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Mine Clearance
Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By contrast, the goal of ''humanitarian demining'' is to remove all of the landmines to a given depth and make the land safe for human use. Specially trained dogs are also used to narrow down the search and verify that an area is cleared. Mechanical devices such as Mine flail, flails and excavators are sometimes used to clear mines. A great variety of methods for detecting landmines have been studied. These include electromagnetic methods, one of which (ground penetrating radar) has been employed in tandem with metal detectors. Acoustic methods can sense the cavity created by mine casings. Sensors have been developed to detect vapor leaking from landmines. Animals such as rats and mongooses can safely move over a minefield and detect mines, and an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2004
2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, killing all 148 aboard, making it one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Egyptian history at the time. * January 4 – NASA's MER-A (Spirit (rover), Spirit) spacecraft lands on the surface of Mars. * January 6 – Construction on the tallest human-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa begins in Dubai UAE. * January 8 – The Queen Mary 2, RMS ''Queen Mary 2'', at the time the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by its namesake's granddaughter, Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II. * January 25 – NASA's MER-B (Opportunity (rover), Opportunity) spacecraft lands on the surface of Mars. * January 26 – The Mydoom, MyDoom virus is first identified. February * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-tank Mine
An anti-tank or AT mine is a type of land mine designed to damage or destroy vehicles including tanks and armored fighting vehicles. Compared to anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines typically have a much larger explosive charge, and a fuze designed to be triggered by vehicles or, in some cases, Remote control, remotely or by tampering with the mine. History First World War The first anti-tank mines were improvised during the First World War as a countermeasure against the first tanks introduced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British towards the end of the war. Initially they were nothing more than a buried high-explosive shell (projectile), shell or Mortar (weapon), mortar bomb with its fuze upright. Later, purpose-built mines were developed, including the Flachmine 17, which was simply a wooden box packed with explosives and triggered either remotely or by a pressure fuze. By the end of the war, the Germans had developed row mining techniques, and mines ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sapper
A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses, and road and airfield construction and repair. Sappers are also trained and equipped to serve secondarily as provisional infantry. Sappers facilitate and support the movement, defense, and survival of superordinate and allied forces, and impede those of enemies. The term "sapper" is used in the British Army and Commonwealth nations, the U.S. military, and the militaries of other countries. Historical origin Sapper A sapper, in the sense first used by the French military, was one who dug trenches to allow besieging forces to advance towards the enemy defensive works and forts over ground that is under the defenders' musket or artillery fire. It comes from the French word ''sapeur'', itself being derived from the verb ''saper'' (t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combat Engineering
A combat engineer (also called pioneer or sapper) is a type of soldier who performs military engineering tasks in support of land forces combat operations. Combat engineers perform a variety of military engineering, tunnel and mine warfare tasks, as well as construction and demolition duties in and out of combat zones. Combat engineers facilitate the mobility of friendly forces while impeding that of the enemy. They also work to assure the survivability of friendly forces, building fighting positions, fortifications, and roads. They conduct demolition missions and clear minefields manually or through use of specialized vehicles. Common combat engineer missions include construction and breaching of trenches, tank traps and other obstacles and fortifications; obstacle emplacement and bunker construction; route clearance and reconnaissance; bridge and road construction or destruction; emplacement and clearance of land mines; and combined arms breaching. Typically, combat engineer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The British Army In Normandy 1944 B7342
''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pronoun ''thee' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Ljubljana
The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and research staff, assisted by approximately 2,000 technical and administrative staff. The University of Ljubljana offers programs in the humanities, sciences, and technology, as well as in medicine, dentistry, and veterinary science. The university was founded in the centre of Ljubljana, where the central university building and the majority of its faculties are located. Since then, newer buildings have been constructed in the suburbs of the city. History Beginnings Although certain academies (notably of philosophy and theology) were established as Jesuit higher education in what is now Slovenia as early as the seventeenth century, the first university was founded in 1810 under the ''Écoles centrales'' of the First French Empire, French impe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ammonium Nitrate
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the formula . It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, but does not form hydrates. It is predominantly used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertilizer. Its other major use is as a component of explosive mixtures used in mining, quarrying, and civil construction. It is the major constituent of ANFO, an industrial explosive which accounts for 80% of explosives used in North America; similar formulations have been used in improvised explosive devices. Many countries are phasing out its use in consumer applications due to concerns over its potential for misuse.Ammonium nitrate sold by ton as U.S. regulati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), also known as PENT, pentyl, PENTA (''ПЕНТА'', primarily in Russian), TEN (tetraeritrit nitrate), corpent, or penthrite (or, rarely and primarily in German, as ''nitropenta''), is an explosive material. It is the nitrate ester of pentaerythritol, and is structurally very similar to nitroglycerin. Penta-, Penta refers to the five carbon atoms of the neopentane skeleton. PETN is a very powerful explosive material with a relative effectiveness factor of 1.66. When mixed with a plasticizer, PETN forms a plastic explosive. Along with RDX it is the main ingredient of Semtex. PETN is also used as a Vasodilation, vasodilator drug to treat certain heart conditions, such as for management of angina. History Pentaerythritol tetranitrate was first prepared and patented in 1894 by the explosives manufacturer of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. The production of PETN started in 1912, when the improved method of production was patented by the German governm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crimes against humanity, Child labour, child labor, torture, human trafficking, and Women's rights, women's and LGBTQ rights. It pressures governments, policymakers, companies, and individual abusers to respect human rights, and frequently works on behalf of refugees, children, migrants, and political prisoners. The organization was founded in 1978 as Helsinki Watch, whose purpose was to monitor the Soviet Union's compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Its separate global divisions merged into Human Rights Watch in 1988. The group publishes annual reports on about 100 countries with the goal of providing an overview of the worldwide state of human rights. In 1997, HRW shared the Nobel Peace Prize as a founding member of the International C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minimum Metal Mine
A minimum metal mine is a land mine that is designed to use the smallest amount of metal possible in its construction. Typically, the only metal components are located inside the fuze mechanism which triggers detonation. Both minimum metal anti-tank and anti-personnel mines exist. Some designs contain virtually no metal at all, e.g., less than a gram. Methods Low-metallic mines This is achieved by encasing the explosive charge in a plastic, wooden, or glass body, with metallic components limited to the few small parts in the fuze which can not easily be made from other materials, such as the spring, striker tip, and shear pin. Minimum metal mines are extremely difficult to detect using conventional metal mine detectors and usually require modern techniques, such as robotic ''Multi Period Sensing'' (MPS) equipment, to identify, but it is still extremely difficult to find non-metallic mines. These techniques are usually restricted to well-funded international mine clearing org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tripwire
A tripwire is a passive triggering mechanism. Typically, a wire or cord is attached to a device for detecting or reacting to physical movement. Military applications Such tripwires may be attached to one or more minesespecially fragmentation or bounding minesin order to increase the area where triggering may occur. Trip wires are frequently used in booby trapswhere either a tug on the wire, or the release of tension on it, will trigger the explosives. Soldiers sometimes detect the presence of tripwires by spraying the area with Silly String. It will settle to the ground in areas where there are no wires; where wires are present, the "strings" will rest on the taut wires without triggering the explosive, due to the product's light weight. Its use in detecting tripwires was first discovered in 1993 by Sergeant First Class David B. Chandler, Chief Instructor of the United States Army's Sapper Leader Course. That year it was introduced to students attending the cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bounding Mine
A bounding mine is an anti-personnel mine designed to be used in open areas. When it is tripped, a small propelling charge launches the body of the mine into the air, where the main charge detonates and sprays fragmentation at roughly waist height. The original World War II German S-mine has been widely influential. Other countries that have employed bounding mines in war include the United States, United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and countries of former Yugoslavia. China and Italy have also produced them. Some American mines designed for this purpose used a standard 60 mm HE mortar round with an improvised time delay fuse which is activated by the propelling charge. Bounding mines are more expensive than typical anti-personnel blast mines, and they do not lend themselves to scatterable designs. Because they are designed to be buried, they are appropriate for command-detonated ambushes, but tripwire operation is common as well. By design, bounding mines contain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
