Landmines and Seismic Sensing

Hello OPENDOOR

Your idea is a good one, and is already being used in certain easy access areas.

Unfortunately land mines are not always sown in easy-to-get-at flat areas, but on narrow jungle tracks, hillsides, and more.

Makers of these wretched contraptions have also recently included internal measures which allow the mine to remain in place, unfired, after a certain variable preset number of times, during which weight has been placed on the mine, or the mine triggered after several persons are in the sensing field of the mine.

There are mines which do not detonate unless the triggering mechanism senses a warm-blooded creature of the similar dimensions/weight of a human being.

The above means that because the mines are often non-metallic, and with the "variable count" sensing system, even a direct truck wheel roll-over the top may not detonate the device, perhaps until several persons, trucks, animals have passed over, dependent on the pre-sets inside the mine.

Incorporated into many is the "random" counter, which means one can never be certain that any discovered mine is not going to detonate right now.

Likewise the mine makers have already thought of your suggestion, and anti-vibration measures are already included into recent batches of the mines.

That's my thoughts.

Kind Regards....

Opendoor,

This like many methods before it has and does work on various mines.

Unfortunately as soon as the systems are developed, Mine developers work on ways to counteract the new "harmless detonation" method.

There are only four (4) countries I know of who deliberately use older style landmines so that these methods will alway work and they track the layout by survey as to how, when, how many & what type where deployed. They are also fenced and retrieved after deployment.

In warfare they are a usefull means to funnel the enemy, I just wish the children would pick up thier toys.

Regards,
Sapper

Well the cheap solution is to use P.O.W's

Or Sheep... ...Yum Yum..

Cows maybe better sheep may not exert enough pressure on their paws to trigger the LandMine.

Or maybe use that supper magnet that was mentioned a while back?

Flash Roasted Beef would be fine......Assuming you can find enough pieces

Sapper.

Hi,

as all these mechanical methods are not too successful there is a new approach:

training big African rats to sniff the smell of the different landmines, I have no idea if the housing or the explosive is giving a better signature.

After being trained for 6 to 12 weeks they work nearly perfectly.

If they smell or sniff a mine they then sit upright until given a piece of sweet or fruit.

This squadron of rats is working under the supervision of a cat (!) that is engaged to fight wild cats that may threaten the rats.

To train the cat it is necessary to let the rats grow up in close relation with the cat.

As a ME I regret that we did not find a comparable working solution, but nature has had some 200 million years more development time.

RHABE

Hello RHABE

Aha, they have learned some tricks from Hamelin's Pied Piper, no doubt.

Kind Regards....

Dogs and hogs could also be trained similarly since their olfactory senses rival the most sensitive equipment ever devised by man. What they are smelling is of course the explosive itself. This is not unlike the bomb sniffing dogs used at airports etc.

Sure, but how much simpler and better it would be to not deploy mines at all! Or at least build in a means to disable them when no longer needed.

First off, just because you don't use them, it does not mean your enemy won't. you would be effectively removing a very useful tool from your arsenal for little real gain. if you design in way to command detonate them, then your enemy will figure out how to command detonate them too eliminating their usefulness. That is of course assuming that the command detonation works and the blasting cap/fuse isn't a dud. Mines and cluster munitions have an important role to play in warfare. War is by definition not civilized. They still routinely dig up live 500 lb iron bombs in Germany dating from WWII. It is merely the nature of the beast.