Minehunting with radar and rats

摘要

During a morning operation against the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand province in 2010, a British army contingent halted before a narrow pass reckoned to be mined with improvised explosive devices (ieds). The day before, two of the unit's armoured vehicles had been destroyed nearby by ieds (the crews were uninjured). The commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Matt Ba-zeley, fired a rocket that pulled 200 metres of a fat, coiled hose out over the route ahead. Packed with about 1.5 tonnes of explosives, it detonated upon landing with such a force that the shock wave was felt at a command centre 13km (8 miles) away. Python, as the mine-breaching system is called, is so powerful that before it is fired soldiers must ensure no civilians are within half a kilometre (on that morning, a b-2 bomber and a drone first scanned the area). Other methods used to detonate ieds and landmines, such as armoured machines that flail the ground or sift through it like a potato harvester, are less violent. But setting off buried mines is not always the best option.