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By kiwibacon
#11600
Like anyone I hate the idea of land mines that are left behind after a conflict to claim lives and limbs. However, they will continue to be manufactured to fill the military's demand.

My idea is that an internal device should be designed to be easily incorporated (at little cost), to allow a mine to be set to be active for a limited time period (say two years) after which it would be inctive and largely harmless. There are a number of ways that this could be achieved:

Incorporate a switch that will degrade at a certain predictable rate when exposed to the elements. After a certain period the circuit will break and will no longer carry the charge to the detonator charge.

Another way is to have a biodegradeable explosive charge that will degrade over a fixed period. This is not as strange as it sounds as BAE systems is focussing on environmentally friendly weapons. As far as I know this application has not been proposed to date. Achievement of this latter idea will be very lucrative while benefitting thousands of collateral victims of continuing or extinguished conflicts. This idea needs a champion to make it happen.

Reward: Letting me know that my idea was put into practice.
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By Michael D. Grissom
#11949
I think opposing armies want the land minds to keep working long after the war is over - just in case they lose. It's called hatred.
By ShotgunNinja
#11992
Great idea, but he does have a point. The point of land mines is to spread pain in short, concentrated bursts, be it to the opposing military's soldiers, the opposing country's economy, or the opposing ruler's ego.
By scottraine123
#12092
if the mines were powered by electricity they could be deactivated during peace time by an electromagnetic pulse
By ras105
#12389
yeah, great....but land mines are technically illegal. Even during wartime. So unless you're intending to sell these on the black market.....
By amorriso
#13899
I saw a TV program that described an idea to put batteries in mines. The mines are designed in such a way that when the battery dies after a few years the mine becomes inactive.
By danjeffery07
#15046
Actually, a radio inside the landmine would be better, all set at the same frequency, and when the war is over, if you won, and you dont want the mines there, send the code out, which could be composed of lots of 1's and 0's (binary code) and if the code is correct, the mines deactivate. of course, this poses problems, as the enemy could broadcast this code, but finding the mine via radio would not be a problem, as it is a receiver, not a transmitter, so enemies would have to use metal detectors, but composing the mine of non-magnetic materials such as fiberglass would eliminate this, causing mines to be invisible
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