Land mines

Apartheit period South African counter-insurgeny fighters rode in special vehicles, like the Buffalo, to help protect themselves from land mines. The "V" shaped armored plates, on the bottom of the vehicles, directed the explosion outwards.

A land mine is a passive weapon, left in place, to try to deny access to one's enemies. Land mines use explosives that are designed to either be triggered remotely, when an observer sees an enemy in close proximity, or robotically, when someone steps on, or drives over the mine.

Danger to civilians

Mines represent a huge danger to civilians, during warfare, and long after wars are over.

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Alan Rock led the initiative for the United Nations to pass a resolution whereby signatories agreed to stop employing anti-personnel land mines. The United States and Russia were the two most notable countries that declined to agree to stop using anti-personnel land mines. Anti-vehicle land-mines are not banned by treaty.

Usage

A traditional usesssssffs of land mines is to lay out a mine field, where the belligerent knows where the mines are laid, while their opponent does not.

According to the conventions of war, the projections of fragments from exploding mines cannot be undetectable using X-rays, so surgeons have a chance to remove them.

In the twentieth century several nations manufactured land mines that could be placed by firing projectiles, or dropping bombs, that contained dozens or hundreds of land mines. These can be installed as an enemy column advances, they don't have to be laid in advance.