Landmines And Explosive Remnants Of War Flashcards
Learning Objectives
- Understand the different categories of landmine and their military utility
- Define the 3 patterns of anti-personnel landmine injury
- Understand the cause and extent of the “global landmine epidemic”
- Understand the threat posed by the Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) in the form of unexploded ordnance and abandoned ordnance.
List some countries where epidemics are occurring
Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Kuwait, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Laos, Vietnam, Peru, Honduras
What are landmines?
- They’re Explosive traps
- A mine comprises a quantity of explosive material contained within some form of casing (typically metal, plastic or wood), and a fusing mechanism to detonate the explosives
What are the different categories of Landmines?
- Intended target: Anti-personnel, Anti-vehicle
- Type of explosion
- Type of manufacture
- Mode of activation
What are the different types of explosives?
- Blast
- Fragmentation
- Directional fragmentation
- Bounding fragmentation
How are landmines utilised in the military?
- Landmines are usually not laid randomly
- They have specific military objectives
- Offensive, Defensive and Nuisance minelaying
Describe the use of landmines in Afghanistan
- One of the most heavily mined countries in the world
- Approximately 10 million mines
- 210,000 ppl disabled by landmines
- Jan - April 2000: There were 2004 injuries (50% children)
- Mostly in Kabul & Balkh provinces
Describe the patterns of injury from these landmines (3)
- Type 1
- From standing on a buried blast mine
- Amputation of the detonating limb
- Contralateral soft tissue injury
- Perineal injury
- Hands / eyes
Describe the patterns of injury from these landmines (3)
- Type 2
- From fragmentation mine or if victim is in vicinity of a blast mine explosion
- Multiple fragment wounds, esp to the lower limbs
Describe the patterns of injury from these landmines (3)
- Type 3
- When detonation occurs whilst handling mines or in mine clearance attempts
- Upper limb amputation, fragment wounds to face, neck, trunk
What are the different types of Traumatic blast amputations? (2)
- Small volume of explosive converted into large volume of gas
- Explosive event < 2 ms
- Sharp rise of pressure (shock front)
- Mass movement of gas molecules , dynamic overpressure or “blast wind” responsible for bone destruction
What are the different types of Traumatic blast amputations? (2)
- Massive contamination by foreign material propelled along tissue planes deep into the leg
- Deeper muscle damage than is initially apparent
- Delayed swelling of muscles days after injury
- Always Delayed Primary Closure
- Fashion skin flaps & myoplasty at time of primary surgery
What are the Humanitarian Mine Actions?
- 5 Pillars:
- Humanitarian Demining
- Mine risk education
- Victim assistance
- Advocacy towards a ban on anti-personnel mines
- Stockpile destruction
How is humanitarian landmines clearance carried out?
- Methods: manual, dogs, mechanical
- Manual most effective, but slow
- Injury rate: 1 fatality & 3 injuries per 1000 man years
- Protective equipment
What are cluster bombs?
- Controversial weapons
- Canister which breaks open
- Releases cluster bomblets which impact over a wide area
- Deployed in Kosovo & Afghanistan
- ? Bomblets which fail to detonate represent a potential hazard to civilian populations
What are Cluster Bomb Units (CBUs)?
- Standard US is the CBU 87
- 430 kgs
- Contains 202 Bomb Live Units (BLU-97) submunitions
- Can be deployed from a wide range of strike aircraft
What are BOMB LIVE UNITS?
- Yellow cylinders 20 x 6 cm
- Deploy inflatable tail pieces
- Armour piercing shaped charge
- Pre-formed fragment casing
- Incendiary zirconium ring
How are BLU’s deployed in warzones? (BOMB LIVE UNITS)
- As weapon falls tail fins cause spin
- Rate of spin variable to 2,500 rpm
- Canister open at one of 10 pre-set altitudes 300 – 3,000 ft
- Combination of spin rate & opening height determines deployment area
How were cluster bombs used in the Shomali Valley?
- As of 5 Dec 2001 174 CBUs deployed by US forces in Afghanistan
- 44 dropped in the strategic Shomali Valley, north of Kabul
- Details passed by US to UXO clearance organisations
- HALO Trust : UK NGO with long experience in Afghanistan
What was the clearance method after these cluster bombs were dropped?
- Survey to determine extent of impact area (multiple craters)
- Surface UXO munitions…visible to naked eye
- Buried munitions
- New clearance drills developed, destruction in situ
- Data recording (area, no UXO, surface vs buried
What was the audit of the impact sites?
- As of 26 Jan 9 sites cleared
- Mean area 43,000 sq metres
- 317 of 1818 submunitions failed to detonate (17.4%)
- 107 (33.7%) of these (5.8% of total) buried
- Mean clearance time per site 11.4 days
- Mean rate of clearance : 3.04 bomblets per day
What were the civilian injuries in relation to this clearance?
- Active case finding in clear neck areas revealed only one incident
- One of 3 boys picked up a bomblet, allegedly mistaking it for a piece of wood
- The 3 boys had 3 cases of injuries
What was Case 1 injury?
- 4 Year old
- Picked up weapon
- Bilateral severe Lower leg injuries
- Subtotal amputation of lower foot
- Attempt at salvage but ultimately BKA
What was Case 2 and 3 injuries?
- 12 year old
- Severe injury to dorsum right hand
- Loss of extensor tendons
- Bone loss distal radius
- Case 3-superficial abdo injury only
What is the significances of non detonation cluster bombs?
- Potential for civilian injury
- ICRC, Kosovo, 280 civilian injuries, 102 (36%) from cluster bomblets
- Manufacturers claim 6% non-detonation, others 10-30%, this study 17.4%
- 5% buried, those >10cm need specialised detectors
- Delays clearance programmes
What are the issues when there’s a failure to detonate?
- Spring in stand-off probe damaged
- Collision damage with other bomblet
- Parachute fails to deploy: Bomb fails to arm OR Impacts upside down
- Internal failure of fuse: Insufficient impact force or Malfunction of piezo crystal
- Unlikely to subsequently detonate unless handled & thrown
What are cluster submunitions?
- High non-detonation rate (17.4)
- Regarded as indiscriminate weapons & contrary to Geneva conventions
- Separately outlawed as per land mines, but far less civilian threat.
- Current review of “explosive remnants of war”
- ? Self destruct / neutralising mechanisms
- Timely information provided by US forces facilitated early clearance
What is the Cluster bomb legislation?
- Already covered as “indiscriminate weapons”
- Convention on Cluster Munitions(CCM)
- Dublin May 2008
- Sept 2020 111 states have ratified
- < 10 submunitions, each > 4kg allowed
- UK had key role in treaty
