Trump lifts restrictions on landmine use!
Discussion
Gromm said:
"... The use of antipersonnel landmines by US forces will only be in exceptional circumstances, says the Pentagon, and only "non-persistent types" - ie. versions that disarm themselves after a period (of time), will be used. But campaigners..."
Yeah ok... the Trump administration definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ will be interesting to see. As for non-persistent types... would you like a few ‘non-persistent’ devices left in your back garden?Gromm said:
abzmike said:
Gromm said:
"... The use of antipersonnel landmines by US forces will only be in exceptional circumstances, says the Pentagon, and only "non-persistent types" - ie. versions that disarm themselves after a period (of time), will be used. But campaigners..."
Yeah ok... the Trump administration definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ will be interesting to see. As for non-persistent types... would you like a few ‘non-persistent’ devices left in your back garden?Lentilist said:
Given the use of words like "invasion" in the immigration debate, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to see them at the Mexican border in some capacity. If you're using the language of war, the tools of war become easier to sell to the population.
Yeah sure. I do wonder about some on here.Gromm said:
abzmike said:
Gromm said:
"... The use of antipersonnel landmines by US forces will only be in exceptional circumstances, says the Pentagon, and only "non-persistent types" - ie. versions that disarm themselves after a period (of time), will be used. But campaigners..."
Yeah ok... the Trump administration definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ will be interesting to see. As for non-persistent types... would you like a few ‘non-persistent’ devices left in your back garden?As for mapping minefields? Sure. Barmines perhaps quite accurately, as I'll have put them in to a set plan, with start laying, stop laying, and safe lane breaks, etc planned carefully and lanes laid on compass bearings. Then I'll have driven along the edge of the minefield with a Ranger launcher and fired tube upon tube of "dumb" AP mines over the AT mines to make sure the enemy Combat Engineers don't sneak into the minefield and clear a safe route through.
A minefield being laid by Sappers. The right hand vehicle is towing a barmine layer. The crew in the back are 'posting' the 4ft long mines down the conveyor. A plough is opening a furrow into which the mines are laid, then the steel wheels at the rear of the layer turn the turf/soil back over the open furrow. A chain dragged behind covers the furrow even more, and after a couple of days, especially if it rains, you'd be hard pushed to notice there were mines in there at all. The left hand vehicle is seeding the minefield with L10 Ranger anti-personnel mines. A shotgun cartridge is inserted into the closed end of the tube, and the frame operator aims the frame, firing each tube electrically, either one at a time or in groups. The hockey-puck sized mine is launched, bounces around a bit, and settles. After a few minutes it automatically arms itself. At 18 mines to a tube, that's 1,296 mines per filled frame. And the frame could also be fitted to a Combat Support Boat, to mine river and canal banks and beaches.
The other AP mine employed by UK forces was known as the 'Elsie'. A hollow "golf tee" shaped body is pushed into the ground, and the explosive portion is dropped into it. The safety device is a simple spring clip, and when it is removed if you step on the mine it goes "Boom!" But it won't kill you. It's not meant to, with only 30 grams of HE filling it's meant to leave you screaming on the floor. And it is particularly difficult to detect because it is mostly plastic construction...
As someone who has had to lay minefields, and also clear them, I was glad to see the back of the bloody Anti-personnel mine when it was banned in the 1990s. To see them coming back again strikes me with horror. They are cruel and evil. although they do an excellent job of being an effective 'Force Multiplier'. Some of the foreign mines we found during the Gulf War were pretty nasty things too. Fortunately most of them were unused, not in the ground, but again, particularly Italian mines (supplied to Saddam Hussein for use in the Iran/Iraq war) made extensive use of plastic in their construction, and were extremely difficult to detect and defeat.
Unless you've had to face these things for real, I'd suggest that you should have no say in whether their re-introduction by the USA is a good idea or not. Back in the late 1980s I was "killed" a number of times by 'Elsie' mines while clearing minefields at night. Fortunately for me, they were only smoke charges on the training ground, but it was enough to put you off the idea of AP mines for life.
SmoothCriminal said:
Shame all the offended types are not up in arms about their continued use by Obama in the Korean DMZ.
That's a whole different ball-game. The area is strictly off limits to everyone, and the idea of the mines is that they are enough of a deterrent to anyone actually kicking off a shooting war on the Korean peninsula again. It's not like Korean farmers are putting the DMZ under the plough for agriculture, or kids strolling across it to get to school...otolith said:
Or have worked reassembling their victims, for that matter.
We recoil in horror at what IEDs do to our own forces, yet land mines are designed to do just the same job. Just with millions of pounds/dollars invested in explosives, engineering, etc so that they can drop the "Improvised" bit and just get on with being "Explosive Devices". So by employing such devices we are no better than "Jihadi John & Co". Even the smartest timed out devices cannot discriminate between pregnant women, schoolkids, farmers, or enemy infantry units. They are indiscriminate and the Ottawa Treaty was a bloody good idea. Such a shame that over 30 UN member states didn't sign up to it, including China, Russia, and the USA.
otolith said:
yellowjack said:
Unless you've had to face these things for real, I'd suggest that you should have no say in whether their re-introduction by the USA is a good idea or not.
Or have worked reassembling their victims, for that matter.
Pesty said:
Doesn’t matter orange man bad
Forget all the people obama killed with drone strikes ORANGE MAN BAD
Obama received significant criticism for drone strikes. Obama however didn’t ban the reporting of civilians killed by accident in the strikes, or use them to commit extra judicial killings. Forget all the people obama killed with drone strikes ORANGE MAN BAD
I know it will make no difference to you, as you clearly have a blinkered view, but you can’t just keep blindly defending Trump. You can’t use what Obama did, or what you think he did, as a defence of Trump. Even if we take what is being said as true the fact that Obama did something does not mean that Trump should do it. Past evils do not justify repeating them. If Trump has done something then it must be judged on its own merits, not based on what someone else did.
Big-Bo-Beep said:
As Europe under the surprisingly un-warlike Germans has refused to strap on a pair I'm inclined to
allow the USA to do anything it sees fit to protect the West from unstable islamic countries.
Given that the US doing “what it sees fit” is the cause of much of the instability it should probably take a bit more care. And doing what it sees fit has been responsible for the deaths of far far far more civilians than any Islamic terrorist or state actors in the west. allow the USA to do anything it sees fit to protect the West from unstable islamic countries.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff