Mine-clearing

Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area, while minesweeping describes the act of detecting mines. There are two distinct types of mine detection and removal: military and humanitarian.

Minesweepers use many tools in order to accomplish their task. Tools have historically included many trained animals, including dogs and rats, but most often in the modern world minesweepers rely on metal detectors or vehicles with a wide variety of mechanical tools attached to them. There also are or have been other methods developed to detect mines, including the use of trained marine mammals, bacteria, acoustics, and other more exotic methods.

In the combat zone, the process is referred to as mine clearance. According to the doctrine of the U.S. and other armies, mine clearance is carried out by combat engineers.

The military priority is to breach the minefield quickly in order to create a safe path for troops or ships. Speed is vital, both for tactical reasons and because units attempting to breach the minefield may be under enemy fire. Both anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines must be removed, although only in the lanes through which troops or vehicles are planned to advance.

The risk to sappers is far greater because they may be called upon to perform clearance as tactics dictate, including in all-weather conditions and on schedule. Command may accept casualties in the process. Furthermore, it is accepted that mine clearance will be imperfect and there may be casualties from undiscovered mines. One advantage is that, in military operations, sappers are dealing with recently laid mines that respond predictably to clearance, have not 'migrated', and have not degraded (unless old stock was used). In this they are often aided by technical intelligence on the current adversary's mines, which are usually of a single type.

In these mine clearance operations, the methods that are applied for detection and removal are quicker, but less exacting. These methods include those that detect and remove in a single action, such as mechanical demining, carpet bombing, burning of the land or the use of Bangalore torpedoes or mine-clearing line charges.

In times of relative peace, the process of mine removal is referred to as demining. This is a thorough, time-intensive process that seeks to locate all mines so that the land or sea area may be safely returned to normal use. It is vital that this process be exhaustive. Even if only a small handful of mines remain undiscovered, incomplete demining can actually lead to an increase in civilian mine casualties as local people re-occupy an area they previously avoided in the belief that it has been made safe. In this context demining is one of the tools of mine action. Coordinated by Mine Action Coordination Centers run by the United Nations or a host government, civilian mine clearance agencies are tasked with the demining. In post-conflict areas, minefields are often contaminated with a mixture of explosive remnants of war (ERW) that includes unexploded ordnance as well as landmines. In that context, the humanitarian clearance effort is often referred to as battle area clearance.

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