Land mine

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For other uses, see Land Mine (disambiguation).

“Minefield” redirects here. For other uses, see Minefield (disambiguation).

A land mine is a self-contained explosive device designed to be placed onto or into the ground, exploding when triggered by an operator or the close proximity of a vehicle, person or animal. The name originates from the practice of sapping, where tunnels were dug (much like mining) under enemy fortifications or forces. These tunnels ("mines") were first collapsed to destroy fortifications above, and later filled with explosives and detonated. Land mines generally refer to devices specifically manufactured for this purpose, as distinguished from improvised explosive devices ("IEDs").

Land mines are used to secure disputed borders or to restrict enemy movement in times of war. Tactically they serve a purpose similar to barbed wire or concrete dragon's teeth vehicle barriers, slowing or channelling the movement of attacking forces to the advantage of defenders. From a military perspective, land mines serve as force multipliers, because they increase the efficacy or potency of a force without requiring more personnel.

[edit] Use

Land mines have two core uses - to create tactical barriers and as area-denial weapons. The latter use seeks to deny access to large areas, since they are often unmarked and affect civilian populations after the cessation of military operations or hostilities. When used as a tactical barrier, they serve as deterrent to direct attack from or over a well defined and marked area. Without land mines in the demilitarized zones (DMZs) of hot spots such as Cyprus and Korea it is conceivable that small raiding parties crossing these zones could inflame hostilities since simple physical barriers such as barbed wire, can be easily penetrated while use of soldiers could lead to open conflict.

Anti-personnel land mines or APLs are widely considered to be ethically problematic weapons - when used in the area-denial role - because their victims are commonly civilians, who are often killed or maimed long after a war has ended. According to anti–land mine campaigners, in Cambodia alone, area-denial mines have resulted in 35,000 amputees after the cessation of hostilities. Removal of land mines is dangerous, slow and costly; however, some countries maintain that land mines are necessary to protect their soldiers in times of war and to suppress hostilities across demilitarized zones.

[edit] History

Mines mounted to "Rommel's asparagus" obstacles, during the Battle of Normandy.

[edit] Premodern development

Forces in ancient Rome sometimes dug small foot-sized holes, covered and armed with a sharpened spike. In the Middle Ages in Europe, small, four-pronged spiked devices called caltrops or crows' feet could be scattered on the ground to delay the advance of an enemy. But these devices were not explosive.

Some sources report that Zhuge Liang, of the Kingdom of Shu of China, invented a landmine type device in the third century.

[edit] Explosive landmines

See this link for a report of explosive landmines being used in 1277 AD by Chinese against attacking Mongols who were beseiging a city.

Around 14th century or 15th century, the Ming Dynasty started to make some primal modern mines with powder, which in form of stone, ceramic or pig iron.[1] [2]

At Augsburg in 1573, a military engineer by the name of Samuel Zimmermann invented an extremely effective mine known as the fladdermine. It consisted of a fougasse (or later, sometimes a shell fougasse, that is, a fougasse loaded not with stones but with early black powder mortar shells, similar to large black powder hand grenades) activated by a snaphance or flintlock mechanism connected to a tripwire on the surface. Combining the effects of a tripwire activated bounding fragmentation mine with a cluster bomb, it was devastating to massed attackers but required high maintenance due to the susceptibility of black powder to dampness. Consequently it was mainly employed in the defenses of major fortifications, in which role it continued to be used until the 1870s.^[1]

In Europe in the early eighteenth century, improvised land mines or booby traps were constructed in the form of bombs buried in shallow wells in the earth and covered with scrap metal and/or gravel to serve as shrapnel. Known in French as fougasse, the term is sometimes still used in the present day to describe such devices. This technique was used in several European wars of the eighteenth Century, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War.

The first modern mechanically fused high explosive anti-personnel land mines were created by Confederate troops of Brigadier General Gabriel J. Raines during the Battle of Yorktown in 1862.^[2] (As a Captain, Raines had earlier employed explosive booby traps during the Seminole Wars in Florida in 1840.^[3]) Both mechanically and electrically fuzed "land torpedoes" were employed, although by the end of the war mechanical fuzes had been found to be generally more reliable. Many of these designs were improvised in the field, especially from explosive shells, but by the end of the war nearly 2,000 standard pattern "Raines mines" had been deployed.

Improved designs of mines were created in Imperial Germany, circa 1912, and were copied and manufactured by all major participants in the First World War. In World War One, land mines were used notably at the start of the battle of Passchendale. Well before the war was over, the British were manufacturing land mines that contained poison gas instead of explosives. Poison gas mines were manufactured at least until the 1980s in the Soviet Union. The United States was known to have at least experimented with the concept in the 1950s.

Nuclear mines have also been developed, both land and naval varieties. An example is the British Blue Peacock project, while another was the U.S. Medium Atomic Demolition Munition.

[edit] Characteristics and functioning

Mine components

A land mine typically includes the following components:

firing mechanism or other device (including anti-handling devices)
detonator or ignitor (sets off the booster charge)
booster charge (may be attached to the fuse, or the ignitor, or be part of the main charge)
main charge (in a container, usually forms the body of the mine)
casing (contains all of the above parts)

[edit] Firing mechanisms and initiating actions

A land mine can be triggered by a number of things including pressure, movement, sound, magnetism and vibration. Anti-personnel mines commonly use the pressure of a person's foot as a trigger, but tripwires are also frequently employed. Most modern anti-vehicle mines use a magnetic trigger to enable it to detonate even if the tires or tracks did not touch it. Advanced mines are able to sense the difference between friendly and enemy types of vehicles by way of a built-in signature catalogue. This will theoretically enable friendly forces to use the mined area while denying the enemy access.

Many mines combine the main trigger with a touch or tilt trigger to prevent enemy engineers from defusing it. Land mine designs tend to use as little metal as possible to make searching with a metal detector more difficult; land mines made mostly of plastic have the added advantage of being very inexpensive.

Some types of modern mines are designed to self-destruct, or chemically render themselves inert after a period of weeks or months to reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties at the conflict's end. However, these self-destruct mechanisms are not absolutely reliable, and most land mines laid historically are not equipped in this manner.

[edit] Anti-handling devices (AHD)

Main article: Anti-handling device

Anti-handling devices (as opposed simply booby-trapping the mine) trigger the mine fuse if someone attempts to tamper with or defuse the mine. They are intended to prevent or discourage removing or disarming of the mine. These devices can consist of an additional explosive charge connected to, placed next to, or manufactured as part of the mine.

Some countries only employ AHDs on conventional anti-tank mines and not anti-personnel mines. This makes it somewhat safer to remove mines laid by these forces, especially the relatively larger numbers of anti-personnel mines so often the cause of unintended casualties after the cessation of military hostilities.

[edit] Anti-tank (AT) mines

Main article: Anti-tank mine

Section of an anti-tank mine. Note the yellow main charge wrapped around a red booster charge, and the secondary fuse well on the side of the mine.

Anti-tank mines are designed to immobilize or destroy vehicles and their occupants. In U.S. military jargon destroying the vehicles is referred to as a catastrophic kill (k-kill) while only disabling its movement is referred to as a mobility kill (m-kill).

Anti-tank mines are typically larger than anti-personnel mines and require more pressure to detonate. The high trigger pressure (normally 100 kg (220 lb.)) prevents them from being set off by infantry or smaller vehicles of lesser importance. More modern anti-tank mines use shaped charges to focus and increase the armour penetration of the explosives.

[edit] Anti-personnel (AP) mines

Main article: Anti-personnel mine

Anti-personnel mines are designed to kill or injure enemy combatants as opposed to destroying vehicles. They are often designed to injure rather than kill in order to increase the logistical support (evacuation, medical) burden on the opposing force. Some types of anti-personnel mines can also damage the tracks or wheels of armoured vehicles.

Under the Ottawa Treaty, signatory countries undertake not to manufacture, stockpile or use anti-personnel mines. As of 2007, it has been signed/accessioned by 155 countries. Forty states, including the People's Republic of China, Russian Federation and the United States, are not party to the Convention.

[edit] Mine warfare

U.S. Army soldier removes fuse from a Russian-made mine to clear a minefield outside of Fallujah, Iraq.

In military science, minefields are considered a defensive or harassing weapon, used to slow the enemy down, to help deny certain terrain to the enemy, to focus enemy movement into kill zones, or to reduce morale by randomly attacking materiel and personnel. In some engagements during World War 2, anti-tank mines accounted for half of all vehicles disabled.

Since combat engineers with mine-clearing equipment can clear a path through a minefield relatively quickly, mines are usually considered effective only if covered by fire.

The extents of minefields are often marked with warning signs and cloth tape, to prevent friendly troops and non-combatants from entering them. Of course, sometimes terrain can be denied using dummy minefields. Most forces carefully record the location and disposition of their own minefields, because warning signs can be destroyed or removed, and minefields should eventually be cleared. Minefields may also have marked or unmarked safe routes to allow friendly movement through them.

Placing minefields without marking and recording them for later removal is considered uncivilized and is illegal under international conventions.

Artillery and aircraft scatterable mines allow minefields to be placed in front of moving formations of enemy units, including the reinforcement of minefields or other obstacles that have been breached by enemy engineers. They can also be used to cover the retreat of forces disengaging from the enemy, or for interdiction of supporting units to isolate front line units from resupply. In most cases these minefields consist of a combination of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, with the anti-personnel mines making removal of the anti-tank mines more difficult. Mines of this type used by the United States are designed to self destruct after a preset period of time, reducing the requirement for mineclearing to only those mines whose self destruct system did not function.

[edit] Terrorism

None of the conventional tactics and norms of mine warfare applies when they are employed in a terrorist role:

The mines are not used in a defensive role (for specific position or area).
Mined areas are not marked.
Mines are usually placed singly and not in groups covering an area.
Mines are often left unattended (not covered by fire).

The normal aim of terrorism - and to a certain extent guerilla warfare is to spread fear and panic. This can be achieved by a single mine left on a civilian road to be detonated by a civilian target which is clearly quite different from the normal military application.

One example where such tactics were in employed is in the various Southern African conflicts during the 1970s and 1980s, specifically Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

[edit] Laying mines

Minefield warning on the Golan Heights, still valid more than 40 years after creation of the field by the Syrian army

Minefields may be laid by several means. The preferred, but most labour-intensive, way is to have engineers bury the mines, since this will make the mines practically invisible and reduce the number of mines needed to deny the enemy an area. Mines can be laid by specialized mine-laying vehicles. Mine-scattering shells may be fired by artillery from a distance of several tens of kilometres.

Mines may be dropped from helicopters or airplanes, or ejected from cluster bombs or cruise missiles.

Anti-tank minefields can be scattered with anti-personnel mines to make clearing them manually more time-consuming; and anti-personnel minefields are scattered with anti-tank mines to prevent the use of armoured vehicles to clear them quickly. Some anti-tank mine types are also able to be triggered by infantry, giving them a dual purpose even though their main and official intention is to work as anti-tank weapons.

Some minefields are specifically booby-trapped to make clearing them more dangerous. Mixed anti-personnel and anti-tank minefields, double-stacked anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines under anti-tank mines, and fuses separated from mines have all been used for this purpose.

Another specific use is to mine a aircraft runway immediately after it has been bombed in order to delay or discourage repair. Some cluster bombs combine these functions, one example is the British JP233 cluster bomb which includes munitions to damage (crater) the runway as well as anti-personnel mines in the same cluster bomb.

[edit] Demining (Detecting and removing)

Main article: Demining

While placing and arming landmines is relatively inexpensive and simple, the reverse of detecting and removing them is typically expensive, slow, and dangerous. This is especially true of irregular warfare where mines were used on an ad hoc basis in unmarked areas. Anti-personnel mines are most difficult to find, because of their small size and the fact that many are made almost entirely of non-metallic materials specifically to avoid detection. New detection systems however are being developed by making use of rats. Because these rats have a high sense of smell and are surprisingly light (see e.g. APOPO Landmine Removal Rats)

[edit] Efforts to ban anti-personnel mines

Main article: Ottawa Treaty

Party states to the Ottawa Treaty

The Ottawa Treaty (Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction) came into force on March 1, 1999. The treaty was the result of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, launched in 1992. The campaign and its leader, Jody Williams, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its efforts.

The treaty does not include anti-tank mines, cluster bombs or claymore-type mines operated in command mode and focuses specifically on anti-personnel mines, because these pose the greatest long term (post-conflict) risk to humans and animals since they are typically designed to be triggered by any movement or pressure of only a few kilograms, whereas anti-tank mines require much more weight (or a combination of factors that would exclude humans). Existing stocks must be destroyed within four years of signing the treaty.

Signatories of the Ottawa Treaty agree that they will not use, develop, manufacture, stockpile or trade in anti-personnel land mines. There were originally 122 signatories in 1997; currently, it has been signed by 155 countries and ratified by 153. Another 40 have yet to sign on.

There is a clause in the treaty, Article 3, which permits countries to retain land mines for use in training or development of countermeasures. 64 countries have taken this option.

As an alternative to an outright ban, 10 countries follow regulations that are contained in a 1996 amendment of Protocol II of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). The countries are China, Finland, India, Israel, Latvia, Morocco, Pakistan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and the United States.

[edit] Manufacturers

The ICBL has identified the following countries as manufacturing land mines as of August 2004. None are signatories of the Ottawa Treaty. [3]

Cuba [4]
India [5]
Iran [6]
Iraq (although production had presumably ceased since the invasion of 2003)[7]
Myanmar [8]
Nepal [9]
North Korea [10]
Pakistan [11]
Russian Federation [12]
Singapore [13]
Vietnam [14]

Of other states which are thought to have manufactured landmines recently:

Turkey is now a signatory of the Ottawa Treaty.[15]
Egypt has unofficially stated that production ceased in 1988. [16]
The United States has not manufactured anti-personnel mines since 1997, but a government statement in February 2004 stated that, "The United States will continue to develop non-persistent anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines." [17]
South Korea has stated that no mines have been produced since 2000. [18]
An official from China stated in September 2003 that production has ceased there, since they have an ample stockpile. [19]
In March 2004, a Libyan official stated that the country has never produced anti-personnel mines, but is known to have laid landmines in the 1970s and 1980s [20]
A United Nations assessment mission to Peru reported that production of landmines in the country ceased in January 1999. Peru was one of the original signatories and to the treaty came into force for them in March 1999. [21]
Denmark has officially declared having 6 factories producing landmines in 1995. But production has ceased since ratifying the Ottawa treaty. [22]

[edit] Trivia

Ironically, the laying of land mines inadvertently proved a positive development in Argentina and The Falkland Islands. This is because the mine fields laid by the sea during the Falklands War have become favourite places for penguins, which are too light to detonate the mines, and able to breed safely in areas where humans do not dare enter. These odd sanctuaries have proven so popular and lucrative for ecotourism that there has been some effort to prevent having the mines removed, by offering to finance mine removal in regions with human populations where mines are a persistent danger, such as in Cambodia.^{[citation needed]}[23]
In Cambodia the Malayan viper is sometimes called the "landmine snake" because of its habit of hiding in roadside vegetation and biting people who come too near when passing by or collecting grass.

[edit] See also

Minesweeper clothes

Mine-clearing organizations;

Landmine Victim Assistance

Clear Path International

Anti-mine organizations

[edit] References

^ The Origins of Military Mines, Major William C. Schneck, Engineer Bulletin July 1998
^ op cit.
^ HISTORICAL USES OF anti-personnel LANDMINES: IMPACT ON LAND FORCE OPERATIONS, Roger L. Roy and Shaye K. Friesen, Department of National Defence Canada, October 1999

[edit] External links

[edit] Technical information

[edit] Mine detection

[edit] NGOs / anti-landmine activism

[edit] Multimedia

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