Hacker News

It means there are no known areas that are still littered with landmines, but yes, that's not a guarantee there aren't any.

Not Croatian but Bosnian, 2030 is our target for this milestone and we have to keep de-mining ~70 square kilometres every year to be able to hit that milestone.

Hell you still find explosives from WW2 all over. It really is difficult.

Modern landmines do have safety features like what you describe.

For example consider this Department of Defence policy from 2020: https://media.defense.gov/2020/Jan/31/2002242359/-1/-1/1/DOD...

“The Department will continue its commitment not to employ persistent landmines. For the purposes of this policy, ‘persistent landmines’ means landmines that do not incorporate self-destruction mechanisms and self-deactivation features. The Department will only employ, develop, produce, or otherwise acquire landmines that are non-persistent, meaning they must possess self destruction mechanisms and self- deactivation features.”

“ For example, all activated landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in 30 days or less after emplacement and will possess a back-up self-deactivation feature. Some landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in shorter periods of time, such as two hours or forty-eight hours.”

This distinguishes “self-destruct” where the mine blows itself up and “self-deactivation” where the mine disarms itself. The first is safer because it doesn’t leave explosive material behind, which could chemicaly detoriate and become unstable decades later. The second is used as a failsafe in case the self-destruct fails.

> Or are the reasons technical

They certainly were when the really old mines were made. Some of them are nothing more than just spring loaded pressure plates. But today modern landmines are much more sophisticated. Some of them can distinguish the seismic signature or a truck from a tank. There are also radio controlled mine fields where soldiers can remotely activate / deactivate the whole mine field as the threat evolves.

Cost/manufacturing complexity. If you are country struggling to defend your self you don't think problems in 30 years if today problem is does the country exists or not. Might be difficult to put your self to a small defending countries shoes which is absolute running our of resources.

As someone else pointed out, the short story is cost. Mines are cheap, make them more advanced and they are not cheap.

That said, even if the trigger is disabled, it's still an explosive device and should still be cleared (or never placed in the first place, as the Ottawa treaty says which the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan are not a part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty)

There is always the option to use battery (some modern mines use this),for example RAAMS.

The problem is of the enemy know you use only mines that work for max n hours or m days they just wait for n + 1 hours or m + 1 days.

There is a lot more to say about this, but there are probably people way more qualified than be here to explain it.

I'm guessing it's the latter, because you have to keep the mine-disabling mechanisms working and powered up through possible adverse weather and environmental conditions for long enough that the conflict has a fair chance of having ended.

That is exactly how modern mines work

10 years is a long time, but 10 years after a war is not a long time. Damages to building still remains, mines and plenty of unexploded ordinances will remain, and psychological scars are still very strong.

Conflict zones are the most beautiful places

They make me immediately go “oh I get it”

When it's a choice between existence and annihilation it's not so difficult a choice.

For example, Finland has a program that will mine the entire border with Russia in just hours if Russia invades.

It is absolutely evil. Placing mines instantly puts you in the bad guy category as far as I'm concerned, no matter whom you claim you're "targetting". The Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty was an absolute disgrace. Indefensible.

Agreed.

Also I think that if you live next to a warmongering country you certainly care more about making a military invasion the shittiest and the most vile thing for the aggressor that you can think of and landmines are cheap and effective there.

I think it's a sufficient trade off that landmines self-disable themselves in, say, 5 years or so. If the war continues you'll keep planting more and when it ends you'll just wait a few years and go collect them.

In conflict between equals, landmines are the only practical way to restrict the mobility of the enemy. That's why 20% of Ukraine is contaminated by mines. If you were official and your choices would be losing and more people dying or placing more landmines that can be cleared over 20 years, what would you do?

Poland withdrew from the Ottawa Convention last month, with the aim of being able to lay anti-personnel mines along its eastern border.

Whether it does or not is an open-question, and while I understand it of course, the idea we're increasing the use of mines is a sad day. They're so indiscriminate and will no doubt cause injuries far into the future.

Putin’s war, bro. It’s aaall Putin laying the mines.

France still has WWI unexploded ordnance, and keep-out areas are still being de-mined. This has been going on for a century now. About 900 tons of explosives are removed each year. Completion in 700 years at the current rate.[1]

[1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-red-zone-la...

Does Australia have any landmines? I was under the impression that we had some areas with sea mines which had been swept but still weren't guaranteed safe, and that was it.

Is that actual land mines or generic lost explosives and unexploded bombs?

Cause the latter is pretty common in Europe too, but I'm surprised you have actually minefields which haven't been cleared up in Australia.

I imagine a lot has to do with motivation. Canada has UXO that it doesn't clean up as land is abundant.

This feels like a perfect use case for AI.

Because

> all known minefields have been cleared

When clearing minefields, one does not miss mines, because that would be lethal! Every cube inch is carefully mapped. It is extremely hard work.

Poland and other countries that just abandoned the mine treaty border russia and belarus. You know, the country that launched and the country that allowed its land to launch largest war in europe since WW2.

Oof, only 90% survival rate for deminers.