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Mar.04 (released by China Military Power Mashup and written by Jiang Xinghua) — Editor’s Note: According to statistics from the Headquarters of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, 65 million to 110 million landmines lie buried in 68 countries, killing or injuring about 26,000 people each year. This year marks the 10th anniversary of China’s ratification of an amendment to the United Nation’s Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices. China has endeavored to eliminate problem landmines around the world by using unique tools created by Chinese scientists and engineers.

It’s not surprising that the civilization that used landmines in military operations 500 years ago has the know-how to disarm such weapons.

A battalion of Chinese U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed to Lebanon’s southern border area left their base in southwest Yunnan Province on Feb. 16. They were selected from an engineering regiment of Chengdu Military Command that has participated in landmine clearance operations on the Sino-Vietnam border and three foreign mine-sweeping missions. The latest China-made equipment carried with the battalion to Lebanon has been unveiled at their base.

Remote-controlled Robot Detector

The self-propelled robot will be mainly used to find landmines and unexploded ordnance in humanitarian missions. It finds possible landmines with a revolving arm mounted with a metal detector. Equipped with three pairs of caterpillar tracks, the robot can overcome vertical obstacles of 20 centimeters as well as go up and down stairs. It has a maximum working speed of 100 meters per hour on open terrain and can work on a slope with a maximum gradient of 25 degrees or an area with vegetation less than 10 centimeters high.

The robot’s controller watches live video images on his laptop computer relayed via wireless signal from the robot’s cameras. When the robot finds a suspect mine, it will stop, spray marking liquid on the surface and send an alert to the controller. The machine is waterproof and able to operate for six hours before recharging.

Mine-sweeping Armored Vehicle

The armored vehicle specially designed for mine clearance weighs about 38 tonnes and is 9.7 meters long, 3.2 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. But the vehicle is only operated by two crew: a vehicle head and a driver who will cooperate in driving, observing, communication and other tasks. To facilitate their work, all mine-sweeping tools installed in the vehicle have both manual and automatic modes. In the auto mode, the crew only need to close the vehicle’s hatch cover and the computerized system will do the rest by monitoring every maneuver. The system also has a safety that can stop firing mine-triggering weapons if the vehicle is not properly sealed.

This track-laying vehicle can be deployed to sweep for a range of landmines, especially anti-tank mines buried in advance positions, to clear a road for tanks, armored combat vehicles and infantry. Crew members can operate other mine-sweeping tools in the vehicle to destroy scattered mines. The vehicle has an engine power of 427kw and a maximum speed of 47km per hour on the highway when it is equipped with a mine-sweeping plough.

Bamboo-like Bangalore Torpedo

In a mountainous training area for landmine clearance, engineers demonstrated the extendable Bangalore torpedoes which were originally created by PLA engineers to sweep landmines buried around the Sino-Vietnamese border. In areas with heavy vegetation and complex terrain, it is very hard and dangerous for engineers to find mines with standard metal detectors. But the extendable Bangalore torpedo can do so.

Inspired by Chinese bamboo, the torpedoes are extended by sectional cartridges so as to reach far into dense vegetation in mountainous terrain where a common metal detector cannot easily locate landmines. The bamboo-like device can easily clean a path up to 10 meters long and two meters wide by detonating landmines in a thicket. With its mobility and simplicity, the extendible torpedo has been proved to be far more efficient than the traditional Bangalore torpedo.

The engineers said that this simple weapon has been listed as important standard equipment in the PLA’s mine-sweeping arsenal and has been adopted in many international mine clearance missions.

Multipurpose Mine-sweeping Harrow

In the mine-sweeping training field, some engineers use a multipurpose mine-sweeping harrow to dig out dummy mines as easily as digging out potatoes and yams. The harrow was invented by Chinese minesweepers who found that most antipersonnel landmines are triggered by pressure on the top, but will not detonate by being pressed from the side. This simple but effective tool could also be used to clear weeds and other obstacles in a minefield. It has been also listed as a standard equipment in the PLA’s mine-sweeping arsenal for humanitarian mine-sweeping missions and played important roles in mine clearance or education along the Sino-Vietnam border, Eritrea and Thailand.

Hook and Rope with Pressurized Air Gun

In the mine-sweeping training field of the base, engineers also demonstrated a hook and rope device which can be fired by air-pressurized gun to a distance of 50 to 90 meters. The device is designed to deal with trip-wired landmines. After finding such mines, a mine-sweeper can fire the hook to catch the trip wires from a safe distance and then trigger the mines by drawing the rope.

The engineers also designed a handheld variant of the hook and rope device which can be thrown by the mine sweeper and cut branches and leaves, while catching trip wires in mine fields with heavy vegetation.

Protective Suits for Engineers

Besides the mine-sweeping tools, Chinese engineers deployed to Lebanon have also been equipped with improved protective suits. The suits are soft, breathable and light so as to make the wearers more flexible and agile.

In a mine-sweeping training mission conducted by Chinese and Thai engineers in Thailand, a student accidentally triggered a sophisticated anti-infantry mine. Then vice-director of Chinese mine-sweeping expert group Chen Dairong quickly held the student down when the mine exploded. However, they were both safe because they wore the China-made protective suits which prevented injury caused by shrapnel.

The suits have been improved several times in the past ten years to bring innovations in style, protective performance and even the buttons. For example, the visor of the helmet has been updated 10 times to improve both rigidity and transparency.

Armored Ambulance

The armored ambulance manned by the Chinese mine-sweeping engineers is a modified armored off-road vehicle of the PLA. It will be used to transport wounded personnel and to conduct emergency surgery in the minefield or battlefield.

The ambulance’s four-meter-long and two-meter-wide cabin can allow three medical staff to give first aid to a wounded soldier.

The ambulance, with high fuel efficiency and reliability, is four-wheel drive and can mount a 30-degree slope. It can also be used for patrol, reconnaissance, communication or escort if installed with weapons and relevant facilities.

Backgrounder: China’s endeavor to deal with worldwide landmine problems

China has not signed the Ottawa Treaty co-signed by 121 countries in December 1997 as a joint effort to completely ban antipersonnel landmines. But China has ratified the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Trap and Other Devices of the U.N. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons concluded at Geneva in 1980, and ratified an amendment to the protocol in 1998 which tightens the restrictions to prevent civilian mine casualties.

The amended protocol details regulations on the delectability of antipersonnel mines, and sets requirements for their self-destruction and self-deactivation outside fenced, monitored and marked areas.

China and Vietnam planted millions of mines during the Sino-Vietnam war in 1979 and the following skirmishes along their border, leaving the mountainous region one of the most densely packed minefields since World War II.

Since signing the mine protocol, China has carried out two large-scale mine-sweeping missions in the 1990s and detonated more than 680,000 mines and unexploded ordnance.

The country has also actively participated in international humanitarian missions to help other countries clear mines.

In the past two years, China has trained engineers for Angola, Mozambique, Chad, Burundi and other African countries and financed Peru, Ethiopia and Ecuador to disarm mines.

In January, China donated 70 sets of landmine detectors and accessories to Egypt where some 16.7 million landmines and unexploded ordnance items were left in the north African battlefield from World War II.

Four Chinese experts were also dispatched to Egypt to train local minesweepers. They also supplied Egypt with mine-sweeping technology to help free more residents from the deadly heritage that has claimed thousands of lives.

Chinese experts have also helped in Thailand and Eritrea to teach mine-sweeping practices, which is perhaps the most dangerous non-combat mission.

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