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

imagination

[DarkHelmet]

Why do I imagine some bad guy dressed like Mike Myers going:

Fire the "Laser"

Not for de-mining during peacetime

[quasi_steller]

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.

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.

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

[doubtless]

how about we actually build something that gets rid of land mines?

And how about we actually stop building mines? Not exactly a chicken and egg problem, is it?

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.

Re:look at the other point

[Tackhead]

> And how about we actually stop building mines? Not exactly a chicken and egg problem, is it?

I tried not to turn this into a gun control thread, honest. But you've forced my hand.

Let's start with the words-on-paper about guns in Washington, DC, New York City, NY, and Los Angeles, CA. These cities had a problem with their citizens - they liked to shoot guns at one another. (Well, usually only one side was shooting, and nobody was shooting back.) So we put words on paper that say "You can't have guns, and especially not in these cities".

Words on pieces of paper about land mines will probably be every bit as effective at convincing the leaders of Angola, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Mozambique, Bosnia, and Iraq to stop killing people with land mines.

Perhaps you're right - and shortly after their success in convincing great humanitarians like Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein to stop using land mines, the UN passes a resolution that says people blowing themselves up at bus stops and discotheques is Not A Nice Thing Either. Yasser Arafat and the rest of his organization will all stand around a campfire singing "Kumbayah" as doves fly out of their asses.

But I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Re:dumb question

[Alsee]

How are they going to power the thing?

Just use a souped up alternator and the engine make a good generator.

-

Not as effective as it seems

[stuffman64]

From the New Scientist article:

Laser beams cannot penetrate soil, so it won't work against buried mines.

From what I know, most anti-personel (and I'd assume, anti-vehicle mines) are burried a few inches underground for concealment. If at all, the only part that is above the ground is the pressure plate that activates the mine. Perhaps adding focused sound waves or other suitable technology can distrupt the ground nearby enough to allow the laser to reach the entire mine. This device is therefor only suitable for mines strewn about by helicopters or low-flying aircraft.

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.

Here kittie kittie

[ZaneMcAuley]

Muhahahah here chase this laser pointer muuuhahahaha..

Weeiioow...

Re:americans finally see the light

[smoondog]

This is troll bait, but whatever. From this:

The countries profiled in this chapter are the 10 with the highest number of landmine casualties. (Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Eritrea, Iraq [Kurdistan], Mozambique, Somalia, and Sudan(footnote 3) as well as two others (Namibia and Nicaragua), which illustrate the global nature of the landmine contagion

The US is neither a huge producer of landmines nor is it a big user of landmines. Its controversy has stemmed from (as mentioned in the article) refusal to sign international landmine bans.

-Sean

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?

White Elephants!

[sam_handelman]

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.

Stop trolling, look at the facts

[WIAKywbfatw]

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.)