Networked Landmines Work Together

crazedpilot writes "New landmines will soon communicate via a radio network, and move from place to place in order to be most effective." Termed the "self-healing minefield", the individual mines are capable of detecting an enemy breach and then moving to seal the gap.

Comments

who supports land mines ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the list of the 40 countries that have not signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty as of 26 Apr 06. The 3 that have signed the treaty but not ratified are show in bold.

These signatory states have made a political commitment to joining the treaty, and they have a legal obligation not to take actions that would violate the treaty.

      1. Armenia
      2. Azerbaijan
      3. Bahrain
      4. Burma
      5. China
      6. Cuba
      7. Egypt
      8. Finland
      9. Georgia
    10. India
    11. Indonesia
    12. Iran
    13. Iraq
    14. Israel
    15. Kazakhstan
    16. Korea, North
    17. Korea, South
    18. Kuwait
    19. Kyrgyzstan
    20. Lao PDR
    21. Lebanon
    22. Libya
    23. Marshall Islands
    24. Micronesia
    25. Mongolia
    26. Morocco
    27. Nepal
    28. Oman
    29. Pakistan
    30. Palau
    31. Poland
    32. Russian Federation
    33. Saudi Arabia
    34. Singapore
    35. Somalia
    36. Sri Lanka
    37. Syria
    38. Tonga
    39. Tuvalu
    40. United Arab Emirates
    41. United States
    42. Uzbekistan
    43. Vietnam

reads like a whos who of third world countries and banana republics, what good company USA keeps

Re:who supports land mines ?

[guruevi]

It's also nice to know that the US didn't sign it because most of those mines are made (and invented/improved) in the USA. According to Human Rights Watch, between 1969 and 1992, the country was responsible for exporting at least 4.4 million landmines to 32 or more countries. US landmines have reportedly been used in Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia and Zambia.

The USA is also among the greatest stockpilers (4th in row) of landmines.

For those who say/think that the US doesn't use landmines: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-12-10-land mines-usat_x.htm => quote: The Pentagon is preparing to use anti-personnel land mines in a war with Iraq

For the USA it would be too much of an economic problem (for some people related to both Clinton and Bush) to ban landmines. Landmines are good for nothing. They are easy to deploy and cheap but hard and expensive to clean up and it is often not done properly or at all leaving a lot of innocent casualities long after. They are mainly used in the psychology of battle. A mine is not made to kill someone, it is made to disable soldiers and dishearten the rest of them that see it happening.

Re:Detection

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal of a minefield is not to be secret. It's supposed to be an obstacle which requires you know where it is.

I wrote about half the code for these mines (and we're slashdotted 5 years later...). I'm sure you'll be tickled to know they use Linux.

Self-deactivating mines already exist

[phonicsmonkey]

Self terminating mines already exist in a much simpler version - a timed deactivation mechanism preset for the estimated end of conflict. The problem is that the failure rate, i.e., the failure to deactivate, is around 5%-10%. This makes it almost as good as nothing - would you want to plow a field knowing that "only" 10% of the original mines are still active? Cluster bomb bomblets, basically small touch-sensitive tactical mines, are even worse with an estimated failure-to-explode rate around 25%-30%. The only safe minefield is a non-existant one.

Re:Self Healing?

[dedazo]

• All mines are lethal and deadly. Even those designed to wound (yes, they exist) have an error margin (meaning they'll kill you anyway).
• There is no such thing as a "humane" weapon, unless it's specifically designed not to kill. There's no difference between a .45 hollow point slug to the head or a fuel air explosive. You're still dead. Perhaps you were thinking of scale or lethality radius.
• "US" mines will kill just as effectively as British, Russian, Chinese or Indonesian mines.
• Despite the much-publicized PR trips of famous people to victims of landmines in war-ravaged countries, landmines are still a valuable component of defensive warfare. There's a difference between using mines for clear military purposes and just sowing the countryside to see if you can kill a few kids. I'd really have the US continue to use mines in places like the DMZ than to have to rely on a larger deterrent force. Like it or not, landmines are very cost effective.
• I don't know who taught you that minefields should be cleared with artillery barrages. This has been a mistaken assumption since WWI. In the first Gulf War the US Army gave up trying to do that because the overpressure from a relatively large artillery shell would not reliably detonate the mines but instead generate cratering that made navigating the minefield even more dangerous. They even tried MLRS volleys to no avail. I believe current doctrine relies on a type of shaped charge ("bomb on a rope") that is fired from a special "gun" on a carrier vehicle over the minefield and is then detonated to create the breach. Failing that there's always the trench tool and lots of cojones.