U.S. Mulling New Generation of Land Mines

Duty Honor Country

Duty Honor Country

Active member
I think a minefield that can be monitored by someone at a computer is pretty cool. The $100 million spent in R&D is kind of a turn off

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is close to deciding whether to produce a new generation of land mines, but the system is drawing fire from critics who say the military is ignoring international sentiment against such weapons.

Underscoring the unpopularity of the devices, defense officials working on the program, called Spider, declined to call the weapon a land mine. They opted instead for generic descriptions like "networked munitions."

The Spider has the same function as a field of land mines — to prevent anyone from crossing a piece of territory, either by killing them or scaring them away. But unlike a traditional minefield, it is designed to be monitored by a human operator, who can activate the system by computer when somebody enters the protected area...

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I honestly don't have the time to read the full article. Can you summerize how this "spider" thing improves the landmines we currently have? The landmines seem very very effective thusfar.
 
A single Spider system would involve up to 84 "munitions," each a small disc with six miniature, single-shot grenade launchers. When a nearby tripwire is triggered, one or all the grenades will fire, depending on the setting.

The disks can also be loaded with plastic balls as a nonlethal weapon, Chaplin said.
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Each mine runs on a battery which has a life of 30 days. Once the battery dies, then the mine is rendered useless. There is nothing on how the minefield is controlled. My guess is that they are connected by wires which run back to the control station.
 
Doody said:
A single Spider system would involve up to 84 "munitions," each a small disc with six miniature, single-shot grenade launchers. When a nearby tripwire is triggered, one or all the grenades will fire, depending on the setting.

The disks can also be loaded with plastic balls as a nonlethal weapon, Chaplin said.
Click to expand...

Each mine runs on a battery which has a life of 30 days. Once the battery dies, then the mine is rendered useless. There is nothing on how the minefield is controlled. My guess is that they are connected by wires which run back to the control station.
Click to expand...

Very interesting.
 
Each mine runs on a battery which has a life of 30 days. Once the battery dies, then the mine is rendered useless. There is nothing on how the minefield is controlled. My guess is that they are connected by wires which run back to the control station.
Click to expand...


What happens when our enemy digs up our mines after 30days and puts a new battery in, we just handed them a spankin new land mine.
 
Rabs said:
Each mine runs on a battery which has a life of 30 days. Once the battery dies, then the mine is rendered useless. There is nothing on how the minefield is controlled. My guess is that they are connected by wires which run back to the control station.
Click to expand...


What happens when our enemy digs up our mines after 30days and puts a new battery in, we just handed them a spankin new land mine.
Click to expand...

As soon as the mine reports back to the computer that it has been tampered with, either set one off that has a good battery and is close to him or fire the whole field. Most battery operated devices like cameras or cell phones and such have a small NiMh or NiCd backup battery that is long lived to serve as a backup for the main battery so memory won't be lost when batteries are replaced. Use it to fire the squib by microwave signals.
 
Doody said:
A single Spider system would involve up to 84 "munitions," each a small disc with six miniature, single-shot grenade launchers. When a nearby tripwire is triggered, one or all the grenades will fire, depending on the setting.

The disks can also be loaded with plastic balls as a nonlethal weapon, Chaplin said.
Click to expand...

Each mine runs on a battery which has a life of 30 days. Once the battery dies, then the mine is rendered useless. There is nothing on how the minefield is controlled. My guess is that they are connected by wires which run back to the control station.
Click to expand...


pesonally i cant see the problem for anti mine campeigners, i mean most of the mines that are causing problems are one that cant be rendered inert, or those lovely air dropped one that look like toys to kids :x

personally, if it can make themselves inert then i dont see anythign wrong with them at all.

as for putting a new battery in them....i'm sure the designers have thought of that
 
chewie_nz said:
pesonally i cant see the problem for anti mine campeigners, i mean most of the mines that are causing problems are one that cant be rendered inert, or those lovely air dropped one that look like toys to kids :x

personally, if it can make themselves inert then i dont see anythign wrong with them at all.

as for putting a new battery in them....i'm sure the designers have thought of that
Click to expand...
If it can be done, it will. The US will never "salt" mines that will deceive children.
 
It is interesting, you could deactivate the mines so friendlies cross it, and then activate so that no one else can. Tactical options anyone?
 
Whispering Death said:
I think our current mines are peachy. Spend our money on something else.
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Ditto. Most of our current land mines can be deactivated with the pull of a pin, and our FASM detonate upon contact.
 
Lol with the name like spider, I thought it would be some suicide robot with a high explosive that would charge at an intruder in a detected proximity just like unreal tournament.
 
I fail to see the point of playing with something that already works fine.

ALL obstacles, whether mine fields, wire, tank ditches or what ever are required to be under observation or fire or both. If they're not it makes them a hell of a lot easier to breach.

Australian mine casualties from the Vietnam war were from Australian mines lifted and re sown by the VC......

He who does not learn from the lessons of history, will be the one who repeats its mistakes!!!
 
so you make a minefield with say 10000 mines.
then the conflict goes on for longer than intended and the initial 30 days pass.
what do you do? give everyone spades and tell them to dig up the now obsolete mines? or you do simply lay new ones?
 
Locke said:
so you make a minefield with say 10000 mines.
then the conflict goes on for longer than intended and the initial 30 days pass.
what do you do? give everyone spades and tell them to dig up the now obsolete mines? or you do simply lay new ones?
Click to expand...

America doesn't have any land mines in it.

If the Vietnamese and North Koreans blow themselves up on our old mines then sucks for them that they decided to take that ground away from American soldiers.

I'd rather spend the cash on better weapons and body armor for my Infantry, personally.
 
did i ever suggest america had landmines in it? read my post again.

i suggested that if they used them in any conflict, the issue of replacement/removal would be a pain in the butt
 
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