Land mine - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact.

The name originates from the ancient practice of military mining, where tunnels were dug under enemy fortifications or troop formations by sapper

Sapper

A sapper, pioneer or combat engineer is a combatant soldier who performs a wide variety of combat engineering duties, typically including, but not limited to, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, demolitions, field defences, general construction and building, as well as road and airfield...

s. These killing tunnels ("mines") were at first collapsed to destroy targets located above, but they were later filled with explosives and detonated in order to cause greater devastation.

Nowadays, in common parlance, land mines generally refer to devices specifically manufactured as anti-personnel or anti-vehicle weapons and should be distinguished from improvised explosive device

Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...

s ("IEDs").

The use of land mines is controversial because of their potential as indiscriminate weapons.

They can remain dangerous many years after a conflict has ended, harming the economy and citizens of many developing nations. With pressure from a number of campaign groups organised through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines

International Campaign to Ban Landmines

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines is a coalition of non-governmental organizations working for a world free of anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions, where mine and cluster munitions survivors see their rights respected and can lead fulfilling lives.The coalition was formed in...

, a global movement to prohibit their use led to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. As of 2011, a total of 158 nations have signed the Ottawa treaty

Ottawa Treaty

The Ottawa Treaty or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, officially known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, aims at eliminating anti-personnel landmines around the world. , there were 158...

Use

Land mines were designed for two main uses: to create defensive tactical barriers, channeling attacking forces into predetermined fire zones or slowing an invasion force's progress to allow reinforcements to arrive; and to act as passive area-denial weapons (in order to deny the enemy use of valuable terrain, resources or facilities when active defense of the area is not desirable or possible).

Land mines are currently used in large quantities mostly for this first purpose, thus their widespread use in the demilitarized zone

Demilitarized zone

In military terms, a demilitarized zone is an area, usually the frontier or boundary between two or more military powers , where military activity is not permitted, usually by peace treaty, armistice, or other bilateral or multilateral agreement...

s (DMZs) of likely flashpoints

Flashpoint (politics)

In international relations, a flashpoint is an area or dispute that has a strong possibility of developing into a war.-Current flashpoints:* the Taiwan straits* Korea peninsula* the Golan heights* Israeli-Lebanon border* Kashmir* the Spratly Islands...

such as Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

and Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

.

Land mines continue to kill nearly 20,000 people every year, even decades after the war ended.

Premodern development

Some sources report that the 3rd-century Chancellor (China) Zhuge Liang

Zhuge Liang

Zhuge Liang was a chancellor of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. He is often recognised as the greatest and most accomplished strategist of his era....

of the Kingdom of Shu in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

invented a land mine type device. This claim was made by Jiao Yu

Jiao Yu

Jiao Yu was a Chinese military officer loyal to Zhu Yuanzhang , the founder of the Ming Dynasty . He was entrusted by Emperor Hongwu as a leading artillery officer for the rebel army that overthrew the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, and established the Ming Dynasty...

in his Huolongjing Quanzhi (Fire-drake Manual in One Complete Volume), his preface written in 1412 AD (although the book was originally published in the mid 14th century), and that Zhuge had used not only "fire weapons" but land mines in the Battle of Hulugu Valley against the forces of Sima Yi

Sima Yi

Sima Yi was a general and politician of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history. He is perhaps best known for defending Wei from Zhuge Liang's Northern Expeditions...

and his son Sima Zhao

Sima Zhao

Sima Zhao was a military general, politician and regent of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history...

of the Wei Kingdom.

However, this claim is dubious, considering that gunpowder warfare

Gunpowder warfare

Early modern warfare is associated with the start of the widespread use of gunpowder and the development of suitable weapons to use the explosive, including artillery and handguns such as the arquebus and later the musket, and for this reason the era is also summarized as the age of gunpowder...

did not exist in China until the advent of the flamethrower

Flamethrower

A flamethrower is a mechanical device designed to project a long controllable stream of fire.Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid; some project a long gas flame. Most military flamethrowers use liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tend to use high-pressure propane and...

(Pen Huo Qi

Pen Huo Qi

The Pen Huo Qi（Chinese: 噴火器; Pinyin: pen huo qi, "spray fire device"） is a double-piston pump naphtha flamethrower used in 919 AD in China, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The flamethrower was carefully documented and illustrated in the Chinese military manual known as the Wujing...

) in the 10th century, while the land mine was not seen in China until the late 13th century

Technology of the Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty provided some of the most significant technological advances in Chinese history, many of which came from talented statesmen drafted by the government through imperial examinations....

East Asia

Explosive land mines were being used in 1277 AD by the Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

against an assault of the Mongols, who were besieging

Siege

A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...

a city in southern China

Northern and southern China

Northern China and southern China are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions has never been precisely defined...

. The invention of this detonated "enormous bomb" was credited to one Lou Qianxia of the 13th century. The famous 14th century Chinese text of the Huolongjing
Huolongjing
The Huolongjing is a 14th century military treatise that was compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Ji of the early Ming Dynasty in China...

, which was the first to describe hollow cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

cannonball shells

Shell (projectile)

A shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot . Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used...

filled with gunpowder, was also the first to describe the invention of the land mine in greater detail than references found in texts written beforehand.

This mid 14th century work compiled during the late Yuan Dynasty

Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...

and early Ming Dynasty

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

(before 1375, when its co-editor Liu Ji died) stated that mines were made of cast iron and were spherical in shape, filled with either 'magic gunpowder', 'poison gunpowder', or 'blinding and burning gunpowder', any one of these compositions being suitable for use. The wad of the mine was made of hard wood, carrying three different fuses in case of defective connection to the touch hole.

In those days, the Chinese relied upon command signals and carefully timed calculation of enemy movements into the minefield, since a long fuse had to be ignited by hand from the ambushers in a somewhat far-off location lying in wait. However, the Huolongjing also describes land mines that were set off by enemy movement, called the 'ground-thunder explosive camp', one of the 'self-trespassing' (zifan) types, as the text says:
The Huolongjing describes the trigger device used for this as a 'steel wheel', which directed sparks of flame onto the connection of fuses running to the multiple-laid land mines underneath the carefully hidden trap. However, further description of how this flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

device operated was not made until a Chinese text of 1606 AD revealed that a weight drive (common in medieval clock

Clock

A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...

works) had been used to work the 'steel wheel'.

The way in which the Chinese land mine trigger worked was a system of two steel wheels rotated by a falling weight, the chord of which was wound around their axle, and when the enemy stepped onto the disguised boards they released the pins that dropped the weights. In terms of global significance, the first wheellock

Wheellock

A wheellock, wheel-lock or wheel lock, is a friction-wheel mechanism to cause a spark for firing a firearm. It was the next major development in firearms technology after the matchlock and the first self-igniting firearm. The mechanism is so-called because it uses a rotating steel wheel to provide...

musket

Musket

A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....

in Europe was sketched by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

around 1500 AD, although no use of metal flint for gunpowder weapons were known before that point in Europe.

Besides the use of steel wheels providing sparks for the fuses, there were other methods used as well, such as the 'underground sky-soaring thunder'. The Ming Dynasty

Ming Dynasty

(1368–1644) text of the Wubei Zhi (Treatise on Armament Technology), written by Mao Yuanyi in 1628, outlined the use of land mines that were triggered by the heat of a slow-burning incandescent material in an underground bowl placed directly above the train of fuses leading to the mines buried 3 ft beneath. The booby trap

Booby trap

A booby trap is a device designed to harm or surprise a person, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word trap implies, they often have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. However, in other cases the device is placed on busy roads or is...

of this mine system had a mound where weapons of halberd

Halberd

A halberd is a two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 14th and 15th centuries. Possibly the word halberd comes from the German words Halm , and Barte - in modern-day German, the weapon is called Hellebarde. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on...

s, pike

Pike (weapon)

A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear used extensively by infantry both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a counter-measure against cavalry assaults. Unlike many similar weapons, the pike is not intended to be thrown. Pikes were used regularly in European warfare from the...

s, and lance

Lance

A Lance is a pole weapon or spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior. The lance is longer, stout and heavier than an infantry spear, and unsuited for throwing, or for rapid thrusting. Lances did not have tips designed to intentionally break off or bend, unlike many throwing weapons of the...

s were dug in, meant to entice the enemy to walk up the small mound and claim their stolen prize of war booty.

When the weapons were removed from the mound, this movement disturbed the bowl beneath them where the butt ends of the staffs were, which in turn ignited the fuses. According to the Wubei Huolongjing volume of the 17th century, the formula for this slow-burning incandescent material allowed it to burn continuously for 20 to 30 days without going out. This formula included 1 lb (0.45359237 kg) of white sandal wood powder, 3 oz (85 g) of iron rust (ferric oxide), 5 oz (141.7 g) of 'white' charcoal powder (from quicklime), 2 oz (56.7 g) of willow charcoal powder, 6 oz (170.1 g) of dried, ground, and powdered red dates, and 3 oz (85 g) of bran.

The Chinese also employed the use of the naval mine

Naval mine

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

at sea and on the rivers of China and elsewhere in maritime battles.

Europe and the United States

The first land mine in Europe was created by Pedro Navarro (d. 1528), a Spanish soldier, who used it in the settles of the Italian castles, in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

At Augsburg

Augsburg

Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...

in 1573, a German military engineer by the name of Samuel Zimmermann invented an extremely effective mine known as the fladdermine. It consisted of a fougasse

Fougasse (weapon)

A fougasse is an improvised mine constructed by making a hollow in the ground or rock and filling it with explosives and projectiles. Fougasse was well known to military engineers by the mid-eighteenth century but was also referred to by Vauban in the seventeenth century and was used by Zimmerman...

(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

Snaphance

A Snaphance or Snaphaunce is a particular type of mechanism for firing a gun . The name is Dutch in origin but the mechanism can not be attributed to the Netherlands with certainty. It is the mechanical progression of the wheel-lock firing mechanism and the predecessor of the flintlock firing...

or flintlock mechanism

Flintlock mechanism

The flintlock mechanism was a firing mechanism used on muskets and rifles in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It is commonly referred to as a "flintlock" , though that term is also commonly used for the weapons themselves as a whole, and not just the lock mechanism.The flintlock was developed in...

connected to a tripwire on the surface. Combining the effects of a tripwire activated bounding fragmentation mine with a cluster bomb

Cluster bomb

A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller sub-munitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill enemy personnel and destroy vehicles...

, 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.

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
Fougasse (weapon)
A fougasse is an improvised mine constructed by making a hollow in the ground or rock and filling it with explosives and projectiles. Fougasse was well known to military engineers by the mid-eighteenth century but was also referred to by Vauban in the seventeenth century and was used by Zimmerman...

, 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

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

, and the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.

The first modern mechanically fused high explosive anti-personnel land mines were created by Confederate

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

troops of Brigadier General Gabriel J. Rains

Gabriel J. Rains

Gabriel James Rains was a career United States Army officer and a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.-Early life:...

during the Battle of Yorktown

Battle of Yorktown (1862)

The Battle of Yorktown or Siege of Yorktown was fought from April 5 to May 4, 1862, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. Marching from Fort Monroe, Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac encountered Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder's small Confederate force...

in 1862. As a Captain, Rains had earlier employed explosive booby traps during the Seminole Wars

Seminole Wars

The Seminole Wars, also known as the Florida Wars, were three conflicts in Florida between the Seminole — the collective name given to the amalgamation of various groups of native Americans and Black people who settled in Florida in the early 18th century — and the United States Army...

in Florida in 1840. Both mechanically and electrically fused "land torpedoes" were employed, although by the end of the war mechanical fuses 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 "Rains 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

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Both sides employed land mines (defensively) and tunnel mines (offensively). 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

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. The United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

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

Blue Peacock

Blue Peacock, renamed from Blue Bunny and originally dubbed Brown Bunny, was the codename of a British tactical nuclear weapon project in the 1950s—dubbed the chicken-powered nuclear bomb by the press....

project, while another was the U.S. Medium Atomic Demolition Munition

Medium Atomic Demolition Munition

Medium Atomic Demolition Munition was a tactical nuclear weapon developed by the United States during the Cold War. They were designed to be used as nuclear land mines and for other tactical purposes, with a relatively low explosive yield from a W45 warhead, between 1 and 15 kilotons. Each MADM...

Characteristics and functioning

A typical land mine includes the following components:

firing mechanism or other device (including anti-handling devices)
detonator or igniter (sets off the booster charge)
booster charge (may be attached to the fuse, or the igniter, 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)

Firing mechanisms and initiating actions

A land mine can be triggered by a number of things including pressure

Pressure

Pressure is the force per unit area applied in a direction perpendicular to the surface of an object. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure.- Definition :...

, movement, sound, magnet

Magnet

A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets.A permanent magnet is an object...

ism and vibration

Oscillation

Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. Familiar examples include a swinging pendulum and AC power. The term vibration is sometimes used more narrowly to mean a mechanical oscillation but sometimes...

. Anti-personnel mines commonly use the pressure of a person's foot as a trigger, but tripwire

Tripwire

A tripwire is a passive triggering mechanism. Typically, a wire or cord is attached to some device for detecting or reacting to physical movement...

s 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

Identification friend or foe

In telecommunications, identification, friend or foe is an identification system designed for command and control. It is a system that enables military and national interrogation systems to identify aircraft, vehicles, or forces as friendly and to determine their bearing and range from the...

types of vehicles by way of a built-in signature catalog. 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

Plastic

A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

have the added advantage of being very inexpensive.

Some types of modern mines are designed to self-destruct

Self-destruct

A self-destruct is a mechanism which causes a device to destroy itself under a predefined set of circumstances.Self-destruct mechanisms are also found on devices and systems where malfunction could endanger large numbers of people...

, 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.

Anti-handling devices

Anti-handling devices detonate the mine if someone attempts to lift, shift or disarm it. The intention is to hinder deminers by discouraging any attempts to clear minefields. There is a degree of overlap between the function of a boobytrap and an anti-handling device

Anti-handling device

An anti-handling device is an attachment to or integral part of a landmine or other munition e.g. some fuze types found in air-dropped bombs such as the M83, cluster bombs and sea mines. It is specifically designed to prevent tampering. When the protected device is disturbed it detonates, killing...

insofar as some mines have optional fuze

Fuze

Fuze Beverage, commercially referred to as just Fuze , is a manufacturer of teas and non-carbonated fruit drinks enriched with vitamins. Currently the brand consists of five vitamin-infused lines: Slenderize, Refresh, Tea, Defensify, and Vitalize...

pockets into which standard pull or pressure-release boobytrap firing devices can be screwed. Alternatively, some mines may mimic a standard design, but actually be specifically intended to kill deminers e.g. the MC-3 and PMN-3 variants of the PMN mine

PMN mine

The PMN series of blast anti-personnel mines were designed and manufactured in Russia. They are one of the most widely used and commonly found devices during demining operations.-PMN-1:...

. Anti-handling devices can be found on both anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, either as an integral part of their design or as improvised add-ons. For this reason, the standard render safe procedure

Render safe procedure

The render safe procedure is the portion of the explosive ordnance disposal procedures involving the application of special explosive ordnance disposal procedures, methods and tools to provide the interruption of functions or separation of essential components of unexploded ordnance to prevent an...

for mines is often to destroy them on site without attempting to lift them.

Anti-tank mines

Anti-tank mine

An anti-tank mine, , is a type of land mine designed to damage or destroy vehicles including tanks and armored fighting vehicles....

s were created not long after the invention of the tank

Tank

A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

in the First World War. At first improvised purpose-built designs were developed. Set off when a tank passes over they attack the tank at one of its weaker areas — the tracks. They are designed to immobilize or destroy vehicles and their occupants. In U.S. military terminology destroying the vehicles is referred to as a catastrophic kill

Catastrophic kill

A catastrophic kill, K-Kill or complete kill refers to damage inflicted on a vehicle by a weapon that renders it both unusable and unrepairable whereas a "knocked out" vehicle is completely inoperable but not beyond repair...

(k-kill) while only disabling its movement is referred to as a mobility kill

Mobility kill

A mobility kill in armoured warfare refers to a weapon or vehicle that is immobilized, or the act of immobilizing such a target. Typically this term is used to refer to tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles that have their engines, tracks, or running gear damaged...

(m-kill).

Anti-tank mines are typically larger than anti-personnel mines and require more pressure

Pressure

to detonate. The high trigger pressure (normally 100 kg (220 lb.)) prevents them from being set off by infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

or smaller vehicles of lesser importance. More modern anti-tank mines use shaped charge

Shaped charge

A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Various types are used to cut and form metal, to initiate nuclear weapons, to penetrate armor, and in the oil and gas industry...

s to focus and increase the armor penetration of the explosives.

Anti-personnel mines

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 armored vehicles.

Under the Ottawa Treaty

Ottawa Treaty

, signatory countries undertake not to manufacture, stockpile or use anti-personnel mines. As of 2009, it has been signed/accessioned by 156 countries. Thirty-eight countries, including the People's Republic of China, Russian Federation and the United States, are not party to the Convention.

Warfare

In military science

Military science

Military science is the process of translating national defence policy to produce military capability by employing military scientists, including theorists, researchers, experimental scientists, applied scientists, designers, engineers, test technicians, and military personnel responsible for...

, 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

Morale

Morale, also known as esprit de corps when discussing the morale of a group, is an intangible term used to describe the capacity of people to maintain belief in an institution or a goal, or even in oneself and others...

by randomly attacking material and personnel. In some engagements during World War II, 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 a war crime

War crime

War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...

under Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons , concluded at Geneva on October 10, 1980 and entered into force in December 1983, seeks to prohibit or restrict the use of certain conventional weapons which are considered excessively injurious or whose effects are indiscriminate.The...

, which is itself an annex to the Geneva Conventions

Geneva Conventions

The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...

.

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

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

are designed to self-destruct after a preset period of time, reducing the requirement for mine clearing to only those mines whose self-destruct system did not function. Some designs of these scatterable mines require an electrical charge (capacitor or battery) to detonate. After a certain period of time, either the charge dissipates, leaving them effectively inert or the circuitry is designed such that upon reaching a low level, the device is triggered, thus destroying the mine.

Guerrilla warfare

None of the conventional tactics and norms of mine warfare applies when they are employed in a guerrilla 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).

One of the aims of terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

– and to a certain extent of guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

– 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

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

, Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

, Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

and Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

Laying mines

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

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

from a distance of several tens of kilometers.

Mines may be dropped from helicopter

Helicopter

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...

s or airplane

Fixed-wing aircraft

A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...

s, or ejected from cluster bomb

Cluster bomb

s or cruise missile

Cruise missile

A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...

s.

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 armored 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, anti-personnel mines under anti-tank mines, and fuses separated from mines have all been used for this purpose. Often, single mines are backed by a secondary device, designed to kill or maim personnel tasked with clearing the mine.

Multiple anti-tank mines have been buried in stacks of two or three with the bottom mine fuzed, in order to multiply the penetrating power. Since the mines are buried, the ground directs the energy of the blast in a single direction — through the bottom of the target vehicle or on the track.

Another specific use is to mine an 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

JP233

Originally known as the LAAAS , the JP233 was a British submunition delivery system consisting of large dispenser pods carrying several hundred submunitions designed to attack runways.-Design and development:...

cluster bomb which includes munitions to damage (crater) the runway as well as anti-personnel mines in the same cluster bomb.

Demining

Metal detectors were first used for demining, after their invention by the Polish officer Józef Kosacki

Józef Kosacki

Józef Stanisław Kosacki was a Polish professor engineer, inventor, and an officer in the Polish Army during World War II. He is best known as the inventor of the Polish mine detector, the first man-portable mine detector, whose basic design has been in use with various armies for over 50...

. His invention, known as the Polish mine detector

Polish mine detector

The Mine detector Mark I was a metal detector for landmines developed during World War II in the winter of 1941–1942 by Polish lieutenant Józef Kosacki.- History :...

, was used by the Allies alongside mechanical methods

Mine flail

A mine flail is a vehicle-mounted device that makes a safe path through a mine-field by deliberately detonating land mines in front of the vehicle that carries it. They were first used by the British during World War II....

, to clear the German mine fields during the Second Battle of El Alamein

Second Battle of El Alamein

The Second Battle of El Alamein marked a major turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. The battle took place over 20 days from 23 October – 11 November 1942. The First Battle of El Alamein had stalled the Axis advance. Thereafter, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery...

when 500 units were shipped to Field Marshal Montgomery

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC , nicknamed "Monty" and the "Spartan General" was a British Army officer. He saw action in the First World War, when he was seriously wounded, and during the Second World War he commanded the 8th Army from...

's Eighth Army.

Both the Russians and Germans used captured civilians who were chased across minefields to detonate the explosives. According to Laurence Rees, "Curt von Gottberg

Curt von Gottberg

Curt von Gottberg was a Nazi official and military commander. Beginning in October 1942, within a few years he had personally combined the highest civil and military powers in occupied Belarus: from March 1943 as representative of the HSSPF for central Russia, and from October 1943 as the acting...

, the SS-Obergruppenfuhrer who, during 1943, conducted another huge anti-partisan action called Operation Kottbus

Operation Cottbus

Operation Cottbus was an anti-partisan operation during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The operation began on May 20, 1943 during the World War II occupation of northern Belarus in the areas of Begoml, Lepel and Ushachy...

on the eastern border of Belorussia, reported that 'approximately two to three thousand local people were blown up in the clearing of the minefields'."

Whereas the placing and arming of mines is relatively inexpensive and simple, the process 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

Ad hoc

Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori....

basis in unmarked areas. Anti-personnel mines are most difficult to find, due to their small size and the fact that many are made almost entirely of non-metallic materials

Minimum metal mine

A minimum metal mine is a land mine that is designed to use the minimum amount of metal in its construction . Both minimum metal anti-tank and anti-personnel mines exist. Some designs contain almost no metal at all...

specifically to escape detection.

Manual clearing remains the most effective technique for clearing mine fields, although hybrid techniques involving the use of animals and robots are being developed. Animals are desirable due to their strong sense of smell, which is more than capable of detecting a land mine. Animals like rats and dogs can also differentiate between other metal objects and land mines because they can be trained to detect the explosive agent itself.

Other techniques involve the use of geo-location technologies. A joint team of researchers at the University of New South Wales and Ohio State University is working to develop a system based on multi-sensor integration.

The laying of land mines has inadvertently lead to a positive development in the Falkland Islands

Falkland Islands

The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...

. Mine fields near the sea from the Falklands War

Falklands War

The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

have become favorite places for penguins, which do not weigh enough to detonate the mines. Therefore, they can breed safely, free of human intrusion. These odd sanctuaries have proven so popular and lucrative for ecotourism

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

that efforts exist to prevent removal of the mines.

Norwegian NGO Norwegian People's Aid is one organisation involved in the safe removal of land mines.

Anti-personnel mine ban

The use of land mines is controversial because they are indiscriminate weapons, harming soldier and civilian alike. They remain dangerous after the conflict in which they were deployed has ended, killing and injuring civilians and rendering land impassable and unusable for decades. To make matters worse, many factions have not kept accurate records (or any at all) of the exact locations of their minefields, making removal efforts painstakingly slow. These facts pose serious difficulties in many developing nations where the presence of mines hampers resettlement, agriculture, and tourism. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines

International Campaign to Ban Landmines

campaigned successfully to prohibit their use, culminating in the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty

Ottawa Treaty

.

The Ottawa Treaty

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 leadership of the Government of Canada working with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines is a coalition of non-governmental organizations working for a world free of anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions, where mine and cluster munitions survivors see their rights respected and can lead fulfilling lives.The coalition was formed in...

, launched in 1992. The campaign and its leader, Jody Williams

Jody Williams

Jody Williams is an American teacher and aid worker who received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the campaign she worked for, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines...

, won the Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...

in 1997 for its efforts.

The treaty does not include anti-tank mine

Anti-tank mine

An anti-tank mine, , is a type of land mine designed to damage or destroy vehicles including tanks and armored fighting vehicles....

s, cluster bomb

Cluster bomb

s 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

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; , it has been signed by 155 countries and ratified by 153. Another 40 have yet to sign on. The United States is not one of the signatories, based on lacking an exception for the DMZ of Korea

Korean Demilitarized Zone

The Korean Demilitarized Zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and...

.

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

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Manufacturers

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

Ottawa Treaty

Burma (Myanmar)
People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

(although production had presumably ceased since the invasion of 2003)
Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
Russian Federation
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

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

Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

has unofficially stated that production ceased in 1988.
South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

has stated that no mines have been produced since 2000.
An official from China stated in September 2003 that production has ceased there, since they have an ample stockpile.
In March 2004, a Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

n official stated that the country has never produced anti-personnel mines, but is known to have laid land mines in the 1970s and 1980s. More recently, during the civil war in March 2011, Gaddafi's forces have sown mines around rebel-controlled areas.
A United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

assessment mission to Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

reported that production of land mines in the country ceased in January 1999. Peru was one of the original signatories and the treaty came into force for them in March 1999.
Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

had officially declared having 6 factories producing land mines in 1995 but production ceased since ratification of the Ottawa treaty.
The United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

stopped manufacturing land mines in 1997, but has one of the largest stockpiles.

External links

Landmines and international humanitarian law, ICRC
Detector Spots Buried Mines 1943, Popular Science article on the "Polish" mine detector.
"How Axis Land Mines Work", April 1944 detailed article on types of land mines
E-Mine Electronic Mine Information Network by United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

Mine Action Services
Detecting Land Mines: New Technology, by Paul Grad. Published by Asian Surveying and Mapping
Ken Rutherford, "Landmines: A Survivor’s Tale" - Journal of Mine Action

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Use

Premodern development

East Asia

Europe and the United States

Characteristics and functioning

Firing mechanisms and initiating actions

Anti-handling devices

Anti-tank mines

Anti-personnel mines

Warfare

Guerrilla warfare

Laying mines

Demining

Anti-personnel mine ban

Manufacturers

See also

External links