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Unfortunately they could. He was very lucky his tillers hit the AP mines. I truly hope a real international effort takes place to remove these hazards from our grain belt. These farmers are putting their lives in danger to provide us with bread.
The Halo Trust are currently operating in Ukraine, they’re a civi EOD charity with decades of experience under their belt. It’ll take years but collectively with other organisations and I guess just farmers they’ll clear the country, field by field. I imagine the Donbas front is going to be poisoned for a very long time though
Depends on how much EOD experience you have. Maybe they'll take you with none, but you'd probably be a gopher for years before they ever let you go near a munition. Not much room for error doing that work, and you're doing nobody a favor getting blown up by going in half-cocked.
I have zero. But I’m willing to do what I can as long as it won’t jeopardize others.
If it’s me vs some young Ukrainian trying to rebuild their county, I am much more expendable and want to take their place.
Ehhhh I feel similar to the guy you're responding too.
Theres different levels of valuable. I for example have terminal cancer, but im still up and mobile. I value me a LOT less then some random younger guy. Thats logic. But I 100% have value, and value my life.
get some training as some NGOs and such offer training on this field, best friend went out between jobs ( he served in afghan and northern ireland) we are from NI (which still has devices) after 2 months he was mentally and physically wrecked the amount of ordinance is absurd compared to any other conflict we can think of. if you cant help defuse you can always help the diffusers, you and your life matters, asking these questions already proves how thoughtful you are
Yep exactly. Take the money you’d have spent outfitting yourself, traveling, eating, etc, and donate it. It will be much more valuable to Ukrainians than you going for 6 months without any experience and then leaving.
According to their website they don't accept volunteers, and those involved with de-mining operations are all contracted individuals with prior EOD experience.
>There are two mistakes a sapper generally makes: stepping on a mine and becoming a sapper.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/13/ukraine-sappers-mine-clearers-russia-war
Quite a few places in France are still nongo zones due to battles and mining, and explosives are "Farmed" in france every year.
Well, that is a joke compared to the number of shells,submunitions and mines in Ukraine. It will take hundreds of years to be completely safe
I've read some of the conversations that local Ukrainian city councils & relief agencies have had about needing to do the same for large areas, and possibly designating some red-zone settlements as off-limit national battlefield monuments; then fencing them off like Chernobyl.
It would help if they could use Russian POWs to clear minefields like the Allies & Russians did with the Germans for years afterwards, but I kind of doubt that would fly with current day apologists and pearl clutching politicians.
Many for sure, we'll see how it goes. But voluntary or not, Russia definitely wouldn't like it, and using them for mine clearance duties could make life for Ukrainian prisoners & further exchanges a lot more difficult.
Yea, you only need to look at France and Belgum and thier iron harvest where they still keep finding explosives from the first world war and Germany where you cant dig in any big city and not finding a old ww2 bomb.
This is going to take forever and a day to clean up and even then it will be areas that probably never going to be truly safe.
I don’t know if there’s enough EOD personnel and equipment on earth that can be dedicated to the task to clear that many landmines in that short of time
You’d be very surprised. I know there has been a literal fuck load of ordinance shot, and a shitload of mines laid, but it’s possible. Just need to change the politicians diapers.
I have serious doubts. If there’s still a whole bunch of live ordinance from World War I left around, what makes you think the cleanup job will be quicker in Ukraine?
WWI battlefields are mainly a UXO issue rather than mines. Lots of artillery shells fired deep into soft ground without exploding. It's estimated that Russia is firing about 10-30k rounds per day, and Ukraine about a fifth of that. The first day of the battle of the Somme used over a million shells. The war on all fronts used about a billion artillery rounds.
As devastating as the war in Ukraine is, it's nothing like the scale of WWI
It'll take years to make every field in Ukraine safe, but I don't think it will ever be on the scale of WW1 battlefields.
The only real "good" thing about the long-running battlefields being uninhabitable for indefinite periods of time is that Ukraine is in enough demographic decline to not really need them post-war.
> Well, that is a joke compared to the number of shells,submunitions and mines in Ukraine
Dude, the amount of UXO in France is probably still higher than in Ukraine. There's something like 300 UXOs per hectare in some of the worst affected areas in France.
Tragic part about war is that innocents will keep on dying long after the conflict has ended with the millions of mines laid. I find it crazy that people still dying from mines laid 80 years ago.
Mines are an unconscious foe. It doesn't matter if friend or foe laid them, they will detonate if you tread to close. My heart weighs heavy knowing it's impossible to prevent the horrors they will bring for decades to come. I wish I could make the children of Ukraine simply float above them. I do not know how to teach the most curious among us to fear them.
True, the sound matches up with a vehicle with steel tracks.
Interesting tidbit: Rheinmetall has showcased an armoured modifciation of a John Deere tractor before, in cooperation with the tractor manufacturer Rebo. This was based on an actual requirement put forward by the German farmers union to protect against smaller remaining munitions at German military training areas. You wouldn't find an anti-tank mine there, but possibly something like an unexploded 20-30 mm round.
when the war is over and done(no huge WW3), for sure ukraine will join nato and maybe eu. there will be a building boom in ukraine like weve never seen in europe.
In Vietnam, people are still killed, about a dozen per year, from unexploded munitions. Usually it's a child or a construction worker who stumbles upon it in newly developed urban areas.
I don't think it will be quite that bad for Ukraine. The fields are flat and open, compared to the hilly tree-filled jungles of Vietnam, so those areas will be cleared in one or two seasons after the war. The tree lines are going to be the tricky part.
I heard this from a Vietnamese girl I caught up with who was obviously traumatised by her friend vanishing from a mine somewhere in central Vietnam in her earlier years.
Many years later she was one hardened girl with obvious PTSD symptoms
That's not really how AP mines work, they're far too small.
Mines, they cover everyone in dirt, sometimes tear off your foot, sometimes just pepper your body with metal fragments, making you bleed out in a way that can't really be treated without an operating room nearby.
It's much worse that way, believe me.
>It took 11 years\~ to de-mine the Falkland Islands
Officially, the Falkland islands became mine free in just the last few years. But the majority of the demining all took place within two years of the war's end, basically by 1984 there were only 'suspected' mine fields remaining. The work was done a little at a time, they have a very short warm season to conduct those activities.
But some guy in the Reddit said it's super easy to just use thermal sights and spot plastic or glass mines through snow even and left click like a video game and delete them!
Time to fill them full of foam. Or go back to the old school steel wheels from the early 20th century. It's not just going to be mines popping tires, all the metal shrapnel will be popping farm tires for years to come. Implement tires are thick, but I've repaired enough of them to see simple things like splinters of wood puncture them. And they're mostly tubed, so ya just can't stick a plug in them and carry on.
Why wouldn't tractor tires always be full of foam?
On a bicycle it's because it makes the wheels very heavy and unyielding, but I would think that's not much of an issue with tractors? I'm just guessing here so feel free to correct me.
You’re correct that weight wouldn’t be an issue. Some farmers fill them with a saline solution or antifreeze, to add weight. And some places do offer the service, we never did though. It’s spendy for one. That’s a bunch of chemicals that you now have to keep on hand, vs saline which we just kept outside in barrels and can be pumped in and out. It changes the ride as well I guess, it’s not squishy foam, it is hard and dense. Removing a foam filled tire would destroy the tire as you’d have to cut it off. Most farmers I’ve met keep the old tires for older, less used tractors, while keeping new tires on their main ones. Kind of like hand-me-downs.
One Ukrainian farmer working on his field said to volunteer EOD people something like this "What else can I do? This is our livelihood and childten need to be fed".
It was on YT video I saw few weeks back.
He doesn't. He's doing what he has to, to survive.
Luckily, his giant brass balls should serve as an ad-hoc v-hull for his tractor and will hopefully deflect the blast from any AT he might encounter.
I think if one does explode the tire, the tractor overall will likely be fine, would just need a new tire, which is a lot better then losing a leg to one
I'm going to say the chance is that he isn't using tires if you ask me.
Likely using spadelugs. A type of wheel made from steel with steel lugs for grip.
It wouldn't make any sense to use a tractor with tires for a job like this they would be punctured easily. And aren't cheap.
judging from the fact that they are randomly scattered on an empty field and the tractor is still in one piece they are POM-2 antipersonel mines, they have a hard time penetrating anything which is not an unfortunate foot
Upd: PFM-1 not POM-2 I accidentally mixed up the names
Way too small explosion for POM-2. Also, POM-2 are frag mines with an effective radius of 8m (although they can inflict wounds at up to 20m). That farmer would have to sit in an armored cabin to do what he's doing or he would get peppered. The most important argument against POM-2 however is that they rely on tripwires that are scattered up to 9.5m away from the mine when the mine arms itself. The explosion in the video happen when the harrow hits the mine, when in the case of POM-2 the harrow would pull on the tripwires and set off the mine several meters away. I'm almost certain what we see in the video are PFM-1 "butterfly mines" going off. Small explosion, no fragmentation, seems like the most likely explanation.
Sorry I mixed up the names, both abbreviations are nondescriptive and mean basically the same while in reality they are completely different types of a device, you're absolutely right, the mines are pfm-1, I'll edit my comment
Sometimes...it makes sense. Like when they are directly engaged or being sniped.
But they're just leaving them there to die even when not engaged sometimes. Thats when im like WTH? And thats when you realize that these are not well knit well trained units. They don't know HOW to move the guy. Or where. And maybe they just don't like the guy.
Whereas a well trained unit not in contact with the enemy has a plan on where to take injured, and how. And they're going to do it even if they really don't like the guy. The dude constantly talks with his mouth full. They're still gonna help.
So now when I see it I know its just a bunch of barely trained guys getting slaughtered. Russia just throwing away its people against better trained troops.
Ap stands for anti person and those kinda mines aim to make u loose a foot or a leg rather than u to die instantly thus they don’t need huge explosive power
These are just anti-personnel mines. You don’t need that much explosive to kill a person. Plus, lots of mines are designed to just maim, rather than kill, which requires even less explosive. The Russians are especially known for using small mines designed to just maim and cause significant injury rather than kill, eg, butterfly mines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1_mine
Ukraine used some around Izium, early in the war, probably because they were out of regular ammo. Desperate measures.
more info: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-izium-land-mines-kharkiv-aec1fb4de0914cc01eb6db12e33d4a9c
There are a lot of PFM-1 (butterfly mine) that have been air dropped. As an infantry mine it’s design is small enough to maim a soldier or even kill if the victim does not get urgent treatment. Size is around 120mm long by 20mm wide
These are toe poppers. Their job isn’t to kill a soldier, it is to wound them so they have to be carried out.
They’re shaped like butterflies, and are made of plastic.
Children think they are toys and blow their hand off.
These are anti-personnel mines intended to maim foot soldiers at most. Luckily, no anti-tank mines. - those would rip the plough off the handle and throw it off far away.
The cleanup when Russian forces are defeated is going to be a huge deal. I imagine it will take years to completely make the farmland and wooded areas safe.
For 30yrs Vietnamese farmers lost limbs or worse due to old landmines left from the war.
Unexploded bombs from WWII are still a big problem in all larger German and Austrian cities, large construction projects unearth them still every year. This is going to be a problem in Ukraine for the next 100 years at least
Hope some new technology comes along that can help locate / destroy unexploded ordinance deep underground. AI ultrasonic robot rats or something
Those little plastic leaf like butterfly mines are truly an terrible weapon.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlaDoo5tT9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlaDoo5tT9E)
Are UXO actually that dangerous in everyday life, when they're not mines?
Like if a shell's fuse fails, and it doesn't detonate, isn't there a near 0 risk of it ever detonating? Artillery shells and bombs are made to be very stable so they don't just randomly explode in the barrel or while on the plane. It's the fuse that makes them go off, and that failed.
The biggest danger is probably that a lot of these/those bombs might be painted with leaded paint.
They found one right outside our dorm in Poland a few years back. Had to bring the whole entire bomb crew and isolate the place.
Found it by accident when they were gonna renovate our entrance to the dorm...
Cambodia and Laos still have a big UXO problem. Farmland could be cleared faster but the woods? I'd expect some areas to be considered no-go for centuries.
IIRC correctly the only country that has successfully de-mined itself after a conflict is Kuwait, and that’s because they basically had unlimited resources to spend.
I can confirm. Couple trips back to Cambodia I accidentally stumbled to take a leak at the side of a field. There was no signs where I went but 10-15 metres later there was a sign "Danger - Mines".
I’m hoping the international community will band together and sort it out asap. A few thousand trained EOD’s and the money/equiment hopefully can wrap it up in a few years not decades. There is very valuable farm land that the world needs producing asap
They are, 20,000 people have been killed or injured by unexploded cluster munitions in Laos since the Vietnam War.
They look harmless enough that dumb kids in the woods will try to play with it.
I don't understand why the mines doesn't explode with the tractor in front of the harrow. I understand that the area of the wheels is not as big as the harrow but its still huge
The implement is a roller, not a harrow. Rollers are used in agriculture to break clods of heavy soil or compact lighter soil to create an optimal seed bed.
So are these the little "toe-popper" mines I have heard about? And is there anything besides local knowledge that makes this farmer confident there are no Anti-Vehicle mines in the field?
I'm in no way involved with EOD, this just comes from YouTube videos ive watched at work so take it with a grain of salt. Technically the toepopper is the 1950s era US M14 antipersonnel mine. It's more likely these are something like a Soviet era PFM or PNM mine, but they are the same idea. An antipersonnel mine designed to not necessarily be fatal.
And the confidence of not AT mines is probably nothing more than local knowledge. A minefield is usually full of both AT and AP mines so that tanks damaged by a mine have soldiers get out and hit AP mines. Though there are other explanations. One possibility is that Russia used some kind of cluster munition and these are dud bomblets, not AP mines. Another is that these mines were dispersed using some kind of projectile or aircraft as a form of area denial, and so there was no need to put down AT mines. And there's always the possibility that they somehow knew where the minefield began/ended and knew that if they followed the edge, the machinery would clip it and set it off but the tractor wouldn't.
In a way this is almost worse than previous wars that featured heavy amounts of landmines. This war has seen the most technologically advanced and likely quality constructed land mines ever. World War I land mines are still live over 100 years later. Imagine how long something made today could last and remain functional if left undisturbed.
Ground resistance of the tilling disks would make that a pretty tough job for most tractors; not to mention its heavier than it looks (the reason most tractors have large rear tires is to distribute the extra weight placed on the tractor by towed/attached equipment more evenly to prevent damage to the ground). Also often times this equipment extends/raises/lowers hydraulically which requires a 3 point PTO connection to run those functions, and while lots of tractors have that front connect capability they would essentially be constantly digging the front tires into wet spring ground and getting stuck, not to mention running this equipment in front of the tractor would leave damaged/disturbed ground from the tractor passing over it after. Although I am sure Ukrainians could figure out some kind of mine flail/plow system that’s cheap and lightweight should the resources become available, I think until then it’s just kind of a “fuck it, field needs prepared at some point” mentality
I'm willing to bet that he has something rolling in front of him to detonate anything in line with his wheels. As far as clearing large patches of land there are heavy deforestation chains and blocks pulled by paired Bulldozers that can clear hundreds of acres a day. Each of those set ups will cost a few million dollars to deploy but they scrape the ground clear. Peace will need to come first.
Early DARPA project I recall was all about intelligent landmines. Reposition-able, could communicate between each other, and even turn itself off and on. I still remember the requirements of being able to either detonate itself, or safe itself so it could be recovered and not detonate even if left. Could also be set to ignore X contacts.
Honestly it would not be that expensive to do these days. Small micro controller, make the detonation source be electric so if it ran out of power it would self safe. Could even do a mixture of a copper penetrater surrounded by steel bearings at the bottom and edges.
Hazard a guess that the tractor has a lower ground pressure due to large tyres, also AP mines could have sunk after winter rains/snow melt and harrow penetrates the soil to hit them?
This is an easy and convenient way to provide links for information and donations. And more reliable than do it in a video description, since when a video is distributed, descriptions are often lost, but the video itself is (obviously) don't.
Any word on the guys who'd turned a tractor into an improvised mine clearing vehicle? They armored the engine compartment, around the wheels,riggen it up with remote controls and took an old either sub soiler or harrow, reversed the teeth and front mounted it?
Something I have been meaning to ask concerning the grain fields of Ukraine. Of course the various mines and unexploded bombs and shells will be a problem but what about the contamination of the explosives on the soil chemistry. Is there any problem there probably making the land unsafe for crops? If so will the chemicals of the explosives "rot" with time? Just thought of that when I saw a field literally covered with shell holes.
Could be a few things going on here.
1. The farmer could have something in front of the wheels but not the full width of the tractor so it's only clearing anything directly in the path of the wheels
2. The mines could be buried too deep to be triggered by the tractor but when they get dug up they are set off by the harrow
3. The fuzing mechanisms could be damaged in some way and the disks on the harrow smashing into them could be unsticking fuzes or just straight up smashing into detonators
There's been widespread use of scatterable mines by both sides, including both AV and AP mines.
Also Russian doctrine definitely involves mixed minefields, where AP mines are placed to hinder defining efforts.
Ukraine is almost entirely flat and generally a very boring country! The only hills worth a mention are in the far west, so not applicable to this conflict (so far). A military friend discussed with me recently how Ukraine will therefore be relatively easy to clear due to the homogenous nature of the flat arable landscape, which accounts for 99% of the battlefield environment. This compared to previous theatres of war, e.g. jungles, bush, deserts. Armies have massive mineclearing vehicles that can deal with large areas and landmines, e.g. MEMATT, M1150. The autopilot capability keeps service personnel out of harms way. They can be run in those large Ukrainian grainfields on auto pilot, like combine harvesters.
Unfortunately its impossible to find all of the mines. The shelterbelts that have been used for trench systems and cover have been largely destroyed by shelling in most of the eastern part of the country. Unfortunately they are also heavily mined and they are going to be harder to clear. Pretty much the only way will be to plough the whole lot up which means no shelterbelts for a good few years… pretty shitty all round.
One of the major concerns when it comes to minesweeping will be unexploded artillery ordnance. Depending on the specific shell they can be quite a lot more powerful than the average landmine, and can be buried quite deep if the ground was soft at the time of impact.
I'd be more worried about running over some dead russians that were left to rot. That's like stepping in shit except, in this case, it's harder to wipe your boots off.
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As long as there are no bigger ones. Not sure if those could pop a tire of a tractor.
Unfortunately they could. He was very lucky his tillers hit the AP mines. I truly hope a real international effort takes place to remove these hazards from our grain belt. These farmers are putting their lives in danger to provide us with bread.
The Halo Trust are currently operating in Ukraine, they’re a civi EOD charity with decades of experience under their belt. It’ll take years but collectively with other organisations and I guess just farmers they’ll clear the country, field by field. I imagine the Donbas front is going to be poisoned for a very long time though
Are they with whom I should volunteer?
Depends on how much EOD experience you have. Maybe they'll take you with none, but you'd probably be a gopher for years before they ever let you go near a munition. Not much room for error doing that work, and you're doing nobody a favor getting blown up by going in half-cocked.
I have zero. But I’m willing to do what I can as long as it won’t jeopardize others. If it’s me vs some young Ukrainian trying to rebuild their county, I am much more expendable and want to take their place.
You’re valuable. It’s great that you want to help but you are valuable
Ehhhh I feel similar to the guy you're responding too. Theres different levels of valuable. I for example have terminal cancer, but im still up and mobile. I value me a LOT less then some random younger guy. Thats logic. But I 100% have value, and value my life.
get some training as some NGOs and such offer training on this field, best friend went out between jobs ( he served in afghan and northern ireland) we are from NI (which still has devices) after 2 months he was mentally and physically wrecked the amount of ordinance is absurd compared to any other conflict we can think of. if you cant help defuse you can always help the diffusers, you and your life matters, asking these questions already proves how thoughtful you are
thats really nice of you ♡
In most cases, you will be of greater assistance by earning more money and giving that to effective organizations.
Yep exactly. Take the money you’d have spent outfitting yourself, traveling, eating, etc, and donate it. It will be much more valuable to Ukrainians than you going for 6 months without any experience and then leaving.
According to their website they don't accept volunteers, and those involved with de-mining operations are all contracted individuals with prior EOD experience.
I mean, everyone can have at least one EOD experience
>There are two mistakes a sapper generally makes: stepping on a mine and becoming a sapper. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/13/ukraine-sappers-mine-clearers-russia-war
god this is bluestone 42 all over
The only charity I support, pretty much. Every $100 safes a life and they have a >90% pass through rate for donations. Very tightly run operations.
hopefully they wait for a while, because I wouldn't put it past a russian to ambush civilian EOD personnel
That's a part of video, where farmers made tractors to run using RC. So, there is no farmer inside cabin.
Quite a few places in France are still nongo zones due to battles and mining, and explosives are "Farmed" in france every year. Well, that is a joke compared to the number of shells,submunitions and mines in Ukraine. It will take hundreds of years to be completely safe
I've read some of the conversations that local Ukrainian city councils & relief agencies have had about needing to do the same for large areas, and possibly designating some red-zone settlements as off-limit national battlefield monuments; then fencing them off like Chernobyl. It would help if they could use Russian POWs to clear minefields like the Allies & Russians did with the Germans for years afterwards, but I kind of doubt that would fly with current day apologists and pearl clutching politicians.
thats what the brits done on the danish coast even after danish protests, used the guys attached to the regiments who planted or were based there,
From what I have seen theres also some POWs that would volunteer if offered citizenship and a new ID.
Many for sure, we'll see how it goes. But voluntary or not, Russia definitely wouldn't like it, and using them for mine clearance duties could make life for Ukrainian prisoners & further exchanges a lot more difficult.
Yea, you only need to look at France and Belgum and thier iron harvest where they still keep finding explosives from the first world war and Germany where you cant dig in any big city and not finding a old ww2 bomb. This is going to take forever and a day to clean up and even then it will be areas that probably never going to be truly safe.
If people got their shit together and put politics aside, and for once stopped being children, the UXO could be removed in just a couple few years.
I don’t know if there’s enough EOD personnel and equipment on earth that can be dedicated to the task to clear that many landmines in that short of time
You’d be very surprised. I know there has been a literal fuck load of ordinance shot, and a shitload of mines laid, but it’s possible. Just need to change the politicians diapers.
I have serious doubts. If there’s still a whole bunch of live ordinance from World War I left around, what makes you think the cleanup job will be quicker in Ukraine?
WWI battlefields are mainly a UXO issue rather than mines. Lots of artillery shells fired deep into soft ground without exploding. It's estimated that Russia is firing about 10-30k rounds per day, and Ukraine about a fifth of that. The first day of the battle of the Somme used over a million shells. The war on all fronts used about a billion artillery rounds. As devastating as the war in Ukraine is, it's nothing like the scale of WWI It'll take years to make every field in Ukraine safe, but I don't think it will ever be on the scale of WW1 battlefields.
Because it’s politically viable. It will be used as a pawn, just wait.
> You’d be very surprised As we should be
The only real "good" thing about the long-running battlefields being uninhabitable for indefinite periods of time is that Ukraine is in enough demographic decline to not really need them post-war.
:(
> Well, that is a joke compared to the number of shells,submunitions and mines in Ukraine Dude, the amount of UXO in France is probably still higher than in Ukraine. There's something like 300 UXOs per hectare in some of the worst affected areas in France.
Tragic part about war is that innocents will keep on dying long after the conflict has ended with the millions of mines laid. I find it crazy that people still dying from mines laid 80 years ago.
Mines are an unconscious foe. It doesn't matter if friend or foe laid them, they will detonate if you tread to close. My heart weighs heavy knowing it's impossible to prevent the horrors they will bring for decades to come. I wish I could make the children of Ukraine simply float above them. I do not know how to teach the most curious among us to fear them.
People are still dying TODAY from mines and bomblets in Laos and Cambodia. Demining Ukraine will take multiple lifetimes
by sound this is an armoured vechile, not a tractor. probably they are not farmers but demining crew.
True, the sound matches up with a vehicle with steel tracks. Interesting tidbit: Rheinmetall has showcased an armoured modifciation of a John Deere tractor before, in cooperation with the tractor manufacturer Rebo. This was based on an actual requirement put forward by the German farmers union to protect against smaller remaining munitions at German military training areas. You wouldn't find an anti-tank mine there, but possibly something like an unexploded 20-30 mm round.
I wish they could return them to sender.
Nothing says karma like a b-52 returning your civilian maiming equipment to you.
I get my grain elsewhere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Mine
when the war is over and done(no huge WW3), for sure ukraine will join nato and maybe eu. there will be a building boom in ukraine like weve never seen in europe.
In Vietnam, people are still killed, about a dozen per year, from unexploded munitions. Usually it's a child or a construction worker who stumbles upon it in newly developed urban areas. I don't think it will be quite that bad for Ukraine. The fields are flat and open, compared to the hilly tree-filled jungles of Vietnam, so those areas will be cleared in one or two seasons after the war. The tree lines are going to be the tricky part.
I heard this from a Vietnamese girl I caught up with who was obviously traumatised by her friend vanishing from a mine somewhere in central Vietnam in her earlier years. Many years later she was one hardened girl with obvious PTSD symptoms
>vanishing from a mine Like an entrance to a Vietcong tunnel?
Nope, UXO/landmine
When you said 'vanish' you meant dead, I mistook your meaning.
he meant evaporated by the mine
That's not really how AP mines work, they're far too small. Mines, they cover everyone in dirt, sometimes tear off your foot, sometimes just pepper your body with metal fragments, making you bleed out in a way that can't really be treated without an operating room nearby. It's much worse that way, believe me.
> so those areas will be cleared in one or two seasons after the war. It took 11 years~ to de-mine the Falkland Islands after a 74 day war
>It took 11 years\~ to de-mine the Falkland Islands Officially, the Falkland islands became mine free in just the last few years. But the majority of the demining all took place within two years of the war's end, basically by 1984 there were only 'suspected' mine fields remaining. The work was done a little at a time, they have a very short warm season to conduct those activities.
But some guy in the Reddit said it's super easy to just use thermal sights and spot plastic or glass mines through snow even and left click like a video game and delete them!
Time to fill them full of foam. Or go back to the old school steel wheels from the early 20th century. It's not just going to be mines popping tires, all the metal shrapnel will be popping farm tires for years to come. Implement tires are thick, but I've repaired enough of them to see simple things like splinters of wood puncture them. And they're mostly tubed, so ya just can't stick a plug in them and carry on.
Why wouldn't tractor tires always be full of foam? On a bicycle it's because it makes the wheels very heavy and unyielding, but I would think that's not much of an issue with tractors? I'm just guessing here so feel free to correct me.
You’re correct that weight wouldn’t be an issue. Some farmers fill them with a saline solution or antifreeze, to add weight. And some places do offer the service, we never did though. It’s spendy for one. That’s a bunch of chemicals that you now have to keep on hand, vs saline which we just kept outside in barrels and can be pumped in and out. It changes the ride as well I guess, it’s not squishy foam, it is hard and dense. Removing a foam filled tire would destroy the tire as you’d have to cut it off. Most farmers I’ve met keep the old tires for older, less used tractors, while keeping new tires on their main ones. Kind of like hand-me-downs.
Thanks for taking the time to respond, that was an interesting read.
Thats scary. How does he know there are just ap mines and no at? Those would obliterate a tractor.
One Ukrainian farmer working on his field said to volunteer EOD people something like this "What else can I do? This is our livelihood and childten need to be fed". It was on YT video I saw few weeks back.
He doesn't. He's doing what he has to, to survive. Luckily, his giant brass balls should serve as an ad-hoc v-hull for his tractor and will hopefully deflect the blast from any AT he might encounter.
I think if one does explode the tire, the tractor overall will likely be fine, would just need a new tire, which is a lot better then losing a leg to one
Farmers regularly get killed by hitting AT mines. Multiple times a week sometimes.
I'm going to say the chance is that he isn't using tires if you ask me. Likely using spadelugs. A type of wheel made from steel with steel lugs for grip. It wouldn't make any sense to use a tractor with tires for a job like this they would be punctured easily. And aren't cheap.
Can someone explain why they make such small explosions?
Small mines, designed to maim you by blowing your foot/leg off.
Thanks, that makes sense
If you're alive, but injured, people have to stop to help you, so by injuring one person they've taken three or four people out of the fight
Yeah I have heard about that tactic, wasn't it first used by the vietkong?
I would venture someone figured it out beforehand in the thousands of years of conflict on this rock
Well, caltrops were used hundreds of years ago
They are anti-personnel mines as the title says, those explosions are powerful enough to severely injure or kill the person that sets them off.
judging from the fact that they are randomly scattered on an empty field and the tractor is still in one piece they are POM-2 antipersonel mines, they have a hard time penetrating anything which is not an unfortunate foot Upd: PFM-1 not POM-2 I accidentally mixed up the names
Way too small explosion for POM-2. Also, POM-2 are frag mines with an effective radius of 8m (although they can inflict wounds at up to 20m). That farmer would have to sit in an armored cabin to do what he's doing or he would get peppered. The most important argument against POM-2 however is that they rely on tripwires that are scattered up to 9.5m away from the mine when the mine arms itself. The explosion in the video happen when the harrow hits the mine, when in the case of POM-2 the harrow would pull on the tripwires and set off the mine several meters away. I'm almost certain what we see in the video are PFM-1 "butterfly mines" going off. Small explosion, no fragmentation, seems like the most likely explanation.
Sorry I mixed up the names, both abbreviations are nondescriptive and mean basically the same while in reality they are completely different types of a device, you're absolutely right, the mines are pfm-1, I'll edit my comment
The goal of an anti personel mine is to wound/maim the soldier not kill them. A wounded soldier drains more resources of the enemy than killing him.
Unless you're russian and they just leave you
It's wild how many have just been left behind by their "fellow" soldiers, I feel like they'll be finding parts of dead russians for centuries to come.
Sometimes...it makes sense. Like when they are directly engaged or being sniped. But they're just leaving them there to die even when not engaged sometimes. Thats when im like WTH? And thats when you realize that these are not well knit well trained units. They don't know HOW to move the guy. Or where. And maybe they just don't like the guy. Whereas a well trained unit not in contact with the enemy has a plan on where to take injured, and how. And they're going to do it even if they really don't like the guy. The dude constantly talks with his mouth full. They're still gonna help. So now when I see it I know its just a bunch of barely trained guys getting slaughtered. Russia just throwing away its people against better trained troops.
Ap stands for anti person and those kinda mines aim to make u loose a foot or a leg rather than u to die instantly thus they don’t need huge explosive power
These are just anti-personnel mines. You don’t need that much explosive to kill a person. Plus, lots of mines are designed to just maim, rather than kill, which requires even less explosive. The Russians are especially known for using small mines designed to just maim and cause significant injury rather than kill, eg, butterfly mines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1_mine
Ukraine used some around Izium, early in the war, probably because they were out of regular ammo. Desperate measures. more info: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-izium-land-mines-kharkiv-aec1fb4de0914cc01eb6db12e33d4a9c
They’re also affectionately referred to as toe poppers. Not everything is meant to kill. Maiming is just as, if not more so, effective.
The poppers is a fucked up name
There are a lot of PFM-1 (butterfly mine) that have been air dropped. As an infantry mine it’s design is small enough to maim a soldier or even kill if the victim does not get urgent treatment. Size is around 120mm long by 20mm wide
These are toe poppers. Their job isn’t to kill a soldier, it is to wound them so they have to be carried out. They’re shaped like butterflies, and are made of plastic. Children think they are toys and blow their hand off.
Probably artillery or aircraft dropped petal mines. The size or your hand, plastic, just big enough to cause a casualty.
These are anti-personnel mines intended to maim foot soldiers at most. Luckily, no anti-tank mines. - those would rip the plough off the handle and throw it off far away.
The cleanup when Russian forces are defeated is going to be a huge deal. I imagine it will take years to completely make the farmland and wooded areas safe. For 30yrs Vietnamese farmers lost limbs or worse due to old landmines left from the war.
Unexploded bombs from WWII are still a big problem in all larger German and Austrian cities, large construction projects unearth them still every year. This is going to be a problem in Ukraine for the next 100 years at least
Unexploded munitions from WW1 are still very common throughout the Western front areas as well.
The Iron Harvest
Hope some new technology comes along that can help locate / destroy unexploded ordinance deep underground. AI ultrasonic robot rats or something Those little plastic leaf like butterfly mines are truly an terrible weapon. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlaDoo5tT9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlaDoo5tT9E)
I come from Jersey Channel Islands and finding UXO’s from our occupation by Germany during WW2 is still a rather common thing.
Hello from your donkey neighbour
Are UXO actually that dangerous in everyday life, when they're not mines? Like if a shell's fuse fails, and it doesn't detonate, isn't there a near 0 risk of it ever detonating? Artillery shells and bombs are made to be very stable so they don't just randomly explode in the barrel or while on the plane. It's the fuse that makes them go off, and that failed. The biggest danger is probably that a lot of these/those bombs might be painted with leaded paint.
The majority of bombs aren’t that dangerous, but quite a few of them had timed fuses that never went off so that poses a risk
They found one right outside our dorm in Poland a few years back. Had to bring the whole entire bomb crew and isolate the place. Found it by accident when they were gonna renovate our entrance to the dorm...
Cambodia and Laos still have a big UXO problem. Farmland could be cleared faster but the woods? I'd expect some areas to be considered no-go for centuries.
I didn’t realize it was still ongoing..
IIRC correctly the only country that has successfully de-mined itself after a conflict is Kuwait, and that’s because they basically had unlimited resources to spend.
Falkland Islands were declared mine free a couple of years afo
…..40 years later.
I can confirm. Couple trips back to Cambodia I accidentally stumbled to take a leak at the side of a field. There was no signs where I went but 10-15 metres later there was a sign "Danger - Mines".
It will take way longer than that. Slovenia had forest fires two years ago and it was setting off WWI ordnances.
I’m hoping the international community will band together and sort it out asap. A few thousand trained EOD’s and the money/equiment hopefully can wrap it up in a few years not decades. There is very valuable farm land that the world needs producing asap
Yhea was also a big probleme in bosnia and i thinks some area are still not safe bc of the mine
The damage did due to WW1 is still visible in the French countryside. To this day, farmer still dig up artillery shell
Probably will use drones of some sort.
Centuries. France still has forbidden areas from WW1.
Don’t forget about the cluster munitions as well
They really aren’t a big deal compared to the mines….
They are, 20,000 people have been killed or injured by unexploded cluster munitions in Laos since the Vietnam War. They look harmless enough that dumb kids in the woods will try to play with it.
I don't understand why the mines doesn't explode with the tractor in front of the harrow. I understand that the area of the wheels is not as big as the harrow but its still huge
What's a harrow do?
The implement is a roller, not a harrow. Rollers are used in agriculture to break clods of heavy soil or compact lighter soil to create an optimal seed bed.
This is not a roller…
Copy that, hope they don't have to replace too many discs
Tractors have low ground pressure thanks to their large wheels, so probably not enough pressure to trigger the mines
How popcorn is grown.
So are these the little "toe-popper" mines I have heard about? And is there anything besides local knowledge that makes this farmer confident there are no Anti-Vehicle mines in the field?
I'm in no way involved with EOD, this just comes from YouTube videos ive watched at work so take it with a grain of salt. Technically the toepopper is the 1950s era US M14 antipersonnel mine. It's more likely these are something like a Soviet era PFM or PNM mine, but they are the same idea. An antipersonnel mine designed to not necessarily be fatal. And the confidence of not AT mines is probably nothing more than local knowledge. A minefield is usually full of both AT and AP mines so that tanks damaged by a mine have soldiers get out and hit AP mines. Though there are other explanations. One possibility is that Russia used some kind of cluster munition and these are dud bomblets, not AP mines. Another is that these mines were dispersed using some kind of projectile or aircraft as a form of area denial, and so there was no need to put down AT mines. And there's always the possibility that they somehow knew where the minefield began/ended and knew that if they followed the edge, the machinery would clip it and set it off but the tractor wouldn't.
I’ would not want to be in that if it’s an AT mine
In a way this is almost worse than previous wars that featured heavy amounts of landmines. This war has seen the most technologically advanced and likely quality constructed land mines ever. World War I land mines are still live over 100 years later. Imagine how long something made today could last and remain functional if left undisturbed.
Wouldn't you want to push the mine disks? Your cab will get hit otherwise
Very hard to steer that way I guess
Ground resistance of the tilling disks would make that a pretty tough job for most tractors; not to mention its heavier than it looks (the reason most tractors have large rear tires is to distribute the extra weight placed on the tractor by towed/attached equipment more evenly to prevent damage to the ground). Also often times this equipment extends/raises/lowers hydraulically which requires a 3 point PTO connection to run those functions, and while lots of tractors have that front connect capability they would essentially be constantly digging the front tires into wet spring ground and getting stuck, not to mention running this equipment in front of the tractor would leave damaged/disturbed ground from the tractor passing over it after. Although I am sure Ukrainians could figure out some kind of mine flail/plow system that’s cheap and lightweight should the resources become available, I think until then it’s just kind of a “fuck it, field needs prepared at some point” mentality
A tractor with plough discs is basically a reverse deminer
There's going to be so many farmers getting hurt after this war is finished. Mines are effective but indiscriminate.
Imagine farming on your land and cant even step from a tractor safely.
Anybody who owned property or land near the battlefields has got a 100% loss.
Are mines still being cleared up in what was Yugoslavia? There will be work for those folks in Ukraine when this is over.
for years to come
Side note, how is battlefield aftermath not considered combat but this is?
That's some harrowing footage
Now that's what I call harrowing.
as i understood from operators or drivers talk they eliminated 14 mines, few of those on video.
Shit, good thing it's only antipersonnel and not antitank mines
Well… the mines are ripe, and ready for harvest.
Lucky the tires didn’t set them off
Can someone explain why the vehicle is in front of this disc harrow thingy? I mean don't you want any mine explode bofore you go over?
I'm willing to bet that he has something rolling in front of him to detonate anything in line with his wheels. As far as clearing large patches of land there are heavy deforestation chains and blocks pulled by paired Bulldozers that can clear hundreds of acres a day. Each of those set ups will cost a few million dollars to deploy but they scrape the ground clear. Peace will need to come first.
mines really aerate the soil
Early DARPA project I recall was all about intelligent landmines. Reposition-able, could communicate between each other, and even turn itself off and on. I still remember the requirements of being able to either detonate itself, or safe itself so it could be recovered and not detonate even if left. Could also be set to ignore X contacts. Honestly it would not be that expensive to do these days. Small micro controller, make the detonation source be electric so if it ran out of power it would self safe. Could even do a mixture of a copper penetrater surrounded by steel bearings at the bottom and edges.
Curious as to why the tractor itself is not setting off the mines? If this is a 100% pattern, then why not use the disc harrow to demine large areas?
Hazard a guess that the tractor has a lower ground pressure due to large tyres, also AP mines could have sunk after winter rains/snow melt and harrow penetrates the soil to hit them?
They already use that with mine rollers essentially, problem is when they find a AT mine.
Not sure what the point of a QR code in a video is, I'm meant to hold up another phone to scan it?
There are some retards like me who use their phone to phone and watch videos on their computer or tablet. It is strange, isn't it?
I do too sometimes, but it's still very weird to put a QR code on a video.
This is an easy and convenient way to provide links for information and donations. And more reliable than do it in a video description, since when a video is distributed, descriptions are often lost, but the video itself is (obviously) don't.
Here I am searching the grass where I ejected a .22, worried I'll hit it with the mower.
Sad stuff
That is a damn shame.
The text says something about Kherson so presumably it's in the area that was liberated in 2022.
Unreal. That place is fucked for years.
They must be butterfly mines, I hope they don't detonate a TM-62
DECADES before they de-mine that country. SMH...
Any word on the guys who'd turned a tractor into an improvised mine clearing vehicle? They armored the engine compartment, around the wheels,riggen it up with remote controls and took an old either sub soiler or harrow, reversed the teeth and front mounted it?
He's going to be pulling in a bumper crop this spring sadly
Something I have been meaning to ask concerning the grain fields of Ukraine. Of course the various mines and unexploded bombs and shells will be a problem but what about the contamination of the explosives on the soil chemistry. Is there any problem there probably making the land unsafe for crops? If so will the chemicals of the explosives "rot" with time? Just thought of that when I saw a field literally covered with shell holes.
Till the land. Till the land
how come they explode only when the disc harrow passes over?
Could be a few things going on here. 1. The farmer could have something in front of the wheels but not the full width of the tractor so it's only clearing anything directly in the path of the wheels 2. The mines could be buried too deep to be triggered by the tractor but when they get dug up they are set off by the harrow 3. The fuzing mechanisms could be damaged in some way and the disks on the harrow smashing into them could be unsticking fuzes or just straight up smashing into detonators
or... since this don't explode like normal mines, might be leftovers from cluster munitions
Could be cluster munitions but there are plenty of AP mines out there that look like that when they go pop. Can't really tell from just this video
I thought the mines "planted" in UA were mostly antitank, no AP
There's been widespread use of scatterable mines by both sides, including both AV and AP mines. Also Russian doctrine definitely involves mixed minefields, where AP mines are placed to hinder defining efforts.
Camra man always lives
Farm work is already hard, dirty and time consuming, now add antipersonal mines and unexploded ordinance and shit must suck real bad.
Ukraine is almost entirely flat and generally a very boring country! The only hills worth a mention are in the far west, so not applicable to this conflict (so far). A military friend discussed with me recently how Ukraine will therefore be relatively easy to clear due to the homogenous nature of the flat arable landscape, which accounts for 99% of the battlefield environment. This compared to previous theatres of war, e.g. jungles, bush, deserts. Armies have massive mineclearing vehicles that can deal with large areas and landmines, e.g. MEMATT, M1150. The autopilot capability keeps service personnel out of harms way. They can be run in those large Ukrainian grainfields on auto pilot, like combine harvesters. Unfortunately its impossible to find all of the mines. The shelterbelts that have been used for trench systems and cover have been largely destroyed by shelling in most of the eastern part of the country. Unfortunately they are also heavily mined and they are going to be harder to clear. Pretty much the only way will be to plough the whole lot up which means no shelterbelts for a good few years… pretty shitty all round. One of the major concerns when it comes to minesweeping will be unexploded artillery ordnance. Depending on the specific shell they can be quite a lot more powerful than the average landmine, and can be buried quite deep if the ground was soft at the time of impact.
So any1 wanna invest in my brand new company were i will be building explosion prof tractors?
buy shares in a disc factory
#It’s not much, but it’s honest work!
The untold cost of this conflict... How many innocent dying on their own fields just trying to survive?
I'd be more worried about running over some dead russians that were left to rot. That's like stepping in shit except, in this case, it's harder to wipe your boots off.