right now.
were due to americans shooting at them. Sheesh, the war of independance was over 200 years ago!
What I mean is that while the attitude in the US Army/CIA is "shoot anything that moves, bomb anything that doesn't" lots more people will be killed than most tech solutions would solve.
Yep, probably a typo -- 30 meters/sec, or about 60 knots/66 mph is more like it.
This looks like a common EOD technique of using a small charge water cannon to disrupt the detonator of a suspicious package. The cannon is a tube loaded with about a liter/quart of water. An M-80/shotgun shell type of charge is set off, forcing the water at very high speed onto, and into, the package. Unless a motion sensor can react and fire in less than about 1/5000 second, the firing mechanism is crushed or shredded. This takes care of tilt sensors (mercury switches, etc) and spring loaded triggers. Without electrical power, blasting caps are useless. Fulminated mercury mechanical detonators become safe because the striking mechanism is now bent beyond use.
As most mines have mechanical triggers, smashing the device faster than the trigger can activate will usually neutralize the device. Electrally powered magentic and capacitance sensors usually require some sensor comparison against a target profile, by which time the hammer would have crushed the detonator.
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
Ever heard of anti-tank mines? It would rip the piece of shit steamroller to shreds.
I guess you don't know much about explosives, because landmines can do ALOT of damage to huge pieces of steel, especially under compression. Ever popped a firecracker, then taken another one and torn it partially open? Right, the opened one fizzles, while the other pops loudly. It would have to be a tremenously hefty piece of armor to hold back all the explosive force.
Plus, then they'd just design landmines with magnetic detectors or pressure sensors that wouldn't trigger if a certain threshold were exceeded.
And probably the bigges problem with your ill-considered idea is that there's a significant chunk of mined area isn't flat enough to run a steamroller.
You see if you can strike a landmine with a hammer faster :-)
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Here's probably more than you ever wanted to know about land mines, since this topic has interested me ever since my travels around Laos and Cambodia. Land mines kill or maim between 20 and 30 thousand people each year; men, women and children, since mines clearly don't have distinctions. About 80% of those affected are normal civilians, and about a third are children. Usually land mine victims die by slowly bleeding to death. 85% of all the casualties are in Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia.
You might be surprised to know that while land mines are normally used to fight dirty little wars in third world countries, they are usually manufactured in the first world. A small list of manufacturers of mines are: Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (yes, really), Chile, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam and Yugoslavia. Even Switzerland sells five different models. The US sells 37 different types, and is the world's leader, closely followed by Italy (36), Russia (31), then Sweden (21) and China (21).
Believe it or not, there are international regulations as to how land mines are supposed to be laid out, including having mine fields clearly labeled so your random stray farmer doesn't go getting his leg blown off. These are more suggestions than anything else, since the most effective method of distributing mines over a large area is to drop cluster bombs that can contain almost 250 mines per pod.
Mines are generally not as difficult to disarm as many would think. While we might have the impression of the complex booby-traps laid during the Vietnam war, the reality is thankfully a lot less harrowing. Bombs work by detonating an explosive material that creates a wall of air that expands outwards at about 7,000 meters per second. Different mines also offer different packaging, so if you add small ball-bearings or nails to that mixture you can see how dangerous (even at a distance) they can be.
Here are the major bomb types used around the world:
Scatter Mines
Scatter mines are designed primarily by Russia and were used primarily in Afghanistan. They are specifically designed not to kill their victims, but instead injure them, thus slowing down a larger party. It has the added effect ofd emoralizing the country and creating a strain on its economy to keep them alive. The PFM-1 butterfly bomb is dropped from airplanes or helicopters and their shape helps them to burrow slightly into the ground. They are easy to disarm, which is why the most common victims are now children not yet educated in their harm. The PFM-1 can be modified to detonate with light pressure after being armed (once it hits the ground), or self-detonate after a specified period.
Small Antipersonnel
These are usually manufactured out of plastic, which makes them very difficult to pick up when scanning. They have feather-light contacts and normally have to be hand-set, usually buried in the mud or under a bush. They are also designed to incapacitate rather than kill. The big models are the Chinese Type 72, Italian TS-50 and United States M14.
Large Antipersonnel
Larger mines are generally packed with about 5 times the amount of explosives of their smaller counterparts. They are designed to take out larger parties of people, or even entire platoons, and are the most popular land mine in existance. They are triggered by pressure plate, and normally buried under high-traffic areas. Because of their larger size and higher amount of metal parts, they are easier to find (but much more dangerous to disarm). These mines cost about $3 to make.
Frag Mines
Fragmentation mines are designed to explode with a large payload of high-velocity metal parts. In the United State's Claymore mine, it's ball bearings. The Russian POMZ-2 uses small, sharp metal pieces. These mines are usually designed like glorified grenades, and have pins that can be connected to strings or wires and used as booby traps. There are also Bouncing Betty style frag grenades that, when triggered, project upwards about 5 feet to maximize the kill-zone. The Italian Valmara-69 is the most famous of this design, and can contain 1000 individual pieces of shrapnel. Because of the blast radius, survival rates are usually very low.
Road Mines
These mines have the highest casualty rates of any type. They are very large plate-trigger designs that are easily disarmed (when found), but when they go off, they can take out entire tanks, their occupants, and any soldiers close by. The British L9 and Italian VS-22 were popular models used in the Gulf War. There are two strategies to planting these mines. One is to plant them in the well-worn treads on a mud road (if a vehicle has been over them, it must be safe, right?). The other method takes the opposite approach, and places them in the areas just to the side of major roads (kinda' like reverse psychology.)
The most daunting task to clearing the land mines is the sheer number of them still active around the world. Egypt has the most, at 23 million, but Iran, Angola, Afghanistan, Cambodia, China and Iraq all have more than 10 million buried in them. About two million new land mines are planted each year (more than 15 million are manufactured). Since only about 100,000 land mines are removed each year, you can easily see that they will be with us for a very, very long time.
Much of this information was gathered at HALO Trust's website (www.halotrust.org). HALO is an agency dedicated to the elimination of land mines. Also, information on land mines was obtained from The World's Most Dangerous Places by Robert Pelton. Pick up a copy if you're a travel buff.
Only a few places where they can be used legitimately? Try WAR! Have we gotten so damned PC that we're squeemish about war? What's next, we don't actually kill our enemies we put them in cushy prisons instead? Oh wait, we do that don't we?
Sorry, but if we're at WAR with enemies then lay mines if that's what you must do to stop an opposing force. If a civilian gets killed then that really sux but I'd prefer a civilian than one of our soldiers.
After the war when the mines must be removed then by all means it's nice to have maps but if they were laid in haste then we'll deal with that when the time comes. Does that suck for places like Afghanistan? Yes, it does but we can't all live in a fluffy bunny world where everyone is afraid to offend much less hurt an enemy (rolleyes). In a WAR I can think of LOT'S of proper places to put mines....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
The problem with mines is that they hard very hard to detect. Modern mines have very little if any metal content. Battlefields usually are riddled with shrapnel/shell casings etc which make metal detecters useless even if the mine had metal.
The Canadian Defence Research Establishment(DRES) in Sulfield Alberta is a world leader in mine detection technologies. Their latest invention is the Improved Landmine DetectorProject (ILDP). The ILDP system consists of a teleoperated vehicle carrying three scanning sensors which operate while the system is in motion; a metal detector array (MMD) based on electromagnetic induction (EMI), an infrared imager (IR), ground penetrating radar (GPR), and a confirmatory sensor which requires the system to be stationary and near a target of interest, consisting of a thermal neutron analysis (TNA) detector. Each of the sensors provides information concerning the presence (or absence) of physical properties which accompany the presence of landmines. For example, IR provides a measure of thermal anomalies, EMI reports anomalies in electrical conductivity, GPR detects anomalies in dielectric and other electromagnetic properties, and the TNA provides a measure of nitrogen content.
One the mine is identified and marked the vehicle can move on and let the lifing or destruction of the mine to the engineers.
Canada first proposed the banning of anti-personnel mines and the treaty is commonly refered to as the Ottawa treaty. They also set up the Canadian Centre for Mine Action Technologies which is coordinating research into new technologies from around the world.
As a soldier, I agree that anti pers mines have a limited tactical role and the human cost in civilian casualties is too great to justify their use. It is time to ban them forever.
Cheers,
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
There seems to be a lot of misinformation here about the removal process of landmines. As a combat engineer for the US Army I have been trained on such procedures (though never having done them, thank god!). I'd like to explain how the process of breaching a minefield works.
Your basic tools are the ANPSS-12 Minedetector (basically a metal detector), and a ceramic rod. The detectors are sent out in groups of 3 (there are 4 more people in the group for command and control purposes, but they aren't the ones doing the detecting) and they move forward in a diagonal formation and they sweep in a circular arc around them searching for the mines. When one of those people finds a mine, the other two go back to the rear of the formation while the other lies down in the prone (face first) and starts poking the mine with his ceramic rod(having checked for trip wires and things of that nature of course).
Keep in mind that it takes only a few pounds of force to detonate an antipersonel mine. Something easily achieved with a little stick!
When the mine is found, if it's buried(not all are, I'll cover that in a minute) then the soldier uncovers the top of the mine and goes about checking for Anti-Handling Devices(booby traps). If the soldier finds one, he(I say he becuase women are not allowed to be combat engineers) must disarm because he's already handled the mine. Yes they can be that sensitive! If he screws up, he has several pounds of explosives blow up in his face.
Not all mines are triggered by pressure. There is another type of fuse used to trigger a mine called a tilt rod. It stands on top of the mine and when tilted a few degrees, which for US tilt rod fuses requires only 10 lbs of force, detonates the mine. These are used exclusively in anti-tank mines, the theory being that the vehicle rolls over the mine causing the mine to detonate under the belly of the vehicle. These add something else to the mix. Now first you have to disarm the tilt rod fuse before defusing the rest of the mine.
Is this job dangerous? VERY!!!
In fact, combat engineer is one of the most dangerous jobs in the military (for a variety of other reasons too :) )
All traditional US Mines have metal in them to make them easier to find by our guys once the war is over. Other countries don't play so nice. They use wood and plastic. So our little mine detectors won't find them, but our feet will! Also some of them have magnetic fuses, which operate similarly to the sensors for traffic lights. When our metal detectors go over them they go "boom!"
Having explained all this I'm sure you can see why the army (and other services I'd imagine) continually look for better and safer ways to disarm mines. There have been several items that have been tested and are being tested right now. We tested a South African device only to discover that it performed horribly :) They're now testing a minedetector that uses radar instead of just a regualr metal detector and I remember seeing on CNN that there is a European company that has a remote controlled mine remover.
This japanese robot is a great device that deserves a serious look. For those critics who think that the detector will get caught up on terrain, they've never seen what a tracked vehicle can do. Wheeled vehicles can be very reliable too (remember the mars rover?)
Now before you start flaming me about misinformation, this is as I remember it, so there is no warranty :) If you'd like to check out more about mines and such you can refer to: FM20-32
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War(n) - Gods way of teaching Americans geography.
This might work okay on toe-poppers and bouncing betties but it's gonna get blown to bits by an anti-tank or anti-vehicular mine. The monsters that we used to practice planting in the 82d Airborne could blow (we were told) a plate of steel through the bottom of any US or Soviet main battle tank. That's likely enough force to send this little box (or pieces of it) quite high in the air.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
The company's called Cos Co
Damn you can get these things everwhere now! Even at Cost Co??? Next time I go pick up a 500-pack of Ramen noodles I will have to get one of these too!
Mark
Does it play Minesweeper as well as me??
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
Plastic explosive, like C4 or Semtex, needs a blasting cap to set it off. The blasting cap can be triggered by a variety of methods, heat, shock or electricity. You can use plastic explosives as fuel for a fire, such as heating meals while out on patrol. The problem is that heating the explosive makes it more sensitive to shock.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Wouldn't you love to see this thing on Robot Wars? ;-)
I am the hub of Jack's digital lifestyle.
We didn't drop thousands of mines on them, you don't just drop an antipersonnel mine. The country has been in constant war for 20 years, which means that it has accumulated land mines all over the place. These land mines usually end up killing civilians, which is why removing them is such a good idea.
I totally agree with you, but still, many mines were launched on Afghan habitations. The type I heard of was a fragmentation grande that launched "butterfly" mines, the kind that looks like a toy to kids....
If we don't help Afghanistan rebuild after this then there was no point to the war. Look at Japan, we fought them, and then helped them rebuild (and in our image). Now they're a model pacifist country. Look at Germany; the same thing happened there. It is not hypocritical at all to help the Afghans now, it is absolutely vital to our future safety and theirs.
And look at Israel, you helped them rebuild their country over palestine... is it a pacifist country now?
I agree with you that Afghanistan must get help from the rest of the world, but do you really think that what happened there will help resolve terrorism?
The fact is that these people cannot afford to ignore the world political as we do.
Look at Japan, we fought them, and then helped them rebuild (and in our image).
I have a question : if you, american citizen, were to be invaded by china, and said to obey their style of life, would you let it go happily? as you seem to think afghans and the middle-east population will?
Once again, some technology solution, that costs a fortune, is being touted as the savior. They don't mention the fact that if this thing, as well as the stars, aren't perfectly aligned the mine detonates and blows the unit to bits. Of course in order to line it up correctly, you have to be able to precisely locate the mine in the first place. This has been the main problem with mine disposal all along.
Despite all of that, the cost of the unit is far too high. These guys need to watch Junkyard Wars. they built a highly effective mine disposal machine in ten hours for nothing, It was built from scrap. This is important because no matter how technologically advanced the solution is, sooner or later a mine will turn it into scrap! Saddly this applies to human mine removers as well.
Laying mines should be a war crime!
There's a *huge* difference in the way a structured, organized and trained military uses land mines and the way rival warlords and basic thugs use them.
US Army doctrine is *very* anal about landmines. You don't just turn one on and chuck it down with a chuckle.
For one, mines fields are generally surface laid. That's right, just sitting there in the open. Why, because US doctrine always covers minefields with a second method of fire (artillary, snipers, etc). When the war is over, you go out and collect up your mines.
Secondly, most modern mines are self detonating. That means in a set amount of time -- usually 4 hours to 2 weeks -- they go away. They're also surface laid (usually by aircraft). Don't stand near these mines.
Fianlly, if you do hide your mines that need to be completly mapped and documented. Why? Because YOU may be the one to remove them.
Remove them? Yes, all US mines are designed to be removed. Not so for the Soviet ones, oh dear.
Look at were there are mine problems, Cambodia, Afganistan, Kuwait, Korea. Only one of those is the fault of the US and guess what, those mine in those old-style "standard pattern" minefields are completly mapped.
In Cambodia and Afganistan, you can blame those poor starving peasants who, rather that wanting peace, would rather torture and mame each other. Plant random mines in a farm field, yeah, good idea. (um, not).
Finally, Kuwait. Kuwait doesn't have a much of a mine problem (relative to the others), why? They have money. But who do you blame for what mines they have? The Iraqis, duh. That finely tuned military machine that couldn't fight there way out of a paper bag laid crap loads of mines all over the place with no care as to where they were.
So this BS about the US not wanting to follow Diana's dream is a little misplaced.
Hell yeah! I guess I'll have to get the big Orange cart for that one.
You know what?
Why send a robot to do a man's job? If the robot fails, you're out some serious coin buying a replacement. If the man fails, all your out is a big hammer.
...you could probably remove a lot more landmines in many areas with a chain grid towed from a helicopter. Sound crazy? Might be, but... this describes how to work around some of the more obvious engineering gotchas, and a video of a test of the system. I think it's pretty cool, at any rate.
I'm a nature photographer.
quote of one of the robot's software developers, "We originally were going to use Linux, it worked beautifully, but we simply couldn't resist the idea of sending Windows into a mine field."
Cool!
Oh mine smasher, well that's cool too. Maybe it can be converted...
There is no graceful way to eat an egg salad sandwich.
Maybe, but in both Germany and Japan the US occupied the countries for a period of time after the war. The US also drafted Japan's Consitution and layed some pretty heavy restrictions down regarding military build up and use of force.
Are they affordable enough so that I can get one to compete in Battlebots?
I totally agree with you, but still, many mines were launched on Afghan habitations. The type I heard of was a fragmentation grande that launched "butterfly" mines, the kind that looks like a toy to kids....
... tough one, let me think.
I think you heard wrong, Habib.
And look at Israel, you helped them rebuild their country over palestine... is it a pacifist country now?
Ofcourse not, what country is. I certainly disagree with their occupation of Palestine. But certainly with their right to defend their country. There appears to be very little interest in peace from much of the middle east. I bet most of those that hate the US couldn't give a truthful reason as to why.
I have a question : if you, american citizen, were to be invaded by china, and said to obey their style of life, would you let it go happily? as you seem to think afghans and the middle-east population will?
Of course not, would you. Lets see here, should we give up our freedoms for brutal oppression. Hmm,
Am I the only one who read this as "Robotic Mime Smasher?
Wishful thinking I guess.
Did you ever serve in the military? I did. What we learned:
Antipersonal mines: These don't kill so many people as it mames. Most victims loose a leg stepping on a mine. In war this is nice because an injured opposing soldier will need to be assisted by one or two other soldiers, thus you are occupying three instead of disposing of one.
These mines can be delivered by air or by spescial launchers throwing them a couple kms (metric system) away. Needles to say, it is hard to keep track of where they land.
not to go too far offtopic, yes to win a war you need to kill some enemies, but APM will kill more "nonenemies" than enemies.
As for antitank mines: The rules for deploying a AT minefield is rather detailed. I won't go in detail, but a "rapid deployed minefield" takes about 15-20 mins to deploy. If you're trained at it. When finished, you know exactly where every mine is.
When this i said, the most efficient use of ATM is to deploy it in bottlenecks and to have guys stationed there. Once the enemy tanks stop at the MINES! fence, you take your M-72 and take it out. When their engineers try to clean up, shoot them.
Conclusion? Spreading mines all over a country is not the proper way of fighting. like shooting in the dark, you dont know who you are hitting.
Landmines kill far more civilians than military personnel. Landmines are not a targeted weapon - they kill indiscriminitely.
For more information, see:
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
United States Campaign to Ban Landmines
If you can handle this excessively long URL, take a look at this topic:
http://www.junkyard-wars.com/forum/topic.asp?TOP IC _ID=1534&FORUM_ID=58&CAT_ID=8&Topic_Title=Mineswee pers+used+in+Afghanistan&Forum_Title=8%2E+QF+D%3A+ Minesweeper
It screws up if I put it in an href...
I say the Japanese way is to drive a small rod through the critical part of the mine. The British/American way is to destroy about six inches of groud and flail the mines to bits!
I want pics man!
:P
Mines are a real simple product to mass produce. If you persuaded the United States, every European country, Russia, China Japan and Korea to stop selling them, South America, Pakistan and Indonesia would probably take up the slack to generate the foreign exchange.
If you persuaded thos countries as well, mines would be manufactured indiginously. They are simply not that hard to make. The Viet Cong used to manufacture fairly sophisticated anti personell and anti tank mines using explosives recycled from unexploded US bombs.
If you don't have unexploded 500 pound bombs handy you can manufacture your own explosives using recipes available on the net.
You can't stop people from being beastly to each other simply by taking away their tools. Man is the tool making animal. They'll make new ones.
The oil industry has been doing seismic analysis of what lies under the ground for decades. By combining seismic analysis with some pattern recognition it should be possible for slash dotters to put together useful mine detector software as a project. Geophones, a ground thumper and a few PC-104 boards put together with Beowulf distributing the analysis work and you might have something useful and cheap enough to use all over the third world.
That depends. If the US government was brutally oppressive and China gave us lots of freedoms and liberty, then yes. But that's not the case. Germany, Japan, Afghanistan had brutal regimes until the US came along. The US system of liberty and freedom has obvious advantages. You can't just throw around the names of countries without acknowledging that they give different amounts of freedom to their own citizens.
Maybe if the Middle Eastern countries weren't so oppressive to their citizens, their citizens wouldn't want to emmulate the US so much. Here's a fact for you: a majority of non-Christian nations (much of the Islamic Middle East and China) put people in jail or give the death sentence to anyone preaching Christianity. I'm not a Christian, but it seems aweful self-righteous to have governments control their citizen's religious beliefs and then claim that they're better than the US.
a teen should get laid, or even learn how use a condom. I've said it before, I'll say it again: until we are willing to admit that getting it on is a better use of a person's time than wandering the woods or streets with a firearm, we"re going to stay an expletived-up country.
:-).
Of course, maybe I'm just bitter because I've had such little success in this area of my life, and the good Commander just destroyed my "but I'm a geek" excuse. Damnit, Taco...Mazel Tov again, by the way
I'm the stranger...posting to
Police bomb squads have been using remotely controlled devices outfitted with special "high velocity" shotguns for years. Although I'm no bomb expert (but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night), the concept is that a special high velocity round can basically destroy the mine/explosive before it has a chance to set itself off.
Contrary to what most folks think, modern high explosives aren't particularly easy to set off. You can pinch off a piece of C4, light it with a match, and it will burn peacefully enough to boil some water for coffee. It can only be detonated with a detonator, and the detonator itself is designed so that it can only be triggered as designed, not by dropping it, smashing it, or burning it. Obviously this doesn't hold true for all explosives or all detonators, but the military stuff I was around in the Marines could be handled as if it were no more dangerous than Play-Doh. Mines are even more complex, where you have a trigger that activates a detonator, the detonator activates a booster charge, the booster charge may even activate yet another booster charge (think anti-tank mines), and finally the main charge is detonated. Interrupt any one of these processes and the mine suddenly becomes a doorstop.
My guess is that the velocity figure in the article are off somehow, as the quoted specs are far too slow to do much of anything except set the mine off. A small, extremely high velocity slug put in exactly the right place would disrupt the mine. A slow, heavy blow would seem to be a good recipe for setting it off.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The 'entry' model cost for an anti-personnel landmine is three cents US. To me it is simple economics that they will be with us for a while.
Also, landmines help equalize troop ratios in key areas, like the Korean DMZ where the US employs mines to keep the NKA in check. So, not all mines are bad, just the ones that blow innocent legs.
je reve ou on dirait que quelqu'un d'autre utilise l'Insultron ? :-)