With things getting ugly between the US and North Korea, I got to thinking about the DMZ. There’s probably more mines on both sides of that thing than anywhere else in the world. Now, if the US gets into a war with NK, the minefields are going to be problematic for both sides. While the US could, no doubt, do some kind of “end run” around the minefields (say an amphibious landing or air drop) that doesn’t mean they won’t try to find some way through the minefield. There are various contraptions designed for clearing mines, but these are slow processes. I’m wondering if the US couldn’t drop a “daisy cutter” bomb or carpet bomb sections of the minefields to clear a path in a hurry.
There is an easier way:
I would imagine they would bomb the living hell out of it. The area is highly concentrated and not terribly large, unlike a situation in Iraq where you have large tracts of land. You generally know where they are (especially after 40 years of staring at them)… but I imagine that we would leave them be. If we landed troops, they likely wouldn’t make a ground assault across the DMZ. It isn’t our “style,” and we’ve gotten quite good at making landings.
Alternatively, the military has been developing ways to clear minefields quickly for some time. Mostly, this involves simple and proven devices - rollers and plows, extra armor beneath vehicles, etc. Some do use explosives, like mortar rounds, to move the mines physically or cause them to detonate, but this is not common practice (it is horribly inefficient on ammo, slow, and unreliable). If you watch the Hitler Cha- er, History Channel or Discovery long enough, they’ll eventually play a show about modern warfare and include the famous clips of a line into a minefield. This triggers magnetic mines.
An slightly out of date article in Soldiers from '96 about it
http://www.army.mil/soldiers/june96/mines2.html
The tricky thing with mines is that there are a lot of types. The US Army (and I presume most of our allies) use self-destructing mines that won’t lay about and blow the leg off a farmer 40 years down the line. But there are anti-personel mines, anti-tank mines, magnetic mines, pressure mines, trip-wire mines, motion decting mines, mines with no metal that bypass metal detectors, and even still wooden mines. Humans can be quite devious about killing each other.
In the end, in the unlikely (god willing) event we go into a shooting war with North Korea, it would probably follow our military template (bomb the f* out of anything that looks halfway threatening, demoralize their military, find some nice rebels and encourage them, land some troops in key areas, hound their leadership into hiding or the great beyond, all while building up a mass of troops (though we may not in North Korea’s case, what with the threat of nukes and all) and make a final, large scale push after carefully clearing a path to their front door to put a nice bow on it all)…
The US Army: Friendlier Every Day.
Well, the one going through the field first is the one who is going to have worry about this. The Defenders are going to have to worry about the attackers streaming across the DMZ. Of course, if/when the tide turns, then the other side will likely have paths cleared for them by the attackers little incursion.