h a l f b a k e r yOn the one hand, true. On the other hand, bollocks.
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This may seem strange, but it may be life saving.
Essentially place a metal detector on the boots of soldiers, which instead of beeping, vibrates the stronger you get to a magnetic field. Which hopefully in this case is a landmine.
While you may get false positive, if a soldier is trained to discern
the type of vibrations, and if the detector is calibrated to filter out most erroneous metal signature, the solider will be able to have one extra sense to avoid landmines.
Another HB first?
https://www.youtube...watch?v=0dYNXFRR5gc
[doctorremulac3, Jul 06 2019]
Wearing socks with sandals metal detecting guy...
https://www.geeky-g...EXliocZ7asr8U7u8FO0
...you're one of us. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 06 2019]
[link]
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Many mines are designed not to trigger metal
detectors. |
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I think the mine detecting boot would mostly end up on a long stick. Suspect mini Manhattan Project style technological race would ensue to create the first successful flip-flop detecting mine as the soldiers would have to wear something on the now exposed foot. |
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Great idea that appears to have caught on. (link) |
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But the linked technology is at the "conceptual stage". I think
that (a) you'd struggle to detect a metal mine until your foot
was six inches away from it (b) you'd fail to detect modern
metal-free mins and (c) if you cranked up the sensitivity
enough to make it work, you'd be stopping every three paces
because of false positives from bullets, junk, shrapnel. |
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I assume you'd be able to calibrate it to specifically react to
the profile of a land mine. |
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I will see your military grade boots and raise you a pair of sandals. [link] |
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//you'd be able to calibrate it to specifically react to the
profile of a land mine// Basically no. There are only a
couple of parameters that metal detectors can pick up, so
imagine an X-Y graph with a blob somewhere on it that
equates to "landmine". Now throw on some more blobs that
equate to four different calibres of bullet. Now paint on a
huge diagonal smear that equates to steel shrapnel of
different sizes. Now add a few more diagonal smears to
represent brass debris of variable size, and a couple of
common alloys. A few more blobs for ring-pulls and foil
wrappers. |
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If you can still see your landmine blob, now put the whole
chart in water and smoosh it around a bit so that everything
smears, to allow for the fact that any of these objects can
be anywhere from on the surface to a few inches below it.
Smear things a bit more because soil can be wet or dry, and
iron-rich or iron-poor,
which affects the readings. Give it another smear to allow
for the fact that any object (apart from a landmine) might
be at any orientation. |
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Now, if your landmine blob is still clear and cleanly
separated from all the other blobs, you can start walking
across the minefield and I'll meet you on the far side,
literally or metaphorically. |
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This is one of the reasons why metal detectors have only a
few settings, and not a selector switch to choose between
gold coins, silver coins, non-ancient coins, viking helmets
and bullion bars. |
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//you'd be able to calibrate it to specifically react to
the profile of a land mine// Basically no.// |
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Then who's been selling these mine detectors that are of
absolutely no use? |
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I built a metal detector once when I was a kid. Little
things
like coins made a little noise, big things like land mines,
buried pipes and such made the thing scream. |
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By calibrate I mean turn down the sensitivity to react only
to the large object you're looking for. And you can control
the
sensitivity. It would also be quite easy to make it only
react to small objects such as coins and ignore big ones
like the land mines, at least as far as indicator sounds,
lights, vibrations etc. I probably could have modified my
little kit metal detector to do that with a little work. |
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Antipersonnel mines are quite small; one that hasn't bern armed will fit in the palm of your hand*. Antivehicle mines are much bigger, but won't initiate on the ground pressure of an average human - even a soldier carrying a full load of equipment. Even in WW2 the German "glasmine" (q.v.) was very difficult to detect. |
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It is possible to make an undetectable metal-free antipersonnel mine, with a low-signature composition that's hard to sniff, especially when buried just a few centimetres. The only effective clearance method is mechanical. |
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*If it has been armed, that's very bad news. The blast has low lethality but is still extremely damaging. |
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Well, no detection method is perfect. Better a pair of metal
detecting sandals than nothing. |
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By the way, I like how people seeing you on the beach with
one of these will assume that thing on your ankle is a court
ordered house arrest thingy. |
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No - because it gives you a false sense of security. |
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A false negative is incredibly dangerous and will increase casualties. |
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I suspect that most mines are deployed in areas where
recreational warfare is a way of life. So, there's going to be
shell casings, bits of rebar from former hospitals, and the like. |
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I'm sure there are relatively metal free areas the kids
could play in after using their metal detecting sandals to
find them. I mean, there are two ways to use a kid to
detect a land
mine. Although I suppose you could say the old fashioned
way effectively gets rid of the land mine as well as
detecting it, I vote for metal detecting sandals method. |
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Although the money might be better spend putting one of
those spinny chain things on a tractor and just clearing
out areas for the kids to play in. |
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OK, so even if these won't bring glorious civilization to
the third world you have to admit they're a pretty neat
idea. |
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No objections to using them for beach combing right? |
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Well, there you go. Bun well earned. I rest my case. I
don't know how I ended up with a case, but I rest it. |
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Are you sure it's just a case? Why is it ticking? Oh, it's
stopped. |
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Sounds like a job for quantum chips. An accurate level of ground imaging for the item identifying degree. |
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If the mines are giving off chemicals perceptible to a canine olfactory sense then there might an airborne spectral reflection and therefore data for AR. |
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