South Africa has produced the Matador, a vehicle designed to resist the impact of land mines and maximise the protection of the occupants.
Yet our soldiers are still getting killed clearing mines manually.
In all walks of life these days, we are forever hearing the phrase "If only one life is saved it will be worth it", but it seems that this does not apply in the case of our armed forces.
There is an argument that these methods of clearance don't work against remote controlled mines; it is fallacious because neither does manual clearance work, as the person operating the remote control explodes the device just as clearance is about to start, killing the soldier who has located the device.
It is ludicrous that our military should still be using such antiquated clearance methods in this modern age.
As an afterthought, does anyone know whether the US military in Afghanistan still use the same method of mine clearance as our troops?
My sympathy goes out to the family of the latest victim, Captain Lisa Jade Head, 29, of Huddersfield who was the 364th member of our military to be killed in Afghanistan and the 6th member of her regiment killed clearing mines.
to answer your question EP NO the US do not risk their service people the way we squander ours!
ReplyDeletethey use D9 armoured bulldozers and basically and clear a line from A to B then to C and anything that gets int eh way (mines IED's walls houses) they just don't give flying F*** it gets dozed and then the troops just walk along the route...then they (the US) pay the little in compensation required for the destruction of a wall or building....no lives lost, littel bit of damage thats paid for....Simples really...but we have BS deliberately stupid COS and politicians who know thsi but wont act on it...come the revolution I'm gonna make them walk along stamping their feet with their fingers in their ears in front of the troops to find the mines and IED's...