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I am surprised Ukrainians do not use remotely controlled mines. I don't know anything about weapons. Would it be hard to create a detonator that is remote cont

by TekMol 5y ago

I am surprised Ukrainians do not use remotely controlled mines. I don't know anything about weapons. Would it be hard to create a detonator that is remote controlled? Then one guy - let's call him the controller - could watch over a street in which a bunch of mines with such detonators are buried. As soon as an enemy vehicle is over the position of such a mine, the controllers selects it on his app and destroys the vehicle. If the signal can be sent over a distance of - say - 100m or more, then that would be a very comfortable way of defense against tanks, wouldn't it?

spacemanmatt 5y ago
My guess: It's just not worth trying to guess/hope where a tank will roll over your mines.
kspacewalk2 5y ago
> I am surprised Ukrainians do not use remotely controlled mines. They do use mines, not sure if remote controlled. E.g. https://twitter.com/nashaniva/status/1503762953148919809 https://twitter.com/nashaniva/status/1503762953148919809
- TekMol 5y ago
  But then you have to either put it there shortly before an enemy vehicle will pass it, or you have to somehow make sure no friendly vehicles will ever pass it.
  - blaser-waffle 5y ago
    They're fighting a defensive war, not a war of maneuver. Easier to use IEDs and mines when you're bunkering down and the fields are mud -- necessitating the use of a handful of roads. I'd bet my hat that the reasons the Russians are surrounding the cities and blasting them down is because they know they'd run into tons of IEDs + NLAWs if they rolled into a city.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      The big difference is that the Russian army has a strong precedent, and is happy to, blast cities to rubble and kill civilians indiscriminately. It works. For all the collateral damage that the US invasions in the middle east caused, US soldiers generally don't like murdering innocents blindly.
sklargh 5y ago
This sort of exists but there is no network element as you’ve described. These are called off-route mines. They’re far cheaper than guided missiles but you need to accurately predict where the target will be. You’d also need to be much closer than you’d typically be with a rocket or missile. Also see IEDs with EFPs, but I wouldn’t want to have a cell phone emitting on a battlefield.
hef19898 5y ago
Why use an app if a wire does the same job and doesn't need 5G? Just ask the Iraqi insurgents, it works quite well. And why do you think the Ukrainians are doing that? It seems they holding themselves quite well so far.
dboreham 5y ago
Tanks are heavily armored underneath. You can only set a mine off once.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > Tanks are heavily armored underneath. Not a truthful statement. They have very little armour underneath, and what they have is just basic metal - nothing technical. They have armour in the front, primarily. https://i.redd.it/4enb88un2de71.jpg https://i.redd.it/4enb88un2de71.jpg This was a big problem in Afghanistan, and why vehicles designed urgently in that era look completely different to what we were using before.
  - chipsa 5y ago
    To explain more: weight devoted to armoring the bottom is weight that's not devoted to armoring the front, which is much more important for high-intensity combat. And since the bottom has more area than the front, a given weight of armor will be thinner on the bottom than on the front.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
njarboe 5y ago
What you are describing is what was called an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in the US/Iraq war[1]. Very effective against a superiorly equipped invading force. Works great against lightly armored vehicles like fuel trucks. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_explosive_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_explosive_device
- krisoft 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be improvised. Some armies have what they call "off-route mines". They are essentially a shaped charge projector coupled with a triggering mechanism. If employed by the kind of folks who care about civilian casualties there are smarter triggering mechanism which are unlikely to be triggered by someone walking by, or even driving by in something less heavy than a tank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=praws6uM--A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=praws6uM--A
knolan 5y ago
This would seem to be a better response to an occupying force which must patrol captured land, as per Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now it seems the difficult terrain is doing a lot of immobilisation making them sitting ducks.
krisoft 5y ago
> I am surprised Ukrainians do not use remotely controlled mines. What makes you think they don't? > If the signal can be sent over a distance of - say - 100m or more, then that would be a very comfortable way of defense against tanks, wouldn't it? Nothing is comfortable in a war.
ahepp 5y ago
My understanding is it’s fairly easy to detect and jam this kind of signal

by TekMol 5y ago

spacemanmatt 5y ago

My guess: It's just not worth trying to guess/hope where a tank will roll over your mines.

kspacewalk2 5y ago

> I am surprised Ukrainians do not use remotely controlled mines. They do use mines, not sure if remote controlled. E.g. https://twitter.com/nashaniva/status/1503762953148919809 https://twitter.com/nashaniva/status/1503762953148919809

TekMol 5y ago
But then you have to either put it there shortly before an enemy vehicle will pass it, or you have to somehow make sure no friendly vehicles will ever pass it.
- blaser-waffle 5y ago
  They're fighting a defensive war, not a war of maneuver. Easier to use IEDs and mines when you're bunkering down and the fields are mud -- necessitating the use of a handful of roads. I'd bet my hat that the reasons the Russians are surrounding the cities and blasting them down is because they know they'd run into tons of IEDs + NLAWs if they rolled into a city.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    The big difference is that the Russian army has a strong precedent, and is happy to, blast cities to rubble and kill civilians indiscriminately. It works. For all the collateral damage that the US invasions in the middle east caused, US soldiers generally don't like murdering innocents blindly.

sklargh 5y ago

This sort of exists but there is no network element as you’ve described. These are called off-route mines. They’re far cheaper than guided missiles but you need to accurately predict where the target will be. You’d also need to be much closer than you’d typically be with a rocket or missile. Also see IEDs with EFPs, but I wouldn’t want to have a cell phone emitting on a battlefield.

hef19898 5y ago

Why use an app if a wire does the same job and doesn't need 5G? Just ask the Iraqi insurgents, it works quite well. And why do you think the Ukrainians are doing that? It seems they holding themselves quite well so far.

dboreham 5y ago

Tanks are heavily armored underneath. You can only set a mine off once.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> Tanks are heavily armored underneath. Not a truthful statement. They have very little armour underneath, and what they have is just basic metal - nothing technical. They have armour in the front, primarily. https://i.redd.it/4enb88un2de71.jpg https://i.redd.it/4enb88un2de71.jpg This was a big problem in Afghanistan, and why vehicles designed urgently in that era look completely different to what we were using before.
- chipsa 5y ago
  To explain more: weight devoted to armoring the bottom is weight that's not devoted to armoring the front, which is much more important for high-intensity combat. And since the bottom has more area than the front, a given weight of armor will be thinner on the bottom than on the front.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

njarboe 5y ago

What you are describing is what was called an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in the US/Iraq war[1]. Very effective against a superiorly equipped invading force. Works great against lightly armored vehicles like fuel trucks. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_explosive_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_explosive_device

krisoft 5y ago
It doesn't have to be improvised. Some armies have what they call "off-route mines". They are essentially a shaped charge projector coupled with a triggering mechanism. If employed by the kind of folks who care about civilian casualties there are smarter triggering mechanism which are unlikely to be triggered by someone walking by, or even driving by in something less heavy than a tank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=praws6uM--A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=praws6uM--A

knolan 5y ago

This would seem to be a better response to an occupying force which must patrol captured land, as per Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now it seems the difficult terrain is doing a lot of immobilisation making them sitting ducks.

krisoft 5y ago

> I am surprised Ukrainians do not use remotely controlled mines. What makes you think they don't? > If the signal can be sent over a distance of - say - 100m or more, then that would be a very comfortable way of defense against tanks, wouldn't it? Nothing is comfortable in a war.

ahepp 5y ago

My understanding is it’s fairly easy to detect and jam this kind of signal