Genius at work

[henni]

How to clear landmines

[MikeT]

Originally Posted by henni

How to clear landmines

Awesome... Simply awesome

[chiph]

While this is indeed cool, unfortunately it's not effective enough.

1. It rolls around randomly (it's wind-driven) so it will miss places. Which doesn't help farmers who will cover 100% of a field as they plant & harvest.
2. Doesn't work all that well on rough terrain.
3. Statistically, you need to be 99.6% sure that there isn't a mine in the area before it's considered "safe" for civilians.

Chip H.

[manida]

why cant they operate remote vehicles over the entire area (back and forth) until they cover a certain sized section, then open it up??

[chiph]

The one advantage of this rolly-ball thing is that it's cheap. Really cheap.

Chip H.

[rollinhonda]

Very ingenious. You could certainly use more than one, and do it more than once. It should not take long to let you know that an area does have land mines.

Even remote electronics could still be relatively cheap nowadays. You could have 2 or more strings of them running remotely, and staggered.
If near a safe road, have them attached with a rod, to the side of a vehicle.
I can envision other ways, like shooting out a net with metal projections that scrape across the ground as you roll the net back in.

[tpevehouse]

Originally Posted by chiph

While this is indeed cool, unfortunately it's not effective enough.

1. It rolls around randomly (it's wind-driven) so it will miss places. Which doesn't help farmers who will cover 100% of a field as they plant & harvest.
2. Doesn't work all that well on rough terrain.
3. Statistically, you need to be 99.6% sure that there isn't a mine in the area before it's considered "safe" for civilians.

Chip H.

But the majority of the community damage doesn't actually come from the land mines. It's the knowledge that that are there in those areas. Having just a few of the little balls roll around might not be extremely effective, but it will have a major impacted on the moral of the communities that live in those areas.

It's about feeling safe where you live, whether its true or not. Terror is something land mines and IEDs excel at.

[Ourfarm09]

Originally Posted by manida

why cant they operate remote vehicles over the entire area (back and forth) until they cover a certain sized section, then open it up??

Yes that would be the way to go, but these people usually have no money and no electricity.