Are those methods being used? Seems if the other side isn’t shooting at you it should be easy to clear old mine fields now. Ground penetrating radar seems to require a slow scan over the surface but we could easily sacrifice some (non-flying) drones for that in war conditions.
@Sage_Rat, are you asking opening a path through a minefield rapidly in war conditions, how to clear mines outside of war conditions, or both? Doesn’t seem to be a big issue if the effort was put into using technology for detection. If the other guys are shooting at us we can blow the crap out of any kind of mine from a distance once we know where it is.
Which means exactly nothing when you are applying said concrete with enough velocity that it instantly consolidates. You are effectively calculating the psi at the point of impact of something being power washed solely based on the weight of water, or the force of impact of a bullet based solely on its weight, ignoring the fact that it is moving thousands of feet per second.
If what you need to do is to clean the rug that covers the whole floor, or to let your three year old go in there, you most definitely need to know where the thumbtacks are.
They don’t only need to deal with the mines so they can produce one lane to travel on. They need to deal with the mines so they can live and work in their country.
Roads and drives cover only a small proportion of the land. Ditto barns and farmhouses. ETA: And roads and drives are laid out so as to allow fields to be usable. They’re not randomly dotted all over the place.
Excessive paving is indeed causing problems in some areas. That’s why many areas are developing regulations against it.
True. But you need to try not to leave it in massively further damaged condition behind you.
It’s an FQ so I’m asking whether anyone has researched the feasibility of covering over landmines using a sprayed liquid, to enable safe travel over top.
The only useful purpose that I see for that would be to enable maneuvers during wartime but, really, what to do with such technology is tangential to the question asked.
That would be a potential issue with such technology. But:
You’re unlikely to hit any one mine. I suspect that, because of cost, 99%+ of all land is just land. Most mines would slowly be covered by the flow of the material, not by a direct shot.
The sludge might have sufficient mass that, between it and the distance that you’re shooting from, you don’t need such extreme armor on your sprayer that it becomes so heavy and slow as to become a sitting duck. (This is where lighter alternatives to concrete might come in.)
What flow? You are asking about shotcrete, not about slowly pouring out concrete in the middle of a minefield… which would be equally pointless and problematic.
Q. What is shotcrete and when is it used?
A. Shotcrete is a method of applying concrete projected at high velocity primarily on to a vertical or overhead surface. The impact created by the application consolidates the concrete.
Yes, but one of those is a short-term problem, the other is long-term. Not much point in worrying about cleaning up all the mines, if you can’t get the invaders out of your country first.
Ah, sorry, I didn’t realize that it was so extremely quick setting. I don’t think that would be feasible for path making.
Good point.
I’d assume that could be modified so you can create something that flows for a few moments before setting, rather than instantly on deceleration? As indicated, I’m not married specifically to the “shotcrete” product.
I appreciate that you’re simply asking what the purpose is, rather than imagining some nonsense purpose of your own and throwing the topic off kilter.
I was thinking about the problem of trying to perform a military movement across a terrain full of dragon teeth and mines.
Mine sweeping isn’t very efficient. You need big, heavy devices to come in and slap the grand real hard, and for everyone else to stay back. And even if you could speed that up in some way, that doesn’t really help you much with the dragon teeth. Likewise with strategies like trying to heat or electrify the ground in some way, to melt/burn/inactivate/remote detonate the mines.
My sense is that mine sweeping systems aren’t very reliable unless you really take your time to do it right and double up with sniffer dogs, metal detectors, and etc. They’re not amenable to the goals of a rapid military attack.
For the teeth, you either need to blast/cut through them or, alternately, raise your driving surface to their top. I was thinking along the lines of the latter because, in theory, that might allow you to deal with both problems together.
Some sort of quick-set material might allow you to do that. You can lay down a path that covers over the mines and brings you to a height that lets you pass over the dragon teeth.
In theory, that material might allow you to spread the weight of any people or vehicles over a large enough area that they might not trigger contemporary mines. Likewise - depending on the thickness and the material used - it might provide a sufficient mass or shielding effect to protect anything on top well enough that, with the vehicle’s own armoring, contemporary mines might prove largely ineffective.
I’d expect this to still be slow, but possibly it could be faster than mine sweeping and, possibly, it could be more reliable when done in a hurry.
Whether that’s true or not, I have no idea. Ergo, I asked if anyone had already researched it.
One problem with any proposed solution to a warfare problem is that the enemy will pretty quickly adapt to whatever innovation one invents.
I certainly see the attraction of the idea of simply deploying some sort of impromptu cover over the mines to pass them by. I’ll suggest the weight and volume of any material to be deployed would be a big obstacle logistically.
It hasn’t occurred to you that your chosen method of dealing with landmines, i.e. spraying concrete mounds on top of them when they’ve been found and hoping that they miraculously don’t explode in the process that you are in fact creating dragons teeth in said minefield?
Your sense is wrong, @engineer_comp_geek and @crowmanyclouds explained and linked how this is accomplished in the 5th and 6th responses in this thread.
Here’s a video of how rapidly a MICLIC blows a lane to assault through a minefield:
Yes. Some foam might be better than a concrete-style material. You might be able to get more height while carrying around less and a lighter liquid material.
I’m just not sure what materials are worth speaking about. With concrete, I can look at bomb dents in old fortifications and say that thick-ass concrete is pretty resistant to big booms. What lighter materials might have some containing power and be strong enough to support military vehicles, I don’t know if there’s any?
This is like if someone proposed using wood to build a ground cover and you say, “Haven’t you realized that it’s hard to stand on the end of a 2x4 that’s been driven end-wise into the ground?”
Why would you assume that most insane possible use of the material, that would be the most antithetical to the purpose? Yes, if you built a machine that sprayed the most instant-form shotcrete into a single spot, with custom 3D printing logic to generate pyramids then, yes, you’d be creating dragon teeth against yourself. Yes, that sounds dumb to me. Spray the stuff around so it creates a flat platform.
And likewise, if you want to build a platform out of wood, lay the things flat, don’t drive them end-wise into the ground. Why would you assume that someone wants to do otherwise?
No. Nobody has, to date. Been there–done that. You also haven’t specified whether you’re talking about anti-tank mines or anti-personnel. They’re often mixed, and one is a larger charge than the other.
The thread’s already been filled with reasons why it’s impractical, but lemme give you another one: having a supply train for concrete is incredibly expensive, and is a military target in-and-of itself. You want to have crews, in a live minefield, moving tons (by the cubic yard) of shotcrete?
Even if its just for breaching lanes, you’re not solving a problem. You’re literally just covering it up an hoping for the best.
If I’m understanding your proposal correctly, it sounds like you suggest building concrete lanes across the minefield during combat operations so troops and equipment can be moved rapidly across. You don’t think it’s necessary to cover the whole field as long as you have a lane.
Russia would be overjoyed if they could force Ukraine to attack through a narrow lane. Concentrate all the firepower in that one location, and no one gets through. If San Francisco decided to attack Oakland and was reliant on the Bay Bridge for their only access, they would lose quickly.
I’d expect that to be a tactical decision, based on the technology and how it performed under testing. If you could target either or both, that would be the best. Whether that’s feasible, I have no way of knowing.
Wars are expensive. Wars live on supply chains - all of which are targets in-and-of themselves. Moving tanks of gasoline around, so you can fuel vehicles and flame throwers both creates a military capability and a military liability.
Concrete-like materials might not be the best. For all I know, you might want to do some sort of AB foam and then follow it with a quick-spray of fiberglass for rigidity. I’m not married to any particular material. Is there some material that would work better?
Whether you’re mine clearing or mine covering, you’re going to be doing it in a narrow path - generally about the width of your vehicle that has to equipment for your purpose. You might choose to go straight through or work like a lawn mower, as makes more sense strategically. But, strategically, you’re always going to prefer to have more options and to know what the relative merits and demerits of all of the options are so you can bring the right one to bear.
If you have a method that’s fast and silent, that the enemy has never seen before and has no reason to expect, then a quick dash might be feasible. A blitzkrieg at the end of WWII was a very different proposition than it was at the start. That doesn’t mean that the Germans were idiots for using the blitzkrieg to invade France. At that moment in time, it worked great and I’m sure that they understood that defensive techniques would be discovered, later down the road.
Give me an estimate - you want to lay concrete through a minefield, high enough to match the height of dragon’s teeth (using shotcrete so it hardens instantly and doesn’t require any framing, but not shotcrete since the impact will detonate the mines).
What volume of concrete will you need for this endeavor? How many trucks will be required to lay that amount of concrete? Do you envision this to be a fast and silent operation?
Now you have one lane built. How long will it take to transport enough troops and equipment across it to make a legitimate attack on the forces defending the other side?