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.

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:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[Dachannien]

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.

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.

Doesn't surprise me that new mines hae comms

[Realistic_Dragon]

The British Army are, I believe, required to mark out where minefields are and clean them up when they leave the area.

Obviously removing mines is a nervous business (unless you have one of the awesome <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_tank">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.

Re:who supports land mines ?

[Distinguished Hero]

Ever heard of the Korean DMZ [wikipedia.org]. The US probably plans to use these things to prevent Kim Jung-Il from invading South Korea (incidentally, both the Koreas are on your list, I wonder why...). I'm not aware of any other part of the world where the US uses landmines (care to enlighten me?). So yeah, damn the "military-industrial complex" for helping keep the South Koreans from ending up impoverished, starving, and oppressed like their brethren in the north.

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

Actually, a huge portion of those countries are second-world or former second-world countries (communist countries that sided against the US during the Cold War). You'll also notice that China, Vietnam, India, a whole bunch of Muslim Countries (Iran, Pakistan, etc.) are on your list, so if we go by population (not number of countries), the majority of the world (or very close to it) has not joined the treaty.

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:who supports land mines ?

[Em Ellel]

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

Without mentioning the merits of said treaty, lets see, of 43 you listed, at least 19 are not third world (probably more, I just did a quick glance count), so lets stop with the ethnic slurs. Besides, a MUCH higher percentage of those who signed are third world (something like 116 of 151, again quicky count) - so if you want a real "who's who of third world nations" read THAT list.

-Em

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.

Re:Useful for post-war clean up too!

[Kadin2048]

The problem is that even driving a car or tank (remotely) over large areas, back and forth so you get 100% coverage, is pretty effort-intensive. Certainly it requires a lot more effort than planting the minefield in the first place.

There's really no "easy way" to clean up mines, except maybe by carpet-bombing the whole area from the air.

Re:Useful for post-war clean up too!

[Jerf]

There is a machine to clear a landmine field. There's a picture in this article [gbgm-umc.org], and if you catch it, an episode of Modern Marvels or something on the History Channel or the Discovery Channel about it.

It doesn't really contradict what you say about there being no easy way, though; this is the "easiest" but I still wouldn't call it easy. It's reasonably safe compared to any other technique, but still dangerous.

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 [usatoday.com] => 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:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[Reaperducer]

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.

Many people are missing the point

[rabiddeity]

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??"

Re:who supports land mines ?

[hazem]

Actually, I didn't make anything up. I did a spot check against a list found at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html [infoplease.com]. Without doing a thorough comparison, there were many common entries on both lists.

So, doing a careful comparison, there are 26 out of the 43 that support the death penalty. In either case, both list puts the US in some pretty sad company.

The fact that it's just more than half are shared between the two lists doesn't really do a whole lot to make me stand up and say I'm proud to be an American. As an American and a veteran, I'd personally like to see my country hold itself to a higher standard.

Countries that both support the Death Penalty and are not signatories to the land mine ban:
Bahrain
China
Cuba
Egypt
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Kazakhstan
Korea, North
Korea, South
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lebanon
Libya
Mongolia
Oman
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Somalia
Syria
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

Re:Hoppers!

[CrankyFool]

Congratulations, we have real progress!

As of 1996, the US at least is using only self-destructing mines everywhere except for in some training situation and the Korean Peninsula. These new mines typically have a 4hr to 15 day lifespan.

For more information about our mine arsenal, check out

http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/mines.htm [fas.org]

Re:who supports land mines ?

[TubeSteak]

The big issue with landmines is only with antipersonnel landmines.

The U.S. used to be a big exporter, but Bush Sr. did a lot towards changing that. Under Bush Sr, there was a moratorium passed in the Congress/Senate & signed into law. Clinton supported & signed legislation extending the moratorium.

While Clinton would not sign the international ban without an exemption for their use in Korea, he did start the ball rolling towards acceptance of the ban.

Unfortunately, the Bush Jr. Administration changed the policy 180 degrees.
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/arms0805/ [hrw.org]

If you read that link, you'll see they mention funding for a new antipersonell mine system with "full production decision expected in 2008." Ya wanna know why 2008? because the U.S. moratorium expires in 2008.

A lot of people are pissed off about this.
http://www.google.com/search?q=antipersonnel+bush+ expire+2008 [google.com]

Finland is on the list, but ...

[halitus]

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.

Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[Firehed]

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.

Re:You know, in Starcraft they call these...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, close, but wrong!
That's the Spider Mines, dropped by Terran Vultures. http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/uv.shtml [battle.net]

Scarabs are fired by Protoss Reavers. http://www.battle.net/scc/protoss/units/reaver.sht ml [battle.net]

Re:Hoppers!

[tsm_sf]

I thought it was the fact that N. Korea is primarily made up of starving dirt-farmers, while S. Korea is a wealthy and populous nation backed by the most powerful government on the planet.

Could be the mines tho. Or maybe this bananna I've got stuck in my ear.

Re:Self Healing?

[Cederic]

  U.S. mines will kill:

        * Enemy soldiers
        * [..]
        * U.S. soldiers

Whoa? They're not the same thing?

Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[tehcyder]

go after the governments that use and commission these weapons. They are the reason the market for them exists

That is a very dangerous argument. Would you justify working in a factory manufacturing unambiguous instruments of torture on the same basis?

Designed To Wound != Humane

[Moraelin]

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.

Re:MOD UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Useful for post-war clean up too!

[scatters]

From the Geneva Convention Ammended Mine Protocol:

4. International signs for minefields and mined areas

Signs similar to the example attached and as specified below shall be utilized in the marking of minefields and mined areas to ensure their visibility and recognition by the civilian population:

(a) size and shape: a triangle or square no smaller than 28 centimetres (11 inches) by 20 centimetres (7.9 inches) for a triangle, and 15 centimetres (6 inches) per side for a square;

(b) colour: red or orange with a yellow reflecting border;

(c) symbol: the symbol illustrated in the Attachment, or an alternative readily recognizable in the area in which the sign is to be displayed as identifying a dangerous area;

(d) language: the sign should contain the word "mines" in one of the six official languages of the Convention (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) and the language or languages prevalent in that area; and

(e) spacing: signs should be placed around the minefield or mined area at a distance sufficient to ensure their visibility at any point by a civilian approaching the area."

Biodegradable mine Re:...clean up too!

[mrmeval]

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.

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.as px/ [www.foi.se]

Re:Useful for post-war clean up too!

[maeddi]

In the army (swiss army, btw) i was teached as a "Minenzeichner". My task was to plan the layout of minefields. (Of course, only antitank mines are used).
The location of every single mine is registered on a map.
Our mines self-deactivate after a certain time. When it is deactivated, it pushes out an antenna which can be seen from a few meters away. This makes it easier to find it. If a mine does not self-deactivate properly, no antenna goes up. With a little help from the map, these mines can be spotted and manually deactivated.

It is completely safe to handle active antitank mines since they only react on very large metallic structures.