Then there’s tilt-rod triggers, magnetic mines, acoustic mines, delay time fuses, MOPMS, etc. Some mines have multiple actuators, and some have to be actuated multiple times before they deploy (so as to target groups, rather than individuals).
I dont know what variety were used in the Falklands, but after all these 40 years I expect only pressure-plate types remain.
Here’s a great example of irresponsible usage. A Russian antipersonnel mine that is made to look like a mechanical widget, brightly colored to encourage it being picked up. Only when squeezed does it detonate. And it doesn’t have enough explosive to kill (usually), intended instead to blow off the hands.
I have a particular loathing of land mines, in case that wasn’t abundantly clear
US landmines are biodegradeable now. They’ll stop blowing up after a certain time and you can just turn them off when we want. The explosive is still there though.
Don’t fear the US…
Christ that’s horrible.
Porque no los dos?
“The myth of advanced non-persistent landmines reducing casualties is just that a myth. The problem with landmines is their indiscriminate nature whether they are indiscriminate for a month or a decade is not important,” added Erin Hunt, Program Manager at Mines Action Canada.
The usual US hypocrisy.
I’m interested how exactly mines help US safety. Are they going to mine Mar a Lago? US military adventures don’t make anyones safe.
US IMPOTUS approves mindless “battlefield” slaughter of innocents in Oceana campaign and inept armed forces of Trilateral Alliance of Oceania, EastAsia, and Eurasia join in applying weapons of mass destruction. 2084 is here…
It’s not brightly colored to encourage people to pick it up. That’d be a stupid idea. It’s colored to match the terrain it’s getting scattered on. The original Soviet PFM-1s were green because they made a bunch to use against NATO. And then the realized they were a bit too visible, so they changed the color to orange to make it hide better.
If the mine is easy to spot, so that you can pick it up, it’s easy to spot, so you can poke it with a long stick to make it go boom (or place a small explosive charge next to it, to make it go boom). And the size of the explosive is because to deny an area, you don’t necessarily need to kill people who go in there, you just need to make them not want to go there. So something big enough to blow off a foot is good enough.
You may have a particular loathing of land mines, but let’s not get into atrocity propaganda.
Yeah, not like us cool people.
Yeah, gonna say you’re full of shit.
ETA: just to elaborate, the picture I showed is a PFM-1. It was specifically designed to be an object of curiosity, encouraging people to pick it up. It has a design that resembles a piece of military equipment, and likely to be picked up as a souvenir. After a few squeezes, the mine detonates.
Never underestimate the deplorable lengths people will go to to afflict suffering. And after over 20 years dealing with mines I dont need to be lectured on mines. Have a good day.
Well that is clearly fucked up. Is that technically called a land mine, it looks like something you air drop and let it spin to the ground like those helicopter seeds… I guess I think of land mines as purposefully placed. That is scattered randomly for areal denial. So yeah, I agree with you on that.
As for responsible use:
Clearly marked fields for defending a position that are cleared out after use. Even MASH has a mine field for protection (though it showed the dangers of it in more than one episode.)
So the point was, if it was used in limited cases and removed, I could see their use. But history shows us that use like that is rare and there are waaaayy too many examples them causing harm way after a conflict. Thus my ending thought was "…but clearly that isn’t the case. So I don’t see the point in using them. "
How do you recommend safely removing all the mines from a mine field?
Considering that surgeons still leave gauze pads inside incisions, despite systems to make sure that the same number of pads that go in also come out and radioopaque tracers to make them visible on x-ray, how does one begin to make sure every mine that is deployed gets removed?
What I’m trying to say is, there is no such thing. If mines are deployed, some will be left behind to blow people up. Period.
Dumping poison in the river would be totally fine if they cleaned it up ten feet downstream.
Mines exist to hold a position. Having weapons in place to hold a position implies you might lose that position. If you lose the position you are not there to clean up your mess. This is 100% unworkable.
They still have Königsberg/Kaliningrad.
The US Army has very well documented standard procedures for laying out minefields. You’re supposed to carefully make maps that show how to find them later - mark the distances between them, the mine types, how they’re fuzed…we were taught how to shoot magnetic azimuths so from a known starting position, you could find mines by noting the direction and distance.
Which is just fine, if you have all the time in the world to carefully and methodically follow the procedures. And the maps aren’t ruined by sweat or bad weather. And the maps aren’t accidentally destroyed. And the people who know where the maps are don’t get killed. And the people who have the maps know how to use them. And…
See also:
When I visited Cambodia last year, I visited APOPO, an organization that locates landmines through trained rats. Safer and cheaper than any other method being used today. It’s an excellent organization and they are doing greate work.
Yes, I know it was a picture of a PFM-1. That’s why I identified it as such in my post. I object to you claiming it was designed as an object of curiosity, or that it was supposed to be picked up. You’re not supposed to be able to squeeze it a few times. It’s supposed to blow up after the first time. It’s not even originally a Soviet design. They copied a US design, badly (the US design had self-destruct system to make it “safe” to go across the mine field after a while).
Yes, they’re terrible, and yes, the way they were used was terrible. But that’s not an excuse for spouting bad propaganda from before I was born. Bash people for the bad things they actually do, not the bad things you imagine they do because they’re mustache twirling villains.
