Invention: Landmine arrows

"For over 30 years, Barry Fox has trawled the world's weird and wonderful patent applications each week, digging out the most exciting, intriguing and even terrifying new ideas. His column, Invention, is now available exclusively online. Scroll down for a round-up of previous Invention articles.

Landmine arrows
The modern military is borrowing an idea from Robin Hood to deal with unexploded landmines. Patents filed by US defence contractor Raytheon concede that current landmine clearance is ineffective, especially if mines are in sand or under water."

www.newscientist.com...

I do remember "darts" in my happy jungle days, but this is pretty cool.........

Considering the amount of time and effort it takes to clear a minefield sounds like an excellent idea.It would be interesting to watch the demonstrations of it if it goes forward into development,pity the poor animal that gets in the way of that "steel rain"...

it lookes cool - but i dont se what [ if anything ] makes it superior to systems like "gian viper" and other rocket / explosive hose systems

my biggest query is acieving saturation coverage with ONLY a set of KE darts , you only have to miss one mine to put a big crimp in someones day

lastly - would these darts not be a hazard to vehicles with pneumatic tyres ??? esp on rocky ground etc

[added] - Ccan this cope with double impact fused mines ???

edit - fixed link

[edit on 22-11-2005 by ignorant_ape]

Originally posted by bmdefiant
Considering the amount of time and effort it takes to clear a minefield sounds like an excellent idea.

i am sure the children who have lost their lives or limbs think just like that.
landmines can be great in wars to keep in wars where it stops the other side but after the conflict they are left there because it costs to much to find and despose of.

All countries that use Landmines USA, Russia, China, India etc.. should agree to use self-deactivating landmines the tech already exists to make mines that self-deactivate after a specific period of time. No land mine should remain active for decades in this day and age.


Land mines will be a key defensive weapon for a long time they are not going away anytime soon but steps could be taken to save civilian lives years after the event they were used in.

Is it only me, that have this feeling that, this tecnology will also be used as a form of anti personnal AoE weapon?

GPS guided, KE darts which are able hit targets a meter down in water, a shell can pepper an area of several meters square.

Takes out targets like people and landmines.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
All countries that use Landmines USA, Russia, China, India etc.. should agree to use self-deactivating landmines the tech already exists to make mines that self-deactivate after a specific period of time. No land mine should remain active for decades in this day and age.

Accordingly, ShadowXIX, the US, by 2010, will be doing such:

But mines need not remain dangerous. They can contain timing mechanisms that will cause them to self-destruct after a set period, and they can be powered by batteries, so that, if self-destruction fails, the battery will die and the mine will be deactivated. Most mines now in U.S. stockpiles are designed to self-destruct four hours after emplacement; some can be set for as long as 30 days, the maximum for such mines allowed under the Convention on Conventional Weapons, which the U.S. has ratified. The reliability of the self-destruction mechanisms is high: In more than 65,000 tests, no activated U.S. mine has failed to self-destruct.

The essence of Bush's new policy is that after 2010, the U.S. will no longer use any persistent land mines -- that is, mines that do not self-destruct or self-deactivate -- and after 2004, the United States will not use nonmetallic mines, which are difficult to detect. The measures cover not only antipersonnel land mines but also those that target vehicles.

The United States is the first major nation to take these humanitarian steps, which make it the world's moral leader in land mine policy.

Bush Sets the Right Course in Control of Land Mines





seekerof

Sweet thats what Im talking about now If Russia, China etc..can do the same. I think China has the world's largest stockpile (110 million) of landmines and one of the largest producers of landmines in the world.

I saw a show that said Afghanistan has a estimated 2 mines for every 1 person living in that country. The majority seem to be Soviet,Chinese, Indian, Pakastani etc. which are active to this day.

If they make ones that self-deactivate they lose non of the defensive power they give. I know that many countries feel mines are important to warfare since some 46 nations decided not to sign up to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty

Shadow,

Any nation which can make toothpaste or canned food can make a mine in huge numbers.

Further assuming you can stop the act of using them without absolute control over production at the most primitive levels (village blacksmith or apartment handyman) is foolish beyond words.

Furthermore, whereas main-force mines are used to channelize and bunch targets /in the moment/ (GATOR and similar) to allow for immediate destruction of threatfors as a group; most mine use in pissant country's is actually for the purpose of _area denial_ so that you may encourage a foe to leave an area where he can no longer grow food, walk to work or feel safe about those kids of his playing in the vacant lot next door.

In this, mines work just as they are supposed to, 'just fine', today.

Keep in mind as well that mines are really only useful against primitive, stationary, populations and so it is often /sophisticated/ nations (Russia in Afghanistan) which employ them. Either to create the virtual genocide I mentioned. Or to 'influence politics' by supplying leave behind (COE) devices to border bandits to hostage trade or resources through supposed guerilla activity (99.99% of what used to be 'revolutionaries' were and are in fact CRIMINALS and is also where the 'terrorist' method meets the road of morals).

Again, until you create a means by which local hegemony's are protected (AfG was a Russian 'protectorate') and commerce cannot be negotiated via blackmail demoralization, you are never going to defeat the front end effect of what are little more than mouse trap weapons with a blasting cap's worth of explosive under the hammer.

A more generous interpretation of the Mine Treaty that might work better is the back end effect whereby 'salted earth' tactics to despoil what you can no longer hold onto (constituting a continuing threat to civillian populations after the war is over) might be worthy of an instant trip to the International Court for War Crimes conviction and the death penalty or life in prison. For ANYONE caught using these weapons on civillian targets, or failing to specifically restrain and punish those under them who do so.

Inflict fear upon the leadership and /they/ (as the most visible scapegoat) will apply the choke chain to both their spooks and their militia forces with surprising alacrity and efficiency in refraining from non-military mine warfare.

If this were to happen regardless of signatory status on the MBT, you would at least find far fewer threat nations or 'insurgencies' willing to engage in desultory attacks on people with whom the U.S. or a similar Western power might find reason to later deal.

i.e. Murder is an eternal offence. Butcher one man with a land mine in 20xx and 20 years later you could end up hoisted by your own petard for 'crimes against humanity'.

This is something which scares terrorists in particular because if it is done thru the UN, no amount of local amnesty or temporary safe haven/victory in X can save them from an eventual reckoning if captured by international forces at Y.

Even in a different part of the world.

It is TIME to make war itself a largely criminal action, dealt with by strict legal penalties so that all 'other acts' can also be so labelled and -as an alternative to war- there is no closed door policy by which to shelter the likes of UBL and Co..


KPl.

Originally posted by Seekerof
The United States is the first major nation to take these humanitarian steps, which make it the world's moral leader in land mine policy.

What a joke, nevermind the long list of countries that has voted to ban landmines alltogether.

Originally posted by Simon666
What a joke, nevermind the long list of countries that has voted to ban landmines alltogether.

Jokes are subjective, as evident by your comment, Simon666.
Apparently, you are again unaware or failed to recognize that the US is not a signatory of such a ban, huh?

As such, what the US has done that say Russia, North Korea, China, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and some other nations have not voluntarily done is ban the use of land mines that cannot be located with metal detectors and mines that cannot be timed.
White House: U.S. will ban some land mines
Bush Administration Bans Some Land Mines

It is a shame, and in your words, "a joke", that you are unaware of such matters before you made such a comment, Simon666.






seekerof

Originally posted by ch1466
Shadow,

Any nation which can make toothpaste or canned food can make a mine in huge numbers.

Further assuming you can stop the act of using them without absolute control over production at the most primitive levels (village blacksmith or apartment handyman) is foolish beyond words.


KPl.

Really and I thought you needed a space program to make a landmine Thanks Captian Obvious

I never suggested countries are going to or should stop using mines. If you could point out where I said any such thing. Im a realist and that just aint going to happen anytime soon. But they good very easily make mines that self self-deactivate.

Any country that can make" toothpaste or canned food" can make landmines that self self-deactivate

You cannot overestimate the effectivnes of land mines in open warfare, especially in areas with plenty of chokepoints (mountains,forrests) for an example Finnish army relies heavily on AT land mines,and used to rely AP Landmines, but after the ottawa treaty we sifted to using AP mines placed above ground (Claymores, pipemines)

And when used by an army against an army, and with proper minemaps made when used they pose very little threat to civilians.
In modern battlefield UXOs (unexploded ordnance) are more seroius threat IMO

Shadow,

>>
I never suggested countries are going to or should stop using mines. If you could point out where I said any such thing. I'm a realist and that just aint going to happen anytime soon. But they good very easily make mines that self self-deactivate.
>>

No, you don't get it.

Because the most common (and effective, hard to trace) mines are those which use ONLY mechanical striker techniques. Adding a digital timer or a chemical burnout factor within the explosive, trigger or power source is a whole 'nother level of technology beyond that of mechanical engineering.

Furthermore, the /manufacture/ of mines is often as much based on the exploitation of these raw materials, even beyond that of nationally controlled industries.

Such is how insurgents operate on a shoe string budget.

>>
Any country that can make" toothpaste or canned food" can make landmines that self self-deactivate.
>>

Even if that were true, 'what if', as a function of national policy, you have a nation supply a box of more primitive systems to a border bandit 'revolutionary group' whose sole purpose (as far as you're concerned) is to sew terror and thus be an /economic factor/ in a trade package by which the soon-to-be-slave-labour population ceases to be paralyzed by fear and resource denial "As soon as you sign on the dotted line..."

In this connotation, the ONLY way to make an anti-mine system work 'as if you intended to win' by eventually making them a non-used system is to ensure that whole governments are held responsible for the delivery as much as direct use of these weapons to regional conflicts.

They just will not do it for 'moral reasons' where the nature of cost and mission is that of a system which doesn't have to be reseeded everytime the Casio battery goes out.

Public Safety is built on Law. And Law is built on Fear. Fear being different from Terror in that there is no random sense of intrusion on your life but rather a direct action:consequence awareness of outcome from the moment you begin the chain of events which lead to it.

You make the FEAR a function of losing all your prosperity, station and the respect of yourself and your nation by the world community. Even perhaps your own life. And suddenly a President is a lot less apt to tell his Intelligence chief: "Whatever it takes, so long as I don't have to know about it..."

The nature of conspiracy (under the law) not requiring one hand to know what the other is specifically doing to be subject to the consequences of a conjoined action makes it the LEADERSHIP'S JOB to keep their's and their underling's noses clean.


KPl.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Apparently, you are again unaware or failed to recognize that the US is not a signatory of such a ban, huh?

You seem unaware that numerous countries have and that as such, claiming the US has moral superiority in land mine policy is ridiculous since enough countries have a policy not to produce, use, buy or sell them alltogether.

Originally posted by Seekerof
As such, what the US has done that say Russia, North Korea, China, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and some other nations have not voluntarily done is ban the use of land mines that cannot be located with metal detectors and mines that cannot be timed.

I guess that makes you better then than Russia, North Korea, china, Pakistan, Iran and Syria and below just about any naion that has voted to ban them alltogether. Again, the US finds itself in good company looking at the list of nations that still use them.

Show me a treaty that has lasted past the first shot in a war. The interesting thing about landmines is that they are cheap and easy to produce. Country 'A' signed the landmine treaty and is technically following it. They know that they are going to war. A truckload of standard detonators leaves warehouse 'A', a truckload of casings leaves warehouse 'B' and they both meet at bunker 'C'. a few hours later three truckloads of landmines leaves bunker 'C'. That simple.