By Jacquelyn S. Porth
Washington File Security Affairs Writer
Washington -- The victims of anti-personnel land mines (APL) suffer intense physical, emotional, economic and psychological losses -- if they survive. That reality drives a team of engineers, scientists, contractors, and military officials who work in the Virginia countryside to identify, develop, and refine technologies that will make the risky, life-threatening job of deminers both safer and easier.
Robert Carthy, president of Schiebel Technology Inc., knows all about the devastation of mines. Recently, he described the three-fold effect on one family when, first, a father was cut down in a minefield, then his wife triggered a mine trying to reach him, and then their child stepped on a third mine trying to reach the parents.
Carthy relayed this from inside a computer-equipped four-wheel drive vehicle used to fly remotely a conference table-sized, unmanned, rotary-wing aerial vehicle. The aerial vehicle is used to detect mines embedded in the ground and to quickly map locations for use by deminers. Sitting within the 30,000 hectare boundary of the U.S. Army's Fort A.P. Hill on a sun-splashed October day, he demonstrated how the "Camcopter" uses an infra-red camera to find and map mines from the air that are located just below ground surface. Use of the system, which is still being refined, could reduce a surveyor's task from days or weeks to mere hours.
Carthy's project is funded by the U.S. Army's Humanitarian Demining Research and Development (R&D) program. It is one of many projects that the Army is pursuing at its Fort A.P. Hill training facility. While leading the first press tour to view some of the fruits of the Army's research, Jason Regnier pointed out that the United States spends more than any other country helping nations around the world remove mines either by training indigenous deminers or by providing badly needed equipment.
There are U.S. programs in 30 countries designed to assist in mine clearance, awareness, and/or survivor assistance. At Fort A.P. Hill, Regnier said the R&D community has the mission of developing "portable equipment for use in non-combat situations." Some prototype equipment, for example, is now in use in Jordan, while other systems have been demonstrated in Egypt; two countries with vastly different demining needs.
The Army meets with a variety of deminers annually. Based on their requirements, contracts are let to produce everything from better detection equipment to safer helmets, face gear and boots, and cooler protective clothing. As a project leader for clearance and neutralization equipment, Regnier is working with a new liquid explosive foam designed to be an alternative to dynamite.
Army Colonel George Zahaczewsky told reporters traveling under the auspices of the Foreign Press Center that the United States is willing to loan any of its demining equipment, still in the R&D phase, for field trials. Such on-location testing provides what he called "a graduation exercise" for the equipment. Zahaczewsky, who works for the Defense Department, oversees all the R&D for demining which is part of an ongoing process to help countries eliminate mines and bring land back into productive use.
Promoting humanitarian demining is a U.S. foreign policy initiative, he said, that is facilitated at Fort A.P. Hill through "rapid prototyping" -- using off-the-shelf technology to modify equipment and move it into the field in 12 to 18 months. In some cases, foreign technology is used. It could be commercial or adapted from military applications. The United States foots the bill for transporting the equipment overseas to countries or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) wishing to try-before-they-buy from U.S., non-American, or multi-national consortiums.
Fort A.P. Hill is usually the last step before the equipment travels abroad for testing in real-world environments. Equipment has traveled, for example, to Guatemala, Ecuador, Laos, and Cambodia. Engineers have even built a rice paddy in Virginia to aid testing procedures. Specialized demining testing has been going on since 1995.
The landscape and simulation at Fort AP Hill provide realistic and rigorous testing. The thick Virginia woodlands simulate the dense vegetation that, in some countries, has grown to cover mines over a 20 to 30 year period. Noy Roveira, an Army reservist on active duty, drove a demining tractor through the dense undergrowth. After putting it through its paces, she commented on the armored tractor's "good turning radius," its mobility "going up and down hills," and the fact that "you can make your own path" with its variety of attachments, including a tree extractor and heavy vegetation cutters. Colleague John Shellings, a civilian with the U.S. Army, noted that Roveira learned to operate the British-based vehicle quickly, without prior experience, and that anyone can do so with a few days practice.
Shelling said two tractors, which have driven over mines without sustaining damage, will be shipped to Cambodia in October; field testing there will begin in January 2000. He said the four-wheel drive vehicles do well in the mud, sinking a few feet while still generating enough power to move forward. The U.S. government is providing use of the equipment free for one year. If the vehicles perform as expected, the British NGO, Mines Advisory Group (MAG), will raise private funds for future purchase.
Project engineer Charlie Chichester said this particular tractor and its interchangeable tools are designed to function like a giant "weed-whacker" and "pave the way for manual demining." The tractors will streamline a vegetation-clearing job that might otherwise be accomplished by deminers bearing hand axes.
By adapting pre-existing equipment or technologies "we are providing a service that is really needed," Shelling said. The work at Fort A.P. Hill is hands-on and, he said, the payoff is high because, as these professionals well know, slow mine removal means it is children who, ultimately, suffer from the after-effects of war.
Describing another piece of heavy equipment, the "Mini Flail," its chief engineer, Bartley Smith, said the British utility vehicle, which would otherwise be used in civilian warehouses, has been adapted for cutting heavy vegetation with a two-meter armor-plated chain flail. It can be operated manually or remotely from a distance of one kilometer. Its wheels, too, are designed to sustain a mine blast. But as its remote control operator Erik Buice pointed out, the intention is not to drive knowingly into a live minefield.
Meanwhile, mine expert John Fasulo directed APL demolitions in a dusty "hot zone" some distance away. Calling out the warning "fire in the hole" he said the nearby exploding APL that rocked the ground was a clear demonstration of the sheer power of these debilitating weapons. At this location, Regnier also described some of the merits of using LEXFOAM to mark and neutralize mines that may be placed artfully in trees or concealed by brush.
The foam's ingredients can be safely shipped to a location and then mixed quickly, prior to setting it off with blasting caps. If the mine does not explode for some reason, the foam melts back into the ground rapidly in an environmentally safe manner, according to its designers. Current estimates are that a typical aerosol container of foam would be used to neutralize one or two mines for $15; bulk production would likely lower costs.
Elsewhere on another of Fort A.P. Hill's live-fire ranges, Shawn Burke is in charge of a mine excavation program that uses air-compressors. He described it as "an excellent digging system" that will not set off APLs. A skilled technician guides an air-nozzle over a previously marked, but otherwise invisible mine. In hard-packed sandy soil similar to the desert, air pressure blasts away dirt creating a small crater around the mine.
The Air Spade, as it is known, has been used in Afghanistan and Angola. Deminers may use it before using hand tools, or they may use it in place of tedious hand-troweling. It has been used successfully, without setting off a wide range of APLs. Only one mine has exploded during tests: a crude Russian-made wooden box-type mine.
All of these demonstration projects, and others which involve pure data, are designed to be shared with the broader international community. As Regnier pointed out, the United States is willing to give away R&D blueprints to anyone who will benefit from further use. The U.S. Army Communication Electronics Command's (CECOM) Center for Night Vision and Electro-Optics Directorate has been busy distributing a CD-ROM which demonstrates the merits of existing mine detection and clearing equipment. On another front, an international pilot project is under way that will create a sophisticated database on existing hand-held metal detectors (military and commercial) so that deminers can chose the best equipment for their geographic area.
Mines are put in the ground for different reasons: to kill, maim, intimidate, and cause economic hardship. But their ultimate effect may be far different from their original purpose due to the intervention of time, hurricanes, floods, and shifting sands. The only truism for an experienced deminer, according to Carthy, is that no single technology can detect and disarm 100 percent of all mines -- yet.
This Web site is produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State
Return to Arms Control and Non Proliferation homepage