how long do landmines remain dangerous?

[Machine_Elf]

Land mines left behind long after a conflict is over continue to be a problem all around the world. But my specific technical question is about how long a landmine continues to be dangerous after it’s been deployed. I expect this varies quite a bit depending on the technology involved, e.g. a battery-powered unit might last X years before the battery can no longer operate the detonator, or a mechanically triggered one may last Y years before the primer/HE chemically degrades to the point of being non-explosive.

So what’s the scoop? Are WW2 landmines still a problem today? What about landmines deployed in eastern Europe in the Balkans conflict of the 1990’s?

Are modern landmines designed/built with an expiration date so that they self-inert after X months?

[Mr.Kobayashi]

As recently as 1998 people were still being killed by unexploded ordinance from World War I, as I learned in a previous thread on UXBs.

On landmines specifically, Egypt is the most heavily mined country in the world and the minefields laid during the desert campaigns of World War II are still a problem there.

[jjimm]

Anecdotally I visited the Vietnamese DMZ in 1995. Met an old guy who had a shed absolutely filled to the roof with twisted metal and exploded ordnance that he sold for scrap. He told me that every few days he heard a ‘boom’ as a landmine was triggered.

“Usually a cow. Sometimes a kid.”

[AK84]

Depends on the manufacture, the location and the local climate.

[gnoitall]

@Mr.Kobayashi

As recently as 1998 people were still being killed by unexploded ordinance from World War I, as I learned in a previous thread on UXBs.

On landmines specifically, Egypt is the most heavily mined country in the world and the minefields laid during the desert campaigns of World War II are still a problem there.

Likewise, when I was a kid (DoD dependent) growing up in Okinawa, the Kadena AFB Explosive Ordnance Disposal folks would do annual presentations at school assemblies teaching us young’uns to not mess with remnant UXO. And yet, I heard about a kid at one of the other schools on the base being hurt screwing around with a WWII mortar shell he found in the boonies.

[Boyo_Jim]

There are some newer mine disigns with expiration dates – they shut themselves down after a certain length of time. But very few are deployed, and I don’t recall hearing about battery powered mines. On the battlefield they mostly work from pressure on some kind chemical trigger.

[Quartz]

I understand that the minefields in the Falklands are still cordoned off.

[kanicbird]

Normally less then a second after detonation. However one should also be careful of falling/ or redicected shrapnel which may take a bit longer. Secondary hazards may exist.

[Chronos]

Explosives degrading makes them more dangerous, not less. The result of degradation is not that they’re any less energetic, but that they’re less predictable.

[Dissonance]

@Machine_Elf

Are modern landmines designed/built with an expiration date so that they self-inert after X months?

FASCAM (FAmily of SCAtterabble Mines) are designed to self-detonate after a specified time period of 4 hours to 15 days from deployment. There are two problems with this though; one is in the fact that they are scatterable mines. One cannot legitimately claim to be placing mines “by the book” in marked, known locations for disposal post-hostilities when they are being delivered by artillery shells, dropped by planes or dumped off the sides of helicopters. The other problem is the dud rate, the DoD had claimed the absurd reliability rate of 99.999(+) percent in self-destruction. This was not the case, from US GAO Report MILITARY OPERATIONS Information on U.S. Use of and Mines in the Persian Gulf War (warning, pdf) on the clean-up after Desert Storm:

Another safety concern expressed in lessons-learned reports was that
higher-than-expected dud, or malfunction, rates occurred for the
approximately 118,000 U.S. self-destruct land mines and the millions of
other U.S. scatterable submunitions employed in the Gulf War. These
included duds found by a U.S. contractor while clearing a portion of the
Kuwaiti battlefield. These duds created concerns about potentially
hazardous areas for U.S. troops.

DOD reports that it employed in the Gulf War a total of about 118,000 selfdestruct
land mines (see table 1) and that their self-destruct failure, or
dud, rate is 0.01 percent (1 in 10,000). However, if, as DOD reported, about
118,000 of these self-destruct land mines were employed and they
produced duds at the DOD-claimed rate of 0.01 percent, there should have
been about 12 duds produced, not 1,977 as CMS reported finding in one of
seven Kuwaiti battlefield sectors. Thus, a substantial inconsistency exists between the DOD-reported reliability rate and the dud rate implied by the
number of mines that CMS reported finding from actual battlefield use. At
the time CMS was completing this UXO disposal work in Kuwait, the DOD
program manager for Mines, Countermine and Demolitions visited the
CMS cleanup operation. His report of that trip indicates that he thought
CMS’s techniques, training of personnel, and recording of ordnance
recovered were thorough and accurate. The project manager said in his
report that he had personally seen unexploded U.S. ordnance on the
battlefield. The mine database developed by CMS to record the location of
land mines, the project manager believed, was “extremely useful” to the
U.S. soldiers working in that area.

[Mogle]

@Mr.Kobayashi

As recently as 1998 people were still being killed by unexploded ordinance from World War I, as I learned in a previous thread on UXBs.

WW1? Stuff even older than that can still be dangerous, in 2008(incident 5) a man was killed by ordnance from the American Civil War!