The issue of landmines

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The US, China and Russia are among 40 countries that have not signed the treaty - known as the Ottawa Convention - which came into force five years ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3491826.stm

Should the use of landmines be abolished worldwide?

Edit

The link below has a subsection on the costs of making ($3) and removing ($350) landmins, what they are used for and the types of AP mine.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4056113.stm

[ December 01, 2004, 12:08: Message edited by: Cesard ]

 

The use of anti-personel mines certainly should. Many of these are designed, so that instead of killing, they only injure the victims.

However, as a military person myself, I can see the tactical use of anti-tank mines. Personel should not be able to set these off, although I do know they can be rigged to exploded if personel steps on them. But in that case, atleast you get killed... (I would rather be killed outright than grossly injured for life!)

Modern AT-mines are also made, so that they deteriorate after a set time. Also, the nations using them are more bound to actually live up to the rules of war, and clear their own minefields after they have lost their tactical significance... I know that Denmark no longer use AP-mines, but we still have the AT-mines...

Bottom line is, lets get rid of those stupid AP-mines. They are the weapons of a coward, and the way they are used now, they serve no tactical purpose.

By the way, anyone heard about the mine-finder weed? Some danish scientists have genetically engineered some kind of plant, so it will become red instead of green if it is planted near explosives. Hope it will help removing some of those minefields!

 

There was an article about the mine-finder weed in the press a few months back.

Yes, AP landmines should most definitely be abolished. I know nothing about AT ones.

Off Topic, we were talking about engineering and war in the office last week. My boss's father was ones of the engineers to design the mine-clearing "flail" tank attachment.

 

I read about a Japanese business man that manufactures bulldozers and other machinery. He makes some custom bulldozers designed for clearing mines and has already donated several to Afghanistan. If only more people were like him.

 

Mines, AP and AT mines, do have a legitimate military purpose. They are efficient, they are cheap. They can protect a small force from annihilating attack. Planted properly they can multiply the effectiveness of defenses and effectiveness your defensive fire. Antitank mines are a defensive blessing for the infantry and smartly laid antitank (think about MARS + AT-2) defenses allow a defensive force to cut off enemy lines of withdrawal for annihilating counter attacks.

The problem with mines is the way they are used rather than tecnical characteristics of mines. Yes, they should self-destruct, yes they should be metallic - but the problem is elsewhere:

In western armies mines generally are laid and then their locations are mapped and documented.

Undocumented mining in civil wars is the problem. Millions of mines have been placed in third world countries throughout their civil wars and wars, randomly, with the sole purpose of spreading terror.

I don't see that AP mines are a worse or better weapon than other fragmenting ordnance. It is pretty much pointless to argue that a soldier losing his leg to a coward mine worse off compared to someone losing it to a sudden hand grenade or RPG splinters. It is misleading to make an artificial difference here.

I'm all for banning or heavily regulating export, but I fear banning mines outright is futile as it won't work: Look at the US and their ABM treaty - once the current administration, who disliked it, came into office they abolished it.

If countries can't import them they'll build them themselves (that's what Croatia did in their war with Serbia as a result of the general arms embargo) - mines are low tech products and easy to build even for third world countries.

PS - I am well aware that the remaining mines left over after conflict and the danger they pose to civilians are the real core of the mine issue.

Risk for them comes from a multitude of directions, including traditional unexploded ordnance. Heck, even in very first world germany are still disarming the various blessings of the USAAF and RAF found every week, some almost 60 years after conflict.
The problem of modern conflict is that huge numbers of explosive ordnance (various shells, bombs, missiles, warheads etc.) are spread all over the battlefield, with a dud rate of up to 30% or worse in third world wars. Mines are just a segment of the residual threat after conflict.

The point should be to prevent war, the desease, not to ban a particular weapon like mines, which are a mere symptom of the desease.

[ December 01, 2004, 12:40: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

But its best to make the attempt to ban AP mines and having made little difference rather than not doing anything and acomplishing nothing.

 

Ragusa, just a little comment. You said something about it didn't matter if it was a mine or rpg or something.... Well, from a soldiers point of view it does mean a lot. A soldier with an rpg you can fight. Mines you can't fight.

During my six month stay in Iraq, the only thing that really could make people uneasy was the thought of IEDs, like roadside bombs and the like. If people shoot at you, you can shoot back. IEDs just strike without warning, and you can do nothing against it.

 

Actually, Croatia and Serbia to this day are some of the most-mined places in the world. It's estimated that unexploded land mines from the war still number in the tens of thousands, and there is little hope of ever finding most of them other than by accident.

The other country that is still very heavily mined is Vietnam - an entire generation after they were planted.

 

Grovlab, I fully understand your point of view. Mines or UXO or IED are hidden killers. But so is a resistance fighter hiding in ambush. And of course you can fight mines, that's what enegneers are there for.

There are only two specialties about mines: Mines are dumb and fight on even decades after the war is fought. And mines strain forces by their very presence, enforcing precautions just because they may be there.

They are a very much demoralising weapon - I think that is what you mean with you can fight a guy with an RPG - and only insofar you're correct. But a resistance laying ambushes constanty is just about as demoralising.

Mines are as coward and dirty as war is. There is nothing romantic, glorious or cool about burning someone alive in his tank by firing a rod of heavy metal through it, be it thungsten or uranium. Mines aren't special IMO. I actually think that IED are far more dangerous.

 

In my post above, it was mainly IEDs I was thinking about. I would still take the resistance fighter any day though... I've tried fighting those, and it really didn't scary me as much as the thought about mines and IEDs... Besides, arabs really don't know how to shoot! They missed my APC with to rpg's at 30 meters. Their idea of shooting with an AK47 revolves around full auto and hipshooting. You really can't hit anything that way.

One problem for our MPs down there, was that the Iraqi police would often remove the stocks on their AKs, thus making it impossible to hit anything at all....

However, in jugoslavia I would really be afraid about some hidden sniper....

Oh, and all kinds of mines really sucks!

Ps. I am not trying to throw mud at arabs, they just have a culture regarding their weapons that keeps them from hitting anything.... If you compare their shooting skill with a street brawler, then I'm a kungfu master!