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US Army to Test Laser Based Mine Clearing Device
QueueEhGuy writes "Yahoo News is running a Reuters story indicating that the United States will soon be testing a laser which "will either explode or evaporate the explosives in the device which can be up to 250 yards away.." It's about time, I was starting to think that we'd never blow stuff up with light." New Scientist has another story, complete with nifty graphic. The Zeus homepage has a few pictures and specs.
How are they going to power the thing?
It's not as though you can just plug the humvee in on the battlefield...
Fire the "Laser"
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
... I keep having problems with people tailgating me.
"Derp de derp."
I'ts really too bad that this unit isn't for de-mining during peacetime. There are many countries that are covered with mines from past wars (just think of some eastern European countries and African countries). Too many civilians die each year from old mines. Oh well, this is good news non the less as it will help save lives.
...interesting if true.
Does it make a cool 'bzzzzzt!' noise, or is it more of a 'Skreeee!' like a TIE fighter?
but not as cool as if it took out buried mines as well. Seems as if the best use of this thing would be cleaning up the more 'obvious' stuff lying about. Unexploded bombs, etc. Not much for getting mines.
Of course the real problem w/mines all over the world is a social one as opposed to a technical problem. Too many little wars for territorial control being waged by people w/little regard for the welfare of others.
There's profit in it though so I don't expect it to change.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
As a canadian I am happy to see America finally taking some mine-clearing initiative seeing as most land-mines were planted by them. It's good to know they are working on clearing technology so less innocent civilians will have to lose their lives.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Everybody saw Akira, right? remember Sol? yeah... i remember Sol...
unlike the Starwars (Regan) lasers -- these are solid state so as long as you have a power source, they can be re-used. with the advances in today's high capacity capacitors (erm), just hook up that laser satellite to a solar panel and let her rip. boost the power a litter and who says you can't burn down airplanes in flight and stuff?
and (unlikely, but) if somebody hacked the satellite network? oh boy... i think i am going to buy some SPF4000 sunscreen.
future warfare is getting gonna get really interesting, really fast.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
...for how many Dr. Evil "laser beam" posts we're going to get today
plus, in a humvee? "laser beams" belong on the moon
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Too bad it only takes care of above ground mines. Perhaps this is a step towards a system where a sonar type device scans an area on the battle field, locates mines, and then detonates them below ground, thus reducing the amount of potential damage to the surrounding area (think shrapnel.)
Who is John Galt?
This is all good and neat, but how about we look at the treaty for banning land mines? Take a look at http://www.banminesusa.org.
Hey, we can clear your land mines with our cool laser technology for only $200,000,000. By the way, here's the brochure for our newest offering of grade AAA mines.
geek page at KY speaks
I'd think most of them were buried a few inches down. What a waste.
The military guys can probably have a hell of a fun time making the yokels in the mideast think they know magik. I can just see it now: some marine on a humvee pulls up to the edge of a minefield and there are bunch of afghanis around and says "I command you to explode" and the invisible laser fires and the mine explodes, and the next thing you know the Afghans believe he is Allah reincarnated. Now if we can only make these lasers make the Iraqi's explode at 250 yards, that would be something to be proud of!!!!
Maybe it's just me, but I always thought the old N64 Goldeneye method of getting rid of mines would be far easier; you know, there's a mine on the ground, you don't know where it is, so throw a grenade/remote mine/etc in its vicinity and it will blow up with the ensuing blast. Now I know it's a silly videogame idea but it just seems so much more intuitive than this. The specs on this thing (from Zeus' site) say it can hit a target from 25 to 250 meters. You wanna be the one aiming that far? Throw another bomb, it's a hell of a lot easier! Takes care of the under-the-surface ones as well. Of course, the area would have to be rather deserted, but no more than it would take to detonate a surface mine in the first place.
Just my wacky $0.02
Oh, and keep in mind that my tongue is planted firmly within the warm crevace of my cheek.
why? forty-two.
Sounds like they needed some payback from all those Star wars anti ICBM projects. As the article says: "When dropped on soft ground, you can get dud rates of 30 per cent," says Owen Hofer of Sparta The ones that fall on soft ground (eg farmland) sink into the soil and unfortunately that's just where the lasers can't reach.
since it'll do nothing if they're buried in the slightest.
But for clearing scattered munitions this should be rather effective if it works. I mean, a great deal of casualties suffered by children in post-war countries comes from accidental mishandling of explosive material that is left on the ground. It's by far not an end-all solution, but it's a start.
Cutting Edge "graphics", courtesy of MS Paint.
My favorite is the other part of the image here.
Now if I can find a shark....
There, lored vader, I told you she could be reasoned with.
You may fire when ready!
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
The interesting part of the problem is identifying and mapping the mines, and this device seems to handle both unexploded ordinance and surface mines. I wonder how well it will do with surface mines after a winter - or two. It would certainly beat having people do this stuff by hand.
Once you know of a mine you can mark it and avoid it. As for clearing it, I have to believe that there are any number of ways to clear it without using lasers, and this is where the heat concern is.
I've occasionally wondered why someone hasn't tried clearing minefields using some tacky Rockford Phosgate subwoofers mounted on a nice big tank.
If the late-night losers around here can shake my apartment building as they drive by with their oh-so-cool car audio systems, surely a military organization could crank things up to the point that any mine within a mile radius would detonate.
Besides, you could keep the locals entertained (at a distance) with some cool tunes.
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
Land mines are a cheap and easy way to deny territory to those who hate you, so it seems we will be mucking about with them for quite awhile. Will it not work on underground miens mines because the laser won't penetrate, or because the system is unable to locate them. Seems to me that if the laser can either ignite or destroy the explosive core of a mine through uits metal casing, that a couple of inches of soil shouldn't slow it down to terribly much. Maybe better detection systems are better investment.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
a little reality check : How are they going to power the thing? Just use a souped up alternator and the engine make a good generator I don't think so. Most high powered lasers use a chemical reaction to produce the excitation directly. Current lasers powered by using electricty to indirectly power the laser are VERY inefficient. The output on this baby is supposed to be 2 KW...it might suck 20 or more kilowatts easily, far more than a vehicle can produce. In addition, note the article mentions trouble with cooling. That is because the reaction occuring inside the laser produces much heat as well as light.
"And even if it cleared all surface mines, that would still leave buried mines or others that had become covered by dust, sand or vegetation. " That is basically pointless, suface mines are the only things it can destroy, what about the all the other mines, what a waste of tax dollars. Anyways aren't land mines good for controlling the population size in 3rd world countries.
I just joined the US Marines and my job is Combat Engineering. That means I'll be doing some mine clearing and I like the old way better:
Get a line with C4 blocks every few feet, launch that over the area you're trying to clear, and detonate the whole thing at once. Big explosion.
With this I'll not be able to make such a large blast. Oh well, I guess the computer geek in me would like to play with a laser rifle to clear an area.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
until we start using lasers instead of guns??
build one for them. It might not work well, but it sure would be fun to watch.
* - Or "Scrapheap Challenge" if you saw it under its original title on the other side of the pond.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It's about time we start blowing things up with lasers? Apparently you've missed a 6 billion dollar project in the US, which, technically is a hell of a lot cooler. The Airborne Laser. Stick a laser in a 747 and aim it at Nuclear missiles.
http://www.airbornelaser.com/
It's not "we", it's them. And in another year, it'll be pointed at protesters in the streets. After that, your house.
It's neat alright. More billion dollar war toys. Pfffftt!
Why don't they try a high powered (and low frequency) energy wave that can actually penetrate the ground??
What about a EMP type device to take out mines with electronic triggers?
Surely there is a way to transfer large amounts of focused energy through soil/rock.
Anybody know of such trials?
Glad to see my tax dollars being spent on this great research...*spit*
--Huck
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
When will this be a weapon of choice in "America's Amry" ?
This stupid laser is an idiotic idea meant to fatten some stupid colonel's budget. A much cheaper solution has been designed by Dr. Bill Wattenburg and can be seen by going to this page.
The army doesn't care about its soldiers, only its budget.
Currently hooked on AMP
Too bad they didn't have this in time for the 4th of July! Laser light show and fireworks at the same time, and by the military no less. What's more American than that?
This just screams "US Army"...
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Here's the original article at newscientist.com that the Reuters story is referring to: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 92528
Have you hugged your Karma Whore today?
Muhahahah here chase this laser pointer muuuhahahaha..
Weeiioow...
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
but there are only 2 places where the US uses land mines, Cuba and Korea.
In korea these land mines are in a strip of land separating North and south korea. These mines help protect our soldiers. And no one lives in the DMZ so its not dangerous to civilians. While 30,000 soldiers may sound like a lot, remeber that the korean war was basically a draw because how many koreas/chines got killed they were able to send more.
So before we go signing any treaties lets be clear what we are risking.
Veramocor
Was that karma point really worth offttopicing a post with a value of 0 about a first post which still has a value of 1?! dubious
a) cannot penetrate soil
b) is judged useless for civilian mine clearing
c) is presumably 1,000,000 less efficient than a tank mounted flail
So. Perhaps what we're looking at is the normal machinery of death industry dressing up some weapons R&D in a quasi-humanitarian guise? How much more likely that there are 101 offensive uses of this device to each defensive use?
It was foretold in that great annals of earth's (future) history: Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Word is, it's more accurate than Nostradamus' works.
as a canadian you are so proud because the U.S. planted so many bombs in canada? Or are you proud of being a citizen of a non-US country so you can poke fun at us?
Photos.
this is reason enough
Blasting sound is not exactly a way to keep your exact position from the enemy. Of course, neither is blowing up landmines.
When Russia pulled out of Afganistan in the late 80s the Russian forces left maps revealing where they had placed land mines, so that the indiginous population could disarm mines in relative safety. Compare this to how unexploded US landmines are still maiming people in South Vietnam after the US invasion of Vietnam in the late 60s. The US's answer to unexploded landmines in North Vietnam is that 'the people know the risks, and shouldn't live in areas contaminated with unexploded mines.'
I'm sure the US tax payer is proud of their great nation.
'Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.' - George Gordon
Without looking on the internet...
e mi ne_toc.html
Of the 80 million mines, I'll guestimate that the US placed em in...
Korea (Still in use on the DMZ)
Vietnam (Many of the "mines" are prbly unexploded munitions)
Honduras
At the most, 2-4 million
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/rpt_9809_d
Angola - That'd be South Africa and Cuba along with Rebels
Eritrea - Somalia
Mozambique - Rebels and the government
Namibia - South Africa and Marxist rebels
Somalia - Somalia during the civil war with Eritrea
Sudan - Civil War, border with Egypt
Afghanistan - Soviets
Cambodia - US, Vietnam, China, Cambodia, rebels
Bosnia - Serbia and the Civil War
Croatia - Serbia, Yugoslavia, Croatia
Nicaragua - The US and the local government
Iraq - Iraq, the Kurds, Iran.
So out of the 53 million estimated, the US might be responsable for a piece of the Cambodia and Afghan problem. The US wasn't big into dumb mines other than Claymore after the Korean War ended, except in Korea due to the problems with fratricide and killing civillians.
It would be even more cool (and even more effective and safe) were we able to combine this technology with the australian laser-teleportation technology. This would also enable detonation of lasers that are underground, at least as I understand it. Of course both technologies would require great improvements, but what doesn't? http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/1 6/2319226&mode=thread&tid=126 for the laser-teleportation
Actually, we ARE quite proud, thank you.
With Lasers on their heads!
(incidentally, a "White Elepehant" is an expensive, useless project.)
Why detonate a land mine with another explosive when you can use a laser! Lasers work nearly as well, and are merely many hundreds of times more expensive!
From the article: the operator will then switch on the main beam which will either explode or evaporate the explosives
Quick physics lesson. The explosive force of a conventional explosive is provided by the change-of-state to a gas. Air has a density of roughly 1 kg/cubic m. Most solids and liquids have a density of 1g/cubic cm, or 1000 kg/cubic m. So, when you vaporise something, you get a lump of gas which is compressed roughly 1000-fold.
The upshot? Vaporising the explosive = setting the explosive off! There is no way prevent landmines from detonating by vaporising them; they won't turn into harmless little poofs, they'll fucking explode. Unless they propose that this laser vaporises the landmine slowly/gently - which is patently absurd. So, you might as well set them off with a grenade.
Somebody with friends in the defense establishment has developed yet another practical (which does not mean useful or advisable, and certainly doesn't mean cost-effective) laser system, and they're trying to find some excuse to sell it.
This thing looks like the Crusader look like a good use of taxpayer money.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
It may clear mines, but it will also kill Gaya.
Good to see our tax dollars at work. No how about spending some money on more America's Army servers? I haven't been able to get in all weekend!
Don't be a dunce....the laser is just the trigger.
...simpleton
We can use a strobe off a camera flash to trigger a C4 detonator...according to your logic that is "blowing stuff up with light', so this has already been done.
isn't this just like the new goverment "james bond" car with a laser turret?? How long before they make a cannon out of this, used as a weapon?
Bill Wattenburg's Helicopter-pulled Chain Matrix. Check out: his site (requires RealVideo) and a letter he wrote to the SF Chronicle
This maybe way too simple and cheap for the US government to consider and not nearly as cool as jeeps mounted with "laserbeams", but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be effective.
and big ones at that, I'd have thought. The articles says a green laser is used to "illuminate" the mine. If you're looking at it from 250 yards away, I'd imagine that the mine would have to be pretty damn big to see. The articles claims, "Although the weapon does not work on buried mines, it could be effective against surface-laid devices and munitions such as unexploded shells and cluster bombs." I'd counter that unexploded shells wouldn't be visible from that range.
I wouldn't call that a "nifty" graphic. A 5-year-old could have done better.
Our tax dollars hard at work. Let's see, it doesn't work on buried mines, only ones on the surface. Ok. In a situation where you'd find mines or cluster bombs on the surface, there would presumably be lots and lots of them to blow up. So what's going to happen, they're going to sit in that thar hum-vee and spend all day zapping them one by one? And even then, why do you need high-power laser. I mean, the thing gets real hot and eats power for lunch. You'd probably be good for 10 shots or so before having to go back to base and recharge. It'd be a lot better, easier, and cheaper to replace that laser with a weapon that shot explosive projectiles.
Or even better, why bother shooting them at all? It works only against the mines you can see. You could use a mini concussion device (like those Cave Busters we used to flush out Osama, just much smaller, so they could be fired by, say, a mortar launcher) and trigger the explosives that way. Damn, what was the military thinking when they let these guys talk them into this laser system. I can already see the brass..."Coooool. Laaaaaserrrs. Shiiiiny. Preeeetty."
-R
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/junkyard/episode /season_062.html
Strap one on your favorite orbital vehicle for some good ol' zap and bang fun! "Space shuttle piloted via Playstation console".. bang zap, Ender's game!
...but couldnt you do exactly the same thing with, i dunno, a gun (with a pretty little scope of course) mounted on the top a humvee? Am I missing something here?
Technology for technolgies' sake is useless.
Intelligence is like four wheel drive, having it just means you'll get stuck in more remote places.
If we're talking about mines that are visible from the surface, why would a laser be preferable to, say, a machine gun? Throw a few rounds at a live mine and I'm sure it'll go off. Gun and ammo would be much less expensive than a laser with sufficient energy to ignite a land mine. And hardening a mine against a laser would be much easier than making it bulletproof.
I wonder what other reasons there are for wanting a high-intensity laser mounted on a HMMWV?
Oddly enough, I saw one of these vehicles up close a few years ago in Atlanta. It was on display in front of a conference center and I got a chance to talk to a couple of the military guys showing it off.
They use these things to set off unexploded ordinance (UXO), *not* buried mines like a bunch of the posters here seem to assume. Back then they were being used to blow up UXO on military target ranges.
Fun and horrifying fact: I asked them what kind of system they use for targeting the laser. Turns out it's a visual basic app running on NT 4! Ahhh!!!
Seems like a fancy easy to fail machine when we could just go along and toss mines into the backs of a big dumptruck for later disposal.
actually we've had laser cannons aboard aircraft for some time now
... not that I would have, but since now I think it can be REALLY risky. Anybody else wants to blow in pieces just by getting into "spotlight"? :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
This might be a stupid question but... Why cant you just shoot at the mines with a gun? I know bullets go through, among other things, dirt.
It's about time, I was starting to think that we'd never blow stuff up with light.
My grandmother did that for a living at one point. She worked at a photo studio. Photo labs have been using light to blow stuff up for a long time now.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
What I remember from Landmines.org and other sites is that the main US minefield is the buffer zone between North and South Korea. The mines here are supposedly well marked. But this field is the main reason that the US did not sign the recent global anti landmine act. I have to admit that Korea is a problem because the fields are part of a fragile piece, no-one wants it to be too easy to start Korea War II.
According to people who are working on landmine clean up in Afghanistan, neither the US nor the Taliban planted mines during that conflict. Apparently most of the mines are from the Russian and various tribal conflicts...predating the current war.
There is, however, a really big problem of unexploded ordinance. Things we dropped on the Afghans that haven't exploded yet.
I remember, the other complaint that the US had with the landmine ban (of 199?) was that it required destruction of stockpiles before the US could complete the environmental impact statement. Aparently, some anti tank mines have nasty things like depleted uranium, and you don't want to just blow them up...because of the damage to the environment.
The US has been playing a major role in the landmine ban, but did not sign the treaty. We have a habit of doing things like this.
Israel and the US have been jointly developing the Nautilus THEL (Tactical High Energy Laser) anti-missle system for some time now. It's been sucessfully tested many times.
I'm out of points, so someone please mod this up.
The Wattenburg method is a modern variant of the chain roller, an antique minefield clearing vehicle that had long chains attached to a horizontal roll rotating a few feet above the ground in front of the armored vehicle. The ends of the long chains would hit the ground with enough force to trigger their explosion, 10 to 15 meters ahead. So the concept is definitely proven.
If you really want to trigger a surface-laid mine or ammunition from far away, it is much cheaper to just fire at it using a 20-mm cannon. But of course that would be a cheap solution. Way too cheap, probably.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
The main reason the US didn't sign the ban was because they were not given an exemption for the Korean DMZ.
What do I have to do around here to get a few frickin' sharks with lasers on their heads, huh?
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
I thought I said that (of course I tend to ramble). The US also wanted an extension on destroying anti-tank mines with depleted uranium for environmental reasons. This was only a minor issue compared to Korea.
Think about it.
America's Army.
Followed by, "And you can blow stuff up with lasers if you join up."
Ya know, if they ever start pumping out powered armor and genetic modifications (I could use some extra organs), count me in.
Blood for Sanguinius! Blood for the Emperor!
Heaven forbid.
Let's face it, QueueEhGuy, nobody really cares what you think.
I guess buring ants when you were kids dosn't count. But I guess spontaneous cumbustion isn't the same as blowing stuff up with explosives.
-- Any comments seen here are not mine, but a mixture of alchohol and lack of sleep.
This system was originally designed several years back to be used to locate and destroy unexploded ordnance on Air Force runways. It worked by taking digital images of the area around the APC and performing pattern recognition searches against various types of ordnance, with the intent of locating partially buried or concealed ordnance so it could be destroyed. I've seen videotape of some bombs being destroyed with the system, rather cool, the mechanism of heating the bomb casing and the material underneath it makes it less likely that the ordnance will go high order, reducing the amount of damage it does when it detonates. Current mechanisms are to either use rifles or send some poor sap out there to place a small explosive charge next to the ordnance to detonate it, as a lot of air-delivered ordnance has anti-handling devices built in (not all unexploded ordnance is duds, the US has some cluster bomb units that have delayed detonation, or which function as land mines for a period of time after being deployed). Changes in laser type and battery capacity (as well as discovering that they overestimated how much laser was needed originally) allowed them to reduce the size to what could be mounted on a Humvee.
The military currently utilizes several explosive based demining solutions. The most famous it he rope system... this is a small APC (M551 if I recall) based sytem in which a rocket fires and drags a line of high order explosive in the form of a hose/tube through a minefield. It is then detonated and the blows a clear lane through the field. In desert storm C130's used 10000lb bombs (daisy cutters) and FAE (Fuel Air Explosives, much more powerful yet... poor mans nuke) to blow open huge gaps in very dense minefields.
The problem is that modern AT mines are designed to not go off with out a minimum sustained pressure of X pounds per square inch. Even blast overpressure from explosives does not set them off... only a direct hit with a 'demining bomb' or digging them up and detonating them will do the trick.
Further, given the above and knowing that those bombs have to be pretty close to set off a mine, and understanding that most combat minefields can be up to a quarter mile deep and have a density of two mines per square meter, all hardened from going off when their neighbor does, you kind of get a picture of how hard bombing a minefield open is.
The AF was testing a similar system to this one, based on a V150 APC. It used longer duration laser blasts, a chemical laser as I recal, and could detonate buried mines as well as surface mines and scattered bomblets or bombs. The problem was two fold... it needed a follow along external high power generator and the laser was only good for about 15 to 25 shots (though each shot could clear about a football field sized area) before it had to be replaced at a cost of millions of dollars. Not very practical or economical in combat, though I suppose a civillian application is possible if well funded.
Well the US can't ban linadmines. Mines are absolutely pivotal in setting up a defensive postion. Back in my Marine days, we always had the engineers set up their "mine fields" during feild ops because we couldn't cover all possible FOFs (fields of fire) with our riflemen and MGs. A force like the US - often outnumbered on the ground in places like Korea and Iraq - needs to cover their weak spots with mines. Especially AT mines. Even if we aren't outnumbered, or even seriously threatned, mines are a life-saver. Sorry to preach but the anti-mine crowd is seemingly ignorant on war issues. They are more interested in saving civillian lives - which I understand - but nonetheless in war no mines == weak defense. Mines are used to funnel enemy forces into kill zones, etc. That's just how it works...
Slashdot is mentioning that Yahoo News is running a Reuters story indicating the US Army said...
Jeesh....sounds like an old woman's coffee club... Herman said that Wanda heard that Fred said that his Doctor heard that someone mentioned.....
No wonder the net is so slow these days.
Stop trolling and look at the facts.
Fact: The vast majority of people hurt by landmines are non-combatants.
In most cases, these innocent civilians are maimed or killed long after the fighting has stopped.
Fact: Landmines are the only battlefield munition that is incapable of distinguishing between friend, foe and/or innocents.
Landmines don't care who they kill. And, once they've been planted, all control over who the mines target is left to chance.
Fact: The majority of landmines are not safely removed after their ostensible purpose has been achieved.
Only rarely does the combatant responsible for laying the mines remove them - in most cases that's one buck that's passed onto someone else. And in all cases, the cost of safely removing a mine far outstrips the cost of laying it.
Fact: The US is the only western power that refuses to rule out the future use of anti-personnel landmines and, because of this US stance many third-world nations also refuse to stop using these munitions.
It's widely accepted that the pro-landmine position of the US is hampering worldwide efforts to curb the sale and use of anti-personnel landmines. Basically, lots of countries take the position that "if the US, that bastion of human rights, won't give them up then why should we?"
And, honestly, if your own government won't make that kind of commitment, the kind of commitment that every other NATO member has willingly made, then why should you expect others to do so?
Ask yourself this: How much would the combat effectiveness of the US military, the world's most powerful, most technologically advanced, fighting force be diminished if it didn't use anti-personnel landmines? I think you know the answer
It's all very well for you to say that words often don't mean a thing - thanks for pointing out the obvious - but your clear implication is that the American position on landmines is right. Well, frankly, you couldn't be further from the truth.
Sometimes, to achieve the results you want you have to lead by example. The US could join the majority of the free world and stop using these indiscriminate killing machines. It chooses not to. And as a result, directly and indirectly, thousands of people worldwide suffer, and will continue to suffer for the foreseeable future. Way to go USA.
I find it laughable that you even attempt to raise the issue of gun control here. Well, that's a big can of worms but I doubt that even the most liberal individual would equate the right to bear arms with the right to leave killing devices randomly scattered around.
Lastly, I think it's wrong of you to suggest that blowing up innocent people in bus stops and discotheques is wrong (which of course it is) while neglecting to mention that blowing them up from the comfort of your M1 tank, Apache helicopter or F-16 fighter (as has happened recently in both Palestine and Afghanistan, courtesy of Israel and the US*) is equally morally reprehensible. There are always two sides to every story and the side with the Stars and Stripes on their banner isn't always right.
(Moderators, before you mod this down as a troll, re-read what I've written. It's on-topic honest, accurate and far more balanced than the parent comment.)
(*These aren't isolated incidents, these are just examples. It's always nice to know that your taxes help to kill innocent men, women and children. It's even nicer to know that when it happens, nobody is ever held accountable.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Take a page out of an old 80s movie about a laser that can kill people from space. *DON'T DO IT*. (Or, at least, be able to get into the test plane and reprogram the microchips, which are conveniently removable and not souldered into place like all other microchips.)
[insert witty comment here]
let's see, if only we had some sort of device that you could use to shoot unexploded ordnace and detonate it. Oh wait, we do, it's called a rifle and it's been used for that purpose for about 100 years now. A fifty cent bullet does just as good a job as a million dollar laser, and has a longer range too.
Some really good info about the real problems of humanitarian demining (during peacetime) here:
Demining Research at the University of Western Australia
The problem won't be solved by these high tech solutions which, while very ingenious, are too expensive for the countries to afford to use. Not to mention that they often require specialist operators, support crew, resources, transportation etc. There's also the issue of actually getting into the areas that need to be demined - especially in places like Afghanistan where the terrain is mainly mountainous (and much of the demining takes place on rocky mountain/hill sides where vehicles, even helicopters, can't go).
The main problems are not technological, but related to the local culture and geography.
It's the cheap solutions that the local deminers can be easily trained to use that will be actually used. I remember going to a talk on this subject (see link above) in which it was stated that the most effective and successfull demining tool is still the use of mine sniffer dogs.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
If landmines are used during wartime indescriminately, then NATO/UN/ should force the armed force that deployed them in the first place to clear them up.
"I love deadlines. I love the wooshing sound they make as they fly past" Douglas N Adams
Yeah that's what I'm talkin bout. Laser armed Hummer conversion. All we need is the automatic crushing death claw and turbo trash compactor.
Fine - then why not develop mine technology which only has a certain limit of usability- ie an explosive that degrades completely to harmless soil nutrients after a few months- along with most of the casing etc...Then you are no longer creating a permenant hazard.
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
Why are they spending the money to develop a laser for clearing surface mines? Clearing and destroying visable mines is the least difficult of all mine clearing problems. Current doctrine for clearing runways involves the use of snow plows or runway sweeping equipment that are already at airports. The number of mines visable on hard surfaces are only a small proportion compared to ones in the ground or hidden. In Bosnia even paved highways were not safe as mines were placed in pot holes. As the article said, removing only the surface mines do not help the farmers that want to use the land.
The problem with non-surface 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 lifting or destruction of the mine to the engineers.
The US should rethink its use of cluster munitions. A 30% dud rate is not very efficient. Unless they can develop a self destruct timer(which should not be that hard) these mines are going to do more harm to the civilian populations than to the bad guys. 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.
Instead of spending millions on lasers with limited use, the US should recognize that anti pers mines have a limited tactical role and the human cost in civilian casualties is too great to justify their use. They should be working with Canada to ban anti pers mines and stop their production.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Just to give you an idea what the problem is currently like with modern mines, a typical anti-personnel mine (the US Army's M-14) is 2 inches [5.6cm] in diameter and about 1.5 inches [4.6cm] high. The only metal in the mine is the firing pin, maybe 10 g of (non-ferrous) metal. This is buried about an inch below the surface of the ground and holds enough plastic explosive to blow your leg off.
-JS
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...
Remember the 'Cold War' the US and allies 'won' way back in the 20th century? The massive defense mobilization (our parents and grandparents) built the stockpiles of mines. So it is possible to maintain an inventory while no longer importing or building.
As a side note... As an Army Combat Engineer, most of the live mines we trained with and detonated were 1940s and 1950s vintage.
Geneva conventions demand that all buried mines are tracked and mapped. Could it be that the countries that have so many mines do not believe or adhere to Geneva conventions? How useful is any ban by a 'civilized' group of nations then?
It is interesting that nations that have never won a modern war (and those induhviduals that do not understand how or why wars are won) want to ban the tools. And then, when we are at war, this same group wonders why it takes so long to win.
It had a system that would help it lock on to the mine to insure a direct hit.
This would have been out years ago if someone didn't point it at an F-16 that just happened to be flying over. It locked on and started tracking and that's when all hell broke lose. The pilot detected a missile lock and panicked because he knew he was flying over a missile range where training drones were often shot down. The pilot took evasive action which rattled a few windows off post and called range control to shut everything down.
Of course, no air defense training was scheduled that day (just a land mine project)so a major investigation was launched. The incident went all the way to the Commanding General.
The contractor said they could lock the elevation control on the next version would not be able to be pointed up at aircraft. Someone mentioned they could just raise the front of the vehicle by driving it up a hill. Every solution the contractor came up with was able to be circumvented in some way so the last I heard up until now was that this project was back to the drawing board.
> I would imagine that many of those currently placing mines are those actively involved in
> conflicts looking for a cheap way to do some damage. Not the U.S. military. (I could be wrong but I doubt it)
You are. The most recent US use of land mines was in Afghanistan. If you don't remember, they dropped not only yellow food packages but also bombs that would disintegrate into a large amount of small yellow -- land mines.
BWT I don't think this laser based anti-mine waepon really is news. I bet they are already researching on how to make their own mines resistant against such a weapon (in case someone evil gets it). It's just another turn in the armament race.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
Degrading explosives is a "bad thing" (read unstable).
The US does have time limited mines but they detonate when their time is up, not rot.
Ah, this whole thing is simply more heat than light. Very inefficient.
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
Very few (if any) organisms are able to eat raw plastic or pure metal {,alloys). They were happy enough to find something that could eat oil slicks.
Once you breach the case, you could get something to eat the explosives inside, but once the case is breached, the chemicals would probably be leached out and/or eaten by bugs, etc ...
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
The problem is, that even if these are banned, they will utilized whenever there is a war.
They are very useful. They do the job very well.
Information wants to be free, or so we always hear. This genie is already out of the bottle. It doesn't matter if US produces them or not. Someone will produce and deploy them always.
The problem is the people, an idea (the idea of the landmine) isn't the problem. The people that utilize that idea is the problem.
Note that spacejunkie said (and I quote) "Harmless soil nutrients".
If it is unstable - and may detonate before then, or give of nasty fumes,
then it does not meet these research requirements.
AS for spacejunkie - you have got to admire this guys airheaded idealism...
Its probably never gonna happen
Just take a bunch of wrecking balls and drag them across a area attached to something that moves. You can't blow up a steel ball too quickly.
It would be even better to have them roll along, put a axle through them and pull them along.
And for those who are deep thinkers, clear a path on both sides of your field for two tractors and tie a large cable between them and use that to drag the wrecking balls.
Farmers do it all the time, but maybe they don't have the balls.