The opinion in many areas where there is a landmine problem is that *chidren* are disposable people. The mindset goes something like: easily made, only uses resources, may never be good for anything. It was not uncommon in Bosnia and Herzegovina to find children engaged in civilian demining because adults were deemed too valuable.
Note: this is a cultural thing. This works for these people and has worked for thousands of years. It doesn't work for me, but it would appear that by and large, they've managed to survive this long with this sort of philosophy...
Do not confuse the goals of military demining with those of civilian demining. The military operates with a notion of "acceptable losses". You are supporting the civilian goal of zero losses.
Also, the military has no interest in clearing fields, only breaching them.
Thus, the mechanized military countermine technologies are for *mostly* clearing a lane through a minefield. This permits armored and mobile infantry units to proceed beyond the field. Following the breach, Engineers follow to secure the breach and widen it (if further action necessitates the expenditure of resources).
The civilian demining community is concerned only with complete demining with minimized losses. This is an entirely incompatible set of requirements.
It is foolish to believe that solutions satisfying the one set of criteria are vaguely applicable under the other set of criteria.
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The opinion in many areas where there is a landmine problem is that *chidren* are disposable people. The mindset goes something like: easily made, only uses resources, may never be good for anything. It was not uncommon in Bosnia and Herzegovina to find children engaged in civilian demining because adults were deemed too valuable.
Note: this is a cultural thing. This works for these people and has worked for thousands of years. It doesn't work for me, but it would appear that by and large, they've managed to survive this long with this sort of philosophy...
Do not confuse the goals of military demining with those of civilian demining. The military operates with a notion of "acceptable losses". You are supporting the civilian goal of zero losses.
Also, the military has no interest in clearing fields, only breaching them.
Thus, the mechanized military countermine technologies are for *mostly* clearing a lane through a minefield. This permits armored and mobile infantry units to proceed beyond the field. Following the breach, Engineers follow to secure the breach and widen it (if further action necessitates the expenditure of resources).
The civilian demining community is concerned only with complete demining with minimized losses. This is an entirely incompatible set of requirements.
It is foolish to believe that solutions satisfying the one set of criteria are vaguely applicable under the other set of criteria.