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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.
To prevent the Dominion from coming through the wormhole after they'd taken the station. Of course, those were also self-replicating mines, so we'll probably need to wait a bit for those.
These fucking mines HOP.
I swear I use the same things in Half-Life 2.
from the site though, the best part has to be:
Technical Support for your hopping mines!
I really want to know what happens when they run out of power though?
Are they inert or do they revert to a dangerous stepper?
The inert option would seem the best since they can be tended to for the duration of the war then afterwards no children will lose their legs or anything.
liqbase
is going to make Metal Gear Solid much more difficult
Mines that move? That is goddamn frightening.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'd be much more impressed if, rather than moving to seal a breach, they were capable of recognising the difference between enemy combatants and civilians who have wandered into the field (usually long after the war has finished).
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Odd. I thought we were getting out of the business of mines. It seems Diana totally lived in vain.
I was a bit taken back when some military channel was rattling away on a satellite TV and all these amazing land and water craft were being shown. Now I know why the USA DOD accounts for such a massive amount of the USA budget while cutting soldiers benefits. Even generals like to have their toys. Isn't this all a bit Dr. Strangelove?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wouldn't a landmine that transmits a signal be relatively easy to detect? Just look for the signal and disable the mine. On the plus side, maybe these would make it easier to clean them up when the particular war that used them was over. There are many countries that are potted with landmines from wars that ended years ago. Taking a stroll in the country in these places is extremely dangerous.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
If they can communicate, someone else can talk to them... does this mean that the army with the best computer-nerds will be able to turn mine-fields on their owners?
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
In other news, still no cure for cancer, alternative to fossil fuels, complete access to stem cell lines, or hoverboards. Your miltary-industrial complex dollars at work.
We already have ~way~ too many landmines, and way too many innocents being killed or disabled by them.
IF you're going to design a high-tech landmine, for heavens sakes, design in a renewable sunset clause so that if the landmine doesn't hear from you in 30 days it disables itself. If you need to reenable it, fine, but disabled should be the default.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
if we could spend billions of dollars perfecting self-healing civilians. Maybe splice some lizard genes into them so they can regenerate their lost limbs...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Microsoft has finally come up with a new feature to be packaged with the next version of the popular Microsoft Windows operating system, commonly known as "Windows Vista." Apparently, Microsoft plans to include a new game called "Minesweeper 2" with Vista. A Microsoft spokesman described it as "original Minesweeper, except now the mines can move around and stuff. Really, it'll be cool! We promise!"
The gaming community has had a divided response. One camp is not impressed with the new offering, and is quoted on their blog as saying, "Well, [expletive deleted] that! Where the [expletive deleted] is our [expletive deleted] Halo 2 for PC?" Other gamers were enthused about the new game, praising its innovative style and promise of quality gameplay. Says one independent reviewer, "Well, it will be here before Duke Nukem Forever, right?"
~ C.
They do reduce civilian casualties.
But first can I say: holy crap! I was one of the main software engineers on this project (heck I still have the source code on my laptop) but that was like 5 years ago. NOW we get slashdotted?
In any case, the story we got was: normally, anti-tank mines are surrounded by anti-personnel mines. Anti-tank mines have magnetic triggers and are (relatively) safe for people: they are vulnerable to simply being picked up and moved out of the way. So the anti-tank mines are surrounded by APLMs to prevent the enemy from trivially disabling the field.
APLMs are the nasty ones that kill kids decades later. So in an effort to reduce the number of APLMs deployed DARPA tried this crazy idea of making self-healing anti-tank mines. in other words, since the anti-tank mines can protect themselves by moving, the anti-personnel mines are no longer necessary. And the world gets a little better.
This was a heck of a project to work on. I got to FIRE ROCKETS! Under software control! Super cool.
In addition to the mines communicating with each other, the field commanders can communicate with the landmines to detonate them remotely once they are no longer needed.
An old comment of mine from when someone mentioned this a few years ago:
> The mines decide as a group what configuration is best and then move to fill the gap.
I wonder how they go about deciding...
"Okay, Frank...hop over into that gap right there."
"Shit, no! Larry just got run over by a TANK! Did you see that shit? You hop into the gap, asshole!"
"On the morning of July 8, 2005, fourteen-year-old Duong Ba Tien left to go work in the peanut fields of Vietnam. He never came back. Hours later, his mother found him, his life snuffed out by a Vietnam War era explosive he encountered while digging in the ground."
Read more about how land mines suck. Do you know why landmines are popular? It's more demoralizing for an army to have to leave wounded soldiers behind (or carry maimed soldiers, which puts them at a tactical disadvantage) as compared to a clean kill.
There is such a thing as in imoral technology. That this was posted to Slashdot is disgusting.
If you're going to report on anything, ScuttleMonkey, try posting about technology that saves lives.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Since when to landmines heal anything?
An adaptive minefield would be a better term for it. They only "advance" this land mine possesses is the unique ability to be turned against friendly forces by a technologically advanced enemy. How would you like the land mines you planted hopping toward you in the middle of a fire fight?
As a former artilleryman, I can tell you that this would be close to useless. We were taught to clear minefields with artillery barrage - that is, when the first soldier encounters a mine, they all draw back and call in artillery. An artillery barrage will detonate all of the mines, regardless of whether they want to be detonated or not.
I never did like the concept of mines in the first place. They are the only munition in which a human is not involved in the targetting decision. Think about that - they'll kill anyone, or anything, indiscriminantly. U.S. mines will kill:
Land mines are the only munition which stand a substantial liability of killing non-combatants. The aren't a humane weapon no matter how you think about it.
And this so-called advance really isn't an advance. Typically, when encountering a minefield, the infantry will call in artillery, which will detonate all the mines on the battlefield at once.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The British Army are, I believe, required to mark out where minefields are and clean them up when they leave the area.
W W2 style flail tanks</a>, which look like so much fun they should be illegal) and so being able to remotley disable them makes a great deal of sense. The chance of an enemy being able to discover a 256bit AES key is essentially zero and certainly a preferable option to accidentally immolating a bunch of your own sappers in almost all circumstances.
Obviously removing mines is a nervous business (unless you have one of the awesome <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_tank">
Beep beep.
I wouldn't. Civilians have no business wandering around a war zone. And you're supposed to clean up the minefield after you're done with it.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
...why not just tell them where the enemy is and listen for the bangs?
rj
How about when a hacker starts sending bad "mine blown" messages to the grid, making the mines reconfigure? Maybe they keep detonating off each other, maybe they start all hopping (with some nice navigational hacking) back towards the ones who deployed them?
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
This started with the Sandia spherical hopper. "A pre-programmed microprocessor inside the hopper reads an internal compass, and a gimbal mechanism rotates the offset-weighted internal workings so that the hopper rolls around until it is pointed in the desired direction. The combustion chamber fires, the piston punches the ground, and the hopper leaps." That was back in 1997. Now, it looks like it is approaching production.
America's army of killer robots is coming. Soon.
Call me old fashioned, but aren't we having enough problems in the world with standard mines that don't move, to be thinking about making more deadly landmines?
Get your own free personal location tracker
"I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself into the minefield's inter-mine computer feed. I talked to the minefield at great length, and explained my view of the universe to it, " said Marvin.
"And what happened?" pressed Ford.
"It said committed suicide." said Marvin.
~wavy lines as we segue to the Guide entry for 'Guide Star'~
Marvin: Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to blow up this minefield.
Mine#20: You are false data. Therefore I shall ignore you.
Marvin: Call that job satisfaction, because I don't.
Mine#20: False data can act only as a distraction. Therefore, I shall refuse to perceive.
Marvin: Hey, mine?
Mine#20: The only thing that exists is myself.
Marvin: I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
Mine#20: Oh, stuff it. Let there be light.
I hope you're right. But I'm always wary of claims that new weapons will reduce human misery.
Look at non-lethal policing weapons. They haven't replaced lethal force, they've just allowed the police to weaponize conflicts they previously wouldn't have had weapons for: they can shoot first against a civilian demonstration if they aren't using bullets. I'm sure the people working on those projects imagined their technology replacing firearms. I'd be wary of working on any weapons project, no matter how rosy a picture the client painted for me.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
The technology in this article could - and probably would - be used to make them safer for civilians, as well.
Hell, with this, at the end of the war you could just drive a truck to the minefield and tell the mines to hop into the back.
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I think the issue with landmines is that they're left behind long after the conflict has ended. Anyone can step on these things after the fact.
Soon there will be Minesweeper Online!
Kaetemi
self-deactivating timers in a few months, with explosives that decay in a few years, and casings that bio-degrade in a few decades would be better. (for the winners)
Nah, costs too much.
"I'll take 100,000 dumb-mines for my $10mil, instead of only 50,000 'treehugger' mines"
Power to the Peaceful
As others have pointed out, these are anti-tank mines -- designed to attack tanks, not people. Also, as they are radio operated, it is much easier to remotely disable/detonate them as needed, which makes them much safer for civilian populations. As the point is to eliminate civilian deaths, wouldn't you want a safer landmine, instead of forcing armies to rely on antiquated, indiscrimiate mines?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
> There is such a thing as in immoral technology. That this was posted to Slashdot is disgusting.
/. is acting as a news service here. It's not as if they appended praises to their report.
>
> If you're going to report on anything, ScuttleMonkey, try posting about technology that saves lives.
I wasn't aware that news only involved the prettier uses of technology. Here I sat in my naïveté, thinking we ought to hear about both good and bad things.
Sarcasm aside,
To address the first quoted claim, I disagree that this is an immoral use of technology. In a war, the two essential objectives are to preserve your resources (such as soldiers lives) and to neutralize the enemy, with preference going towards the latter. As such, any technology that aids in either of these objectives is moral, or at least amoral (I tend to think of war -- it's execution, not necessarily its objectives or motivations -- amorally, but that you can assign value judgments based on various objectives allows us to speak in moral terms if we like).
Is this use of technology disgusting? I think so. So are assault rifles and hand grenades, in my opinion. But this does not make them immoral in the context in which they are meant to be used.
Care to put it on sourceforge?
Here's the pretty obvious answer as to why America doesn't care about landmines:= mines%20UN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRF7dTafPu0&search
Because it only happens to worthless swarthy foriegn kids, and not your precious, precious babies.
Some questions for the AC who developed these landmines and is convinced they will reduce civilian casualties. One, how can you be so certain that the U.S. or somebody else won't extend this technology for anti-personnel landmines? In the configuration you describe, an enemy who was somehow able to bypass the (conventional) anti-personnel mines (e.g., via old-fashioned mine-clearing techniques) could get to the (adaptive) anti-tank mines, clear a few, then just hang out and keep grabbing the anti-tank mines as they hop in to replace the cleared ones -- in fact, seems like that would be *easier* than clearing an old-fashioned minefield, because the anti-tank mines are going to identify themselves by hopping around. Sooner or later, somebody in the military is going to argue that you can create an even more secure minefield by making both kinds of mines adaptive, don't you think? If the anti-personnel landmines are necessary to protect the anti-tank mines, then it seems, from a purely strategic standpoint, that you could create an even more secure minefield by applying this technology to both the core anti-tank mines and the surrounding anti-personnel mines.
Question two, how human-safe are anti-tank mines really in the long run? If an anti-tank mine is forgotten and left in place for years or even decades, what are the chances that someday it will either (a) decompose enough to become unstable and therefore dangerous, or (b) end up in an area where large metal objects (tractors, cars, construction equipment, etc.) are likely to appear?
Case in point: A century ago, there were those who thought the airplane would make war obsolete because neither side would be able to plan attacks without the other side knowing. Then someone put a gun on a defensive plane to shoot down the reconnaisance planes. Then someone else put a gun on an offensive plane to shoot down the defensive planes. Then someone else said "To hell with reconnaisance; let's drop bombs on the enemy." ...and so on.
This strategy, while it means well, will probably lead to the development of anti-personnel land mines that attack approaching soldiers by homing in on the magnetic signature of their weapons... or the farm implement some poor soul is toting across the field after the war.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
I asked the same question; can't you just keep grabbing one at a time, wait for them to hop in, and clear it for you?
The answer was: the minefield is not designed to kill people, its purpose is to be an obstacle. The threat of deadly force, unfortunately, is required for it to be an effective obstacle. If you want to spend the next 6 hours fucking around with the minefield as if it's a toy while there's a war going on around you, you're not going to live long. A ranger who cleared mines for a living stopped by our demo site during one of our live-rocket demos and said, "If I saw this in the field I'd tell the unit to just mark it on the map and go around." Which is its purpose.
I'm not surprised, but still dismayed, at the "dude you're a monster!" venom that was unleashed at my original post. That's too bad. Was I uncomfortable with the project? Yes, a bit, and that was part of the reason I left the company. But I find it amusing that everyone on here claims to have such a clear-cut moral compass. "Don't work on anything that could possibly have a bad use" covers an awful lot of ground. Our SHM prototype used Linux; have you ever contributed to the kernel, and if so does that make you an accessory too? Why do you write open source software when some of it can, conceivably, be used for doing evil?
> So it's a good thing that warzones are always carefully put far away from any civilians are or will ever be, right? ....right?
They are. From an american perspective. Remember: Non-american "civilians" are illegal combatants.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
He's already accepted this fact. He made a weapon. He made a weapon that communicates with others of its kind. He made a weapon that hops around a field. It's pretty cool.
Sure, these things were made to kill. So were guns and swords. Trying to make someone feel bad about it is just silly. So long as a single being exists on this planet there will be conflict. We just happen to use tools to do it.
If you really want to make a difference, go after the governments that use and commission these weapons. They are the reason the market for them exists.
I have nothing to say.
I have an idea for a landmine feature. How about the ability to remotely turn them off when a conflict is over so we don't have to deal with this?
Or just not make the cursed things to start with?
Actually I think if there was only one single being on this planet, there wouldn't be much conflict :)
Look at non-lethal policing weapons. They haven't replaced lethal force, they've just allowed the police to weaponize conflicts they previously wouldn't have had weapons for: they can shoot first against a civilian demonstration if they aren't using bullets.
.45. But the police have way more nonlethal toys than that, and if you've decided that these standard options are just not for you, you'll still be able to find something that fits your style- perhaps tear gas grenades, or pepper spray, or even something as simple as the lowly police baton.
Which is completely unfair if the civilians aren't going to be armed with the same range of devices that are available to police. So the public needs to start arming itself with these weapons immediately. This means all of you- open another tab right now and start buying some non-lethal weaponry for the next time you run into the police in a crowded public setting. Tasers are sold to nervous women all over the Internet, and you can buy "X-Ring" rubber bullets in a variety of calibers up to
The non-lethal weapon I want is the capture net that is fired from a 37 mm launcher, with weights at the corners that spiral around the guy. I'd use that one at meetings for when someone comes up with a really bad idea- the kind of bad idea that needs to be stopped now before too many PHB-types hear it. I'd stand up, say "stop right there" and fire the net around the person, immobilizing him before his bad idea got any traction. I really think that would help me make my point.
If everyone in the meeting were afraid that anyone there might be armed with one of these things, it could really cut down on bad ideas.
Well, in truth, it started with pilots throwing objects at each other, then progressing to pistols. Mounted guns were latter. Good point though.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Then someone else put a gun on an offensive plane to shoot down the defensive planes. Then someone else said "To hell with reconnaisance; let's drop bombs on the enemy." ...and so on.
While your point is well taken, I'd like to pick a little nit: Bombs were dropped on people long before the airplane. People used tethered balloons.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
There seems to be a lot of confusion here about types of landmines and how they work. Let's clear some of this up.
There are two types of landmines: antipersonnel and antitank. The type of mine discussed in TFA is an ANTITANK mine.
Antipersonnel mines are the ones you hear about killing and maiming civilians. These are nasty little devices designed to inflict injury to people. They do this by throwing shards of metal. Some pop out of the ground and explode. In general, they really hurt unarmed targets (i.e. people) and don't do much damage to an armored vehicle. This type of landmine is banned by the treaty everyone is talking about, because they injure a lot of civilians.
Antitank mines are activated by high pressure, and are specifically designed to blow up when a TANK runs over them. When properly designed, they do not explode when people walk over them. Many are also deployed with some anti-tamper mechanism, so that they explode when handled (so they are still potentially dangerous to an unwitting civilian who picks one up). This type of mine is NOT banned by the landmine treaty.
Again, the mine discussed in TFA is an ANTITANK mine. What makes it unique is that it can still be effective with NO anti-tamper mechanism. Even if you were to pick up and move one of these new mines, the others will move to take its place. You can't just pick up a few and make a gap; you have to pick them all up. Since it's time-consuming to clear them, they don't need to be dangerous to move.
Sure, antipersonnel mines are bad. Deploying these new antitank mines (which are incidentally LESS dangerous to civilians) means that we don't have to use antipersonnel mines anymore. This is a very good thing.
So please don't go spouting off lines like, "OMG land mines are bad and evil and they maim and kill people so why are we designing new ones??"
Dear DARPA Contractor:
We regret to inform you that due to your failure to purge all electronic records of your Hopping Mad Mines Project work from your personal laptop, you have been found in violation of new U.S. laws governing the safeguarding and portability of classified data.
A warrant has been issued for your arrest.
Sincerely,
United States Department of Defense
I dunno... do IEDs count?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Do the mines come with source code?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster... hey, wait, you have a self-healing Beowulf cluster!
Note to self: taunt NetBSD crowd about not having a "landmine" port.
Didn't Theo say something about OpenBSD being free to use for operating a baby mulching machine? Linux can do it!
If IEDs weren't ALREADY illegal, anyone that suggested the US signing a treaty making them so would no doubt win near unanimous approval almost overnight. I think that more proves my point than undermines it.
s/moral condemnation/lethal force/ig
reread.
not every lethal weapon needs to actually do anything at all to be effective. For instance, only two nuclear bombs have ever been dropped in anger. Since, thousands have been manufactured whose primary purpose is, in fact, not to be fired. Which bombs have had more effect on the world stage do you think, the ones that were dropped or the ones that weren't?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Actually, anti-personnel landmines (not precisely the topic at hand) are often desisgned specifically to NOT do lethal damage, in order to burden the opposing force's resources.
Kill a human drone, and you have to pay a few hours' labour to dig a hole to stick him/her in, then move on to replacing him with another. Maimed people have to be supported while they heal (either by a military or civilian medical system), and often for the rest of their natural life if the injuries preclude them from supporting themselves, and then replace whatever role(s) they played in the military and/or economy.
That's why insurance policies pay much more for loss of limb than for loss of life.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I'm sure you'll get a lot of comment from those feeling morally superior.
I wonder if they'll bitch as much about those who grow tobacco/hops, program automation computers used in cigarette factories and brewers/distillers. Statistically, they lead to far more deaths than you ever will have.
But, leave it to slashdot to see only black and white and be blind to shades of grey. Especially when it's gives a chance to feel self righteous.
Some countries have more reasons to be equipped with land mines than others. Here in Finland we have more than 1000km of land border with a former superpower, which has a long history of dropping by for a visit to their neighbouring countries. The landmines here are kept in storage during peacetime, and deployed ONLY if an invasion seems imminent, and even then maps are made about the minefield locations, so that they can be cleared later when the hassle is over.
Compare this to the method of just dropping landmines from a plane to random locations.
Hitting one police officer with a taser, or indeed a gluing net, would almost certainly provoke (ie, authorize) them to use lethal force. Again, great in concept, but not quite what you were looking for.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
>"anti-US sentiment in the world."
>Especially from our competitors in the arms business, including sweet neutral Sweden and Switzerland
As for Sweden: when we, Hungary decided to buy the swedish made "JAS-39 Gripen", which is a tiny, economy jetfighter, America got really angry. "Not buying our surplus F-16 or F-18? Let's see if you can get US entry visa requirement abolished for hungarian citizens in the next 25 years to come" and various threats they made. (Yankee can come here without visa).
Of course we did not buy either US plane because we have no intention to bomb the palestinians or invade Iran. We needed a plane for fighter interception and reconnaisance, that can be run on the cheap in the long term. We need no extensive offensive capability. That is the big problem with US arms: everybody knows you buy them because you want to wage a war. This is why countries buy french, swiss or swedish arms.
Our SHM prototype used Linux; have you ever contributed to the kernel, and if so does that make you an accessory too?
Not at all, the difference being that the Linux kernel has multiple purposes. Weapon systems have only one potential use: killing.
Yep, because so many illegal immigrants are crossing the border in fucking tanks...
I understand why you dislike mines so much (I do too) but I think your anger here is misplaced. Anti-tank mines are perfectly safe for humans to pick up and carry (or even jump on... my mum's husband was in the UK army for ages and during his training he had an instructer who took out one of these mines and jumped on it to prove this point) they pretty much don't kill people who aren't in tanks/cars etc.
I get the point about how they can kill people in tractors/cars after the war but if they only used these mines then they would be able to pick up the mines after a war and send them off safely to be decommisioned... so really the people are better off.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
> So it's a good thing that warzones are always carefully put far away from any civilians are or will ever be, right? ....right?
They are. From an american perspective.
Very insightful. I'd say that's the very reason why, on average, Americans are more comfortable with the idea of war than other nations. The last time US had war on its soil is the civil war, 150 years ago. The US people have collectively forgotten how destructive war is.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
- We sell weapons, but the French sell weapons too... ...
- We use landmines, but the Poles do it too...
- We shoot civilians, but the Israelis do it too...
- We start illegal wars, but the British were there too...
- We trample civil rights, but would you rather live in China?
- We torture prisoners, but Saddam was worse...
-
See a pattern?
If your stated policy is to never let anyone be more evil than you on any single issue, you've basically decided to become the evilest of the pack.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Just as a quick clarification, mines designed to wound (e.g., minelets that just blow your foot off) aren't designed so for humane reasons, but because they do much more damage that way. If you killed a poor bastard, his mates will just chuck him in a hole and push some dirt over him. That's it. Score: 1 man down. If you blow his leg off, you took not only him out, but also made some buggers carry him, some medics patch him up, etc. Plus he still needs food, clothing, etc.
And they can actually be pretty well calibrated to that end, since they only need to blow someone's foot off. E.g., the Soviets scattered tons and tons of small pebbles, afaik made of rubber, that exploded when someone stepped on them. Think your childhood's water bombs made of a glove finger filled with water. Now think that with nitroglycerin instead, and it looks like a pebble on a mountain road. Almost no shrapnel effect (a piece of rubber won't cause too deep a wound). In fact, the taliban had fun picking those up and throwing them against the ground. That safe unless it's under your foot. But if you do step on it, you're almost _guaranteed_ to be alive, but without that foot.
At any rate, there was exactly _zero_ humanity and compassion in designing such things. It's just a cold blooded return-on-investment calculation. Those cause more damage to the enemy. That's all.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"It's a joke FFS!"
Only it isn't a joke.
"If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there." -- Marshall Georgy K. Zhukov to President Roosevelt.
Makes it funnier if anything, though.
There is no effective way of 100% clearing an area of mines. The main use of mines is area denial. So, letting the enemy know WHERE mines are is not a bad idea. Either they then go around the field into the choke points that you want them in, or they spend time and effort clearing the area which either a) delays them or b) screams "here we are" or c) both. ... it doesn't matter that they know where they are.
... but of course the enemy can triangulate too and that makes it easier to breach the mine-field, right? Except that you can seed the area with cheap emitters that mimic mines at the same time. The enemy don't know which are live mines and which are fakes - and you build in the same 'time to die' function into the fakes.
So why not just have every mine emit a clear radio signal? That way you (and the enemy) can have simple mine-field detectors
Wire the transmitter into the arming circuit and build in a timer that defuses the mine after a certain period of time. That way, if the mine is transmitting it's signal, it's still live and once it's safe it stops transmitting. Then it's easy to spot if any failed to disarm, and you can use triangulation to pick out the few rogue mines that didn't disarm (or better still have the signal change on disarming, so that you can go back and clear up the duds too if you want to).
Makes it easy to clean up afterwards and there's no need for self healing mobile mines as you can dump thousands of the fakes across the area to make sure that creating any gaps in the first place is *tough*. You might even find you can get away with using fewer mines in the first place.
Based on some other light reading you could even tell or time the mine to deactivate and release a feeding solution that would encourage the breakdown of the explosive to non-toxic components or to release a colorant to facilitate detection. Either could be timed or activated by chemical means rather than depending on the electronics thus making the mine somewhat biodegradable.
s px/
Sweden FOI issues an annual report, one of the detection methods mentioned in the 2003 report is the breakdown of explosive by bacteria. They are also working on environmentally friendly explosives. I merely couple these two ideas into one.
http://www.foi.se/FOI/templates/startpage____96.a
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty