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.

Comments

look at the other point

[doubtless]

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.

Re:look at the other point

[rlthomps-1]

look at the other other point.

Right now the US can't sign a treaty to ban land mines because of our involvement in Korea and other countries. The Korean penninsula is so small that an invading army could take south korea in a matter of days. The only thing short of a fully equipped battle ready army that can slow this kind of surprise attack are the land mines that currently occupy the area in the DMZ between the north and south.

Its not pretty but in some cases the only thing we can do is use landmines.

Re:look at the other point

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, i agree that the vietnam land mines should constitute some sort of war crime that someone in the U.S. gov should be convicted of, but most discussion on this subject just doesn't understand what is happening. Please, please keep this in mind, it is important:

Current american landmines are short term only.

In the current technology, American landmines are now battery-powered. When the battery goes out, the landmine doesn't work anymore. Meaning, by design, the landmines have a built-in lifespan past which point they don't harm anyone unless a 12-year old digs up an unexploded mines

Yeah, landmines are horrible and kill people. But War is horrible and kills people. Attack the problem, not the solution. Working to ban any method of warfare, such as non-time-limited landmines, which cause horrible scars to the country long after the war is over, is an important and noble cause. However, that does not cover the current american landmine technology.

That being said, a technological advance that could be used to clear out the submerged minefields of the past with 100% accuracy would be something i'd say is worthy of the nobel peace prize. But other threads seem to be saying that doesn't quite describe this laser thing? Pity.

Millions of dollars wasted on this stupid LASER

[wealthychef]

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.

Normal military-industrial spin

[tagishsimon]

Let's recheck the facts: portable laser device that:

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?

Re:Not for de-mining during peacetime

[ErfC]

The requirements for de-mining during peacetime and during wartime are wildly different.

During wartime, you want to get the field cleared out as fast as possible, often because people are trying to kill you while you're clearing. So there's a balance between speed and thoroughness; after a certain point, the odds of dying from a missed landmine become worse than the odds of getting shot while clearing. I'm sure that's not the only thing, but the point is during wartime you need the field cleared fast, and it's "okay" if you miss a couple.

During peacetime, you can take all the time you need (well, to a point), but it is absolutely essential that you can guarantee you've found every single mine or nobody will use that field or whatever, and you might as well not have demined at all. For example, over at the Canadian military they're apparently working on a device that shines an x-ray beam down into the earth and looks for characteristic reflections from mines. They pass this device very carefully over every square centimetre of a field, and the idea is that this way they don't miss anything. But it takes forever.

I've heard of another technique where they genetically engineer a local weed so that it glows in the dark (or something) in the presence of certain fumes given off by mines. Seed the field with these modified plants, wait a season (so it's obviously not practical for military use), then look for the glowing bits...

Re:Not for de-mining during peacetime

[Qrlx]

There are plenty of places where landmines from previous conflicts are waiting to be cleaned up. Southeast Asia is probably the best example. Africa has its share of problems too.

The United States does deploy land mines, (a.k.a. Area Denial Weapons) mostly along the South Korea / North Korea border. The USA stands alone among Western countries in not banning the use of the devices. Regardless, land mines can be bought for about six dollars on the open market! (Gotta love those economies of scale)

So the problem is people wanting to kill others. The antimine people look to me to be avoiding the real issue in favor of blaming the tool.

The problem is not people wanting to kill others. The problem is *land mines*, which continue to kill and maim long after the war is over. The world considers this to be acceptable. Part of the problem is that the USA considers this to be acceptable.

We were able to ban the use of poison gas after World War I, and Western nations have not used it since. Poison gas kills indiscriminantly, without regard for civilian or military status, and it is a very unpleasant way to die. Civlized nations decided that even in war, there are rules. The USA, of course, has more chemical and biological weapons than any other country on earth...

Like we did with poison gas, we should ban land mines, and stop using them, and most of all stop producing them.

We can't prevent people from having bad intentions but we can set some boundaries on acceptable behavior. Poison gas was deemed unacceptable. Land mines kill indiscriminantly long after the war is over. They must be banned, and they should be removed from the face of the earth.

I've never looked into this too closely so I haven't made up my mind on anything but it looks like once again the problem is people w/bad intentions. Can't ban that.

Look closely. The problem is not people with bad intentions. It is that these people continue to use a weapon which keeps fighting after the war is over. The combatants have gone home, but the land mines they left behind keep blowing up.