71–80 of 181 posts
Or you could just create a fleet of cheap ground stomping robots with armored feet designed to deflect the blast wave that are powered by cable and remotely controlled.
In practice the best way to clear most mines (to a military standard, which is far lower than civilian) seems to be explosively generated overpressure -- they launch a bunch of explosives, usually a linear charge, in the direction of travel, and it drops and blows up, clearing a path.
Using trained rats to clear mines (cheaper than dogs) seems to be the best upcoming way to meet the civilian standard. It's labor intensive, too, but most countries with landmines have relatively cheap labor, and the training to be a rat operator isn't as difficult as to be a full EOD tech. It's definitely one of the charities worth supporting.
Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…
Israel uses goats to clear Syrian mines in the Golan Heights That would seem cheaper here too, and the still-alive goats can make milk.
(Many mines are also designed to be triggered under a certain weight, so goats can walk freely on them and not get hurt)
One interesting method I read about is seeding the area (from the air) with a certain flower. When it blooms, the contents of the ground affect the color, so on an aerial photo you could locate the mined areas.
Israel uses goats to clear Syrian mines in the Golan Heights That would seem cheaper here too, and the still-alive goats can make milk.
Some of my friends served in the IDF engineering corps and cleared mines in the Golan as part of their service, I assure you they're not goats :) (Many mines are also designed to be triggered under a certain weight, so goats can walk freely on them and not get hurt) One interesting method I read about is seeding the area (from the air) with a certain flower. When it blooms, the contents of the ground affect the color…
Dedicated and skilled engineers best of course.
as others have pointed out:
- your goal is to clear an area, hence you need a systematic approach to be able to deem a strip of land safe. random paths do not help
- this identifies and detonates in one go. but if the mine does not get triggered, the identifier is lost. these are two separate tasks. merging them would only work with 100% detonation rate.
- this does not work against other types of explosives. anti-vehicle mines, unexploded ordnance, cluster ammo,...
the upside is definitely the low cost. the low effectiveness rate and unreliable pathing makes it lossy though. which with mines is not acceptable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> civilian demining which demands a 99% clearance rate. Is that an actual official classification? It seems a bit low. "There were 1000 mines here, and we found 990 of them. Good enough, I say. Move in, and bring your kids!"
The actual figure is 99.6%.[0] That's the statistical confidence level for clearance required of contractors and to declare an area safe, because it's impossible to prove beyond any doubt that there is no longer a single mine left in an area. Demining teams still aim for 100% though. For instance, Mechem's sniffer dogs have displayed a 90% success rate on target filters, so statistically having three dogs per team pe…
Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…
And there are even mines specifically designed to be resistant to mine flails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAT/6_mine