That's a thought, though with a UGV, I wonder if it's worth making it a little more-complicated so that it can also bury the mine. If they're air-deployed, then that's not an option, but with a ground vehicle, it becomes an option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Normally, yes, but Russians run into mine barriers regardless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I mean, we're not gonna see the videos where unburied mines are avoided.

If digging isn't viable, maybe they can at least have some kind of way of dumping some soil on them, even if it results in a mound. Like, have a bucket of soil atop that has a release lever that dumps some every time a mine passes.

Or have some sorta sack of soil affixed to the top of each made of something that rapidly degrades.

EDIT: One other thought, since I was watching a video on Forgotten Weapons last night where Ian was talking about the reason one uses a chaingun -- it's mostly for cases where you can't get at the mechanism in the event of a misfire. Like, if you have a mechanism driven by the explosion of a cartridge, then the whole thing wedges up if one doesn't fire. If you have a separate feeding mechanism, like with a chaingun, that doesn't come up.

It might be more complexity to have an engine push the bottom mine in a stack off the back, but it also means that you don't have to worry about the feed stopping if the cord breaks, and it gives more flexibility in where to place a mine.

And you don't want to go out onto an area dangerous enough that you're using a UGV to mine it to restart the feeding process.

EDIT2: Actually...hmm. Now I'm wondering how they initiate the feeding process, kick the initial one out the back.