In an incredible, bittersweet success story, Croatia has announced it has freed itself from the scourge of landmines, 31 years after the country’s civil war.
In an incredible, bittersweet success story, Croatia has announced it has freed itself from the scourge of landmines, 31 years after the country’s civil war.
IIRC modern mines automatically deactivate after some time?
It sounds like there’s a variant of the PFM-1, the small “butterfly” mine, that does self-destruct (the PFM-1S). I don’t believe that the larger ones generally do, though, and if so, a search doesn’t turn up material on them.
My understanding is that the mine designs that Russia (and Ukraine) have in inventory tend to date to the Cold War, too.
EDIT: And to be clear, even that mine is apparently on a maximum 40 hour timer. That is, that variant is going to be something used when you specifically want fairly short-term area denial, which isn’t going to be what most of the fortifications built are going to have set up.
Aw that’s a bummer, thanks for the info though.