Quote:
Originally Posted by Webstral
So the short answer is that the 1997 fighting would have resulted in minefields in and around Kalisz, along with the creation of fortified fighting positions and the other survivability structures employed by a dug-in defender. NATO would have cleared the mines affecting the MSR, but little else. They didn’t have the time and manpower to clear mines in their own rear between April and August/September 1997. The engineers would be too busy at the front.
After NATO fell back across the Oder, the Poles would be quite keen to get the minefields cleared, of course. The Soviets might not be so keen, though. So long as the LOC were open, the Soviets probably would have had better uses for their engineering assets. And, of course, everyone was busy coping with the nuclear exchanges for the rest of 1997.
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So the above is largely a military viewpoint. But what about an economic one? How will all these minefields affect the ability to farm and produce food in an area? Feeding Poland (or not, as the case may be) is one thing I am working on at the moment; trying to work out what population is around, and where they get their food. I have been working on a simple model for this, and it uses land. Figuring out how this gels with minefields is something to work out...
So, maybe my paragraph above is just a comment, not a question. But does anyone have additional thoughts on the impact of mines on farmland?