To our knowledge, there are no foreign systems in production or in the field that are suitable for the airborne

mine detection requirement. Discussion of foreign vehicle mounted mine detectors can be found in the discussion of developmental systems. There are a considerable number of hand held metallic mine detectors available from foreign sources. Some of these were evaluated during the source selection for the current fielded system, the AN/PSS-12, which is manufactured in Austria.

BREACHING

The German Keiler and Israeli Miki flail systems have been designed for combat breaching purposes.

Contractors in Israel

and the UK have developed systems for Armored Personnel Carriers

and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. plows and lightweight rollers.

surface mine plows in service.

These consist of surface mine
The UK has a limited quantity of
The U.S. Air Force is evalauting

variants of these surface mine plows for runway clearance.
A number of countries have explosive breaching systems
similar to the U.S. MICLIC system. There are also several man
portable explosive breaching systems available from foreign
sources. Several of these have been evaluated under the U.S.

Army's Soldier Enhancement Program.

CLEARANCE

There has been some development of equipment in recent years that may be suitable for area clearance by a number of nations. These are typically flails and land clearance machinery which mill away the soil and the buried mines. For flails, most noteworthy are the German Keiler, British Aardvark and the Israeli Miki. The German and Israeli systems have been designed for breaching purposes and have not been thoroughly evaluated for clearance operations. Germany has entered into production of the Keiler and Israel is still developing the Miki. Sweden and Norway are both pursuing development of land clearance devices for mine clearance. These machines are based on armored platforms with large rotating devices out front with hardened steel cutters that chew up the soil, vegetation, including small trees, and any mines in the path. These systems have not been fully evaluated in a mine clearing role. There is also a German land clearing device that is to be evaluated in Germany by USAREUR which is similar to Norwegian and Swedish systems. The risk with all of these systems in a clearance role is that they disturb a great deal of soil and can create a bigger problem by displacing mines and creating a hazardous situation where the safety of handling the disturbed mines is unknown. There are currently no U.S. Army requirements for such systems.

MARKING

For vehicle mounted marking systems, the most likely candidate for consideration is the British developed Pathfinder

system which uses compressed air to fire markers into the soil on either side of the breaching vehicle. Pathfinder has been

subjected to limited evaluations by both the Marine Corps and the

Army.

PROTECTION

The Republic of South Africa has developed the latest stateof-the-art mine resistance vehicles capable of withstanding mine blasts from 25-45 lbs. of explosive. These vehicles also possess all around ballistic protection and are designed to be repaired after a mine encounter. A British firm has licensing rights for two types of mine resistant vehicles.

CONCLUSION

It

The countermine challenge is significant from a technology standpoint. It is not significant because of mine technology, though the technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated. is significant because mines are cheap, portable, easily emplaced and with over 2,500 different types of mines and fuzes presents a wide diversity of problems to solve. Further, it is much easier, faster and cheaper to modify mines to counter state-of-the-art detection systems than it is to develop or adapt detection systems because of the need to achieve a near 100% effectiveness rate. The problem is also complicated by the requirement for U.S. Forces to be able to effectively operate in a wide variety

of scenarios ranging from deserts to forests and jungles to built-up urban areas. Ideally, we need systems to detect, clear, breach, mark and protect in all of these operating environments. Resourcing these efforts is critical and additional resources could enable us to develop solutions and field equipment more quickly. But we realize that funds are limited and funds available must be accommodated within the overall priorities for the department. Also, we now have technologies and potential technological solutions that have only recently shown promise which will contribute to the solution of these daunting problems. Examples include advances in micro-circuitry, electro-optics, and information processing.

Our primary objective is to provide a state-of-the-art capability to reduce the number of soldiers killed in combat and operations other than war. We are developing technologies that are cost effective, sustainable, which will operate in a wide variety of scenarios and environmental conditions and which will defeat the problem we have to face of minor changes in mine technology requiring major changes in detection technology. We believe the solutions we are pursuing with ground penetrating radar, pulse induction metal detection, infrared and electrooptic technology will achieve these objectives.

Further, the

efforts we are making to fuse these technologies provides the

potential for orders of magnitude improvements in effectiveness

and reliability.

Within the Army, we have a fully integrated program that is taking advantage of technologies and support from a variety of sources. This integrated approach, in the science and technology community and in the acquisition community, is facilitating the accelerated development and fielding of improved, more effective equipment.

We are working closely with the other services to develop systems which have joint application. We have a highly focused mine/countermine program in the Army to achieve that end and we are active participants in the Tri-Service programs sponsored by DDRE and the Joint Logistics Commanders.

We are

We also recognize the need to look at and capitalize on, technologies and capabilities developed by other nations. doing that where those technologies show the potential to reduce the time and cost to put an improved capability in the hands of soldiers.

I believe our experience, doctrine and testing have shown that mine/countermine operations require not a single capability, but a suite of capabilities to effectively meet operational requirements for detection, breaching, clearing, marking, and protecting. The Army has chosen to place its emphasis for our limited R & D funding, on mine detection and neutralization. Mine detection is the most difficult problem but emerging technologies have put us on the verge of solutions to these