Mines - Types / Placement / Disarment

[Targan]

I agree that in most cases a trained human would be the best creature for the job but the consequences of failure are, well, pretty extreme. Also there would be some circumstances (mines containing very little metal for instance) in which animals would be more effective in detecting mines than humans (even humans equipped with mine detecting equipment). Only the most sophisticated man-made sniffer devices are more accurate than a dog's nose.

When animals are used for mine detection the general rule is that you use two animals; when one has detected a mine or has finished its sweep of a narrow corridor a second animal is used to double-check. A decent-sized dog would be superior to a rat in one important respect - if a dog misses detecting a mine it might set it off as it passes over it, whereas a rat would be very unlikely to set off any mines (I know we've seen the pressures needed but lets be honest, a rat isn't likely to set off a trip wire and at a maximum of six pounds in weight and having two feet on the ground at any one time it would only ever exert a maximum ground pressure of three pounds).

Therefore as a human EOD soldier walks down the cleared lane to get to a detected mine he wouldn't have much fear of stepping on an undetected mine if he is walking in a dog's footsteps, but might well step on an undetected mine if it had been a rat that had walked the lane before him.