Speaking of land mines…
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I caught something about that yesterday. The model of mine apparently comes in 2 flavors. One just has a pressure trigger on the top. The other has a spring switch on the bottom and will go off if moved.
They look identical from the top, but once you figure out it’s the former. They can just be slid out of the way, or even picked up and carried off the road.
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Yes - though ‘internal’ included other countries inside the USSR. I believe it is known that he was active in East Germany for a while.
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Putin was posted to Dresden from 1985 to 1990. Depending on who you believe, he was either shuffling paper (and smuggling, according to Alexei Navalny), or handling West German terrorists supported by the KGB.
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The guy I talked to was a US Army tank commander. He said what you said. The “spring switch” kind is still an anti-tank/vehicle type, but it used when you think there’s a high likelihood that someone will try to move it.
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On a cluttered table the x-shaped frame of one drone stands among bundles of plastic propellers and sachets of minuscule screws.
Soon it will take flight with its payload: a wine bottle-sized anti-tank grenade designed to plunge on Russian armor.
One more – the shape of a stealth bomber, the size of a bird of prey – will conduct reconnaissance missions for artillery squads, spotting targets and marking them for incoming fire.
Since Russia invaded, the Nebesna Kara (“Punishment from Above”) collective has made around 40 such specialist drones for the Ukrainian military. Before February 24, its six members were friends in the drone racing community.
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Gotta say, I admire these guys ingenuity. However, the knowledge of how to turn a fun toy into a weapon cheaply and with off the shelf parts will not stay there. I think we are in a new age for those who want to inflict damage on specific someones from a distance.
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Yes. The specific one here is not that type. My old Bosnia field notes even said it was used for exactly what we saw it being used for.
If mines are surface laid on a field id be more concerned about a secondary fuse. Some models like the TMA-1 have a secondary fuse on the bottom which is activated if it is picked up (they look very different). But thats not going to be the case on a paved road with no signs of disturbance.
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This seems like a pretty sophisticated thing. It’s not just hanging around above the target and saying “there it is.” It’s the ability to get the coordinates from the observation, or if they are actually “marking” them, being able to paint the target with a laser to guide incoming rounds.
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Perhaps in the short term, but these things can be unwound over time.
What the West would be doing in your scenario is preventing World War III. The best way to do that may be a slightly terrible option like what you describe, but if it prevents WWIII, it’s a moral and practical thing to do. Put out the fire first, then we can talk about rebuilding the house.
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I don’t mean to be dismal or ignorant but even if he is thwarted somewhat in this invasion what is to keep Putin from just going back like he did in Chechnya?
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The “marking” piece is either misunderstanding or exaggeration. There isn’t an off the shelf platform that could support the stabilized gimbal-mounted laser, at the appropriate power and wavelength necessary for marking targets, at i-phone prices. Never mind where would you get the laser, or pay for it, again at i-phone prices.
Where i could see it being used is to identify targets and then using a map to derive coordinates to provide to the artillery. Still a valuable utility.
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Here is another article regarding civilian drone use in war. There isn’t much more info on the drones, but from this and the other article, it seems more likely that they are using the drones to get coordinates for artillery strikes and not “marking” targets for guided strikes.
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While most countries outlaw detecting drones by decoding this data
And by “most countries”, they mean USA, which seems to have passed a idiot law that forbids WiFi from working. 
Put simply, signal communications between a drone and its controller are protected by this statute. So RF-based systems cannot interfere with these communications or extract any information from them. This includes UAS type, manufacturer, model, protocol, unique identifier, and telemetry.
Unique identifier like the MAC address?
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