The United States will soon provide antipersonnel mines to Ukraine, a U.S. official confirmed late Tuesday, in a move that followed Ukraine’s first deployment of long-range U.S.-supplied ballistic missiles in an attack on Russia.
Oh goody! Let us sit and watch as they seed the soil with death in waiting for uninvolved civilians for the next 50 years.
From the article…
“The official also pointed to the function of the mines, which they said require a battery for operation and will not detonate once the battery runs out after a period of a few hours to a few weeks.”
That’s brilliant engineering but also…I wonder how common some kind of reverse-dud would be?
“Oh cool it’s probably inert because that was MONTHS ag–”
Batteries are bounded by more predictable chemistry more so than something like the breakdown of a mechanical based trigger waiting for rust or decomposition. Chemistry makes it easier to model and predict. If you’ve got a 1Ah battery and it consumes x watt hours per hour, then it takes y days to burn through. Tolerances that cause the battery to have slightly more or less capacity or component power consumption will likely be <5%, thus not radically different because nobody is timing this to the minute.
You’re absolutely right. Very good points! I thought that too, a major improvement over analogue mechanisms that have more unpredictable longevity!
I suppose if the batteries are actively discharging as a failsafe, that makes sense.
I was thinking about how sometimes you’d pick up like, a TV remote that’s been sitting since 1993 and astonishingly the little red light blinks when you push a button, if only faintly, and for a second.
Aren’t those a war crime? ^^;
The US and Russia are not bound by that treaty (according to a quick search), but they should be.
Correct. The countries most likely to get into an actual shooting war didn’t sign the treaty. The US, China, Russia and some others did not sign the treaty.
No
To deploy in your own country?
Why not? They are banned because they can last forever and blow up random people for decades after the war.
Read the article.
They are basically deactivating after hours, days or weeks.
So not like the old 1970 mines.
No one is disputing the danger mines pose.
From the article:
The U.S. official said late Tuesday the United States sought commitments from Ukraine on how it will use the antipersonnel mines, with the expectation they will be deployed only on Ukrainian territory in areas where Ukrainian civilians are not living.
The official also pointed to the function of the mines, which they said require a battery for operation and will not detonate once the battery runs out after a period of a few hours to a few weeks.
That does not completely remove the risk, as there is still a blob of explosive in the ground. But this is overall an improvement on the improvised mines they are currently building.
Reading this, it’s pretty clear that until landmines can be fully removed from warfare, (which isn’t happening in the foreseeable future), that the emphasis is on how they are used.
Namely:
Rule 81. When landmines are used, particular care must be taken to minimize their indiscriminate effects.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule81
Also of interest is that Russia (and the US) are not signed on to the anti personnel section , making things complicated. That’s no excuse to use them carte blanche but it complicates things.
But I’m just one dude, I’m not a pro on this. I’m happy to see them used defensively, with modern tracking and disarmament techniques, rather than old school or home built devices that have no such precautions.
