Ukraine: The Problem with Mine-Clearing Tanks

In this video we look at the various problems with dealing with mines in combat situations. Particularly we look at anti-mine flail, plow, roller and other equipment like explosive lines charges. Additionally, we look at air/artillery deploy-able mines.

Cover Image: Armored mine-clearing vehicle BMR-3M, by Vitaly V. Kuzmin
Cover Design by vonKickass

DISCLOSURE: I was invited by the Deutsche Panzermuseum in 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2023.

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00:00 Intro
00:28 The Problem with Flail Tanks: Keiler
04:42 Ranked Mine Clearing Equipment
09:19 Books & T-Shirts
09:38 Mine Plow on the T-72 (KMT-8)
11:40 Instant Minefields
14: 26 Summary

#mines #mineclearing #eod

[armdengr]

Combat Engineer Intelligence officer here: you basically describe the SOSRA process. The technology for clearing lanes through minefield has not really evolved since WW2. Yes we have mine clearing line charges, but their length is limited and they are not 100% solution. Line charges DO NOT clear all mines and are mainly good for 1st generation track attack mines. Track width mine ploughs are NOT meant to clear a lane. They are meant to protect an individual tank while crossing a minefield (to secure the area), but other vehicles should not follow in it's path. Track width mine ploughs do not clear full width mines with magnetic sensors between the tracks, unless equiped with electronic counter-meassures (like the Russian EMT).
For the engineers to be able to conduct the reduce of the obstacle, the manoeuver units need to supress, obscure and secure the area. In Ukraine this is extremely difficult. Two things have improved a lot in the past few years: ISR assets (drones for example) and long range fires. Everything is observed and will be targeted with accurate long range indirect fires. The Ukrainian breach attempts south from Orikhiv (7-8 june 2023) mainly failed because the breach lane was under observation and accurute indirect fires, while the area was not secured. Securing an obstacle (or obstacle belt) for the engineers to breach can be extremely difficult. With air supriority this becomes easier, but it often comes down to dismounted infantry breaching small lanes and creating a sort of 'bridge-head', before a lane is created for tanks and vehicles. This is exactly what the Ukrainians are doing.
So breach tank are extremely usefull, but you need to set the right battlefield conditions for their use, otherwise you are sending them to their grave.

Remote delivered mines can be used to quickly close a breach. Both NATO and Russian doctrine describes their use for this purpose. They should be dropped behind the breach force, so that they are isolated and the assault force can't reinforce them. Breach tanks are rare and it's very likely that the assault force is not equiped with breach tanks. This is a real danger and remote delivered mines were used in this manner by both Russia and Ukraine. A layered system of breach assets is needed for a breach to succeed on the modern battlefield.

[Punisher]

These vehicles where really designed to clear traditional mine fields, I don't think people realise how dense and large the Russian minefields are. It's something crazy like up to 500 meters deep and around 4 mines per square meter with anti-personel mines along with anti-tank mines. And even if you do manage to clear a path Russia can deploy more mines in the area using missiles. There are also more complicated mine setups where they have a mine or stacked mines which destroy the anti-mine tanks or they have mines connected to pressure pads that are deeper underground setup so when a tank moves over the mine it doesn't go off until the mine is under the belly and the tank triggers a pad that then detonates the mine penetrating the belly of the tank. You also can't go around these mine fields, they are all along the front with barely any gaps.

[mensch]

The importance of mines can be illustrated by two Second World War examples:

People often criticize Montgomery for his caution and need to outnumber his enemy by an almost comical amount before he would attack, and these are valid criticisms in some cases. But at 2nd El Alamein, his massive artillery barrage was arguably a very important factor that allowed his combat engineers to clear lanes through the Axis minefield in relative safety.

It has been a little while since I read Roman Töppel's excellent book on Kursk, but one thing I noticed was that popular images of the battle had generally overestimated the effects of things like Soviet armor on the defeat of the German offensive and heavily underestimated the effects of Soviet mines. If I remember correctly, most knocked out Ferdinands were victims of mines that were then destroyed by their own crews and abandoned, and a potential breakthrough in the northern sector failed because the tanks had no infantry support (the infantry being stuck many kilometers behind the armor).

[Matt_The_Hugenot]

There is a big difference between clearing and breaching minefields, that's why we've largely moved to explosive line throwing for the former and relegate mechanical systems to the latter for maintaining cleared paths and creating new ones behind front lines.

[danbendix]

Glad to see the soil type mentioned. A challenge that isn't always appreciated.

[imflikyt]

Very good video. Mines arent primarily intended to kill, they are an area denial weapon. They force you to deal with the issue by either clearing the minefield or go around it, either way the enemy is dictating your strategy.

The air deployed mines in particular are excellent for this since you don't even need to occupy the territory you are deploying mines in. Even if the enemy knows exactly where your mines are, he still has to clear the minefield and you can just put it straight back after he is done. The only limit is whether you can deploy mines more cheaply than the enemy can clear them. How many mines does an area have to have before you are worried about moving through it, probably not very many I imagine. This heavily favours the defender too since if you aren't attacking you don't have to worry about moving into a minefield.

There is also an added benefit that is particularly evident with the widespread use of drones and general visiblity on the battlefield these days. If you have laid a minefield and the enemy breaches it, they will have to breach a relatively narrow front. Provided you can maintain vision on the minefield you can then target either the mineclearers, you any movement through the minefield which will be restricted to narrow lanes. You can even combine this with direct fire to make the area essentially impassable. You cannot clear a minefield while being shot at after all.

Overall an incredibly potent weapon.

[Sightbain.]

*Channels my inner 1960's American war planner* How effective are nukes at clearing a path in a minefield?

[k]

I had a discussion in the comments of another video with a guy who ran training on MCLC for the US Army Engineer center. They are not as great as people think they are and the skip zones make them less than idea. Basically there are no great solutions and you need to use multiple systems in combination, like MCLCs followed by plows followed by rollers.

[klausnielsen]

So much knowledge packed in this video that no one outside of the forces consider. Very well presented and visualised. Thank you.

[zackbranco]

It's good you bring light to the trap people commonly fall into when coming up with a solution. We often stop trying to solve the problem when we find a solution, where instead, we should be trying to find the new problems our solution will introduce.

[imagifyer]

I have an interesting document from the Australian Archives which raises some interesting commentary on the implementation of flail tanks in North Africa. the two most interesting parts were
1.the mine clearing tanks had to be kept under operational secrecy, and were considered a 'one use weapon'. meaning that because the operation and presence of a flail tank was so obvious you could only ever use them if you had the element of surprise, and afterwards their effectiveness would drop dramatically as the enemy would develop countermeasures both in the immediate (it firing AT guns) or the long term sense.
2.Flail tanks were relatively easy to develop direct countermeasures to in field conditions. The example given involved German engineers burying large explosive charges ahead of mines in the minefield. These charges were buried deep enough that the flail would not disturb them and were linked by a length of det-cord to a mine approx. 1.5-2 metres behind the charge. this would cause the mine to effectively act like a fuse for the explosive charge, which would be underneath the flail tank when the flail stuck the mine, thus detonating the charge and destroying the flail tank

[nomennisceo]

I was with the Danish Army Engineers back in 2018 - 2020 and worked with Common Munitions Disposel, ei UXOs and Mines. Clearing minefields wasn't a concern, and definetly not under fire. If possible minefield are to be marked and avoided, simple as. If that isn't possible the minefields are 'secured' with firesuperiority, maybe, at most, under the cover of darkness small assault paths are made so that the far end of a minefield can get assaultet and captured... Then when the enemy isn't around vehicles like plows (I worked with leopard 1 Wisent tanks) to clear lanes/roads. These roads was wide enough to have tanks pass, and a safety margin... Nothing more was done tactically, removing the minefield is either psot-war stuff or something done way behind the front, and often by civilian specialsists, veteran voulenteers, and possibly by trained and oversighted reserve army forces (like the american national guard or the british army reserve)

[bryangrote]

M48s with that bathtub shaped lower hull was actually very effective at mitigating mine damage in Vietnam back in the day. On "thunder runs" they literally just drove down the roads in pairs with one tank track in each road rut and ran over the mines to clear them. If you lost a track another tank trailing behind took its place and the convoy just kept going. Wouldn't work with more advanced mines available now days, but the guys who did this back then had balls that clanked louder then their tank tracks.

[pvtpeenut]

Rollers shouldn’t be considered mine clearing equipment. It’s not used to breach/clear mines it’s used to safely detect the edge of a minefield, either by sight or by contact. Then you deploy a mine clearing system, ie blade or MICLIC.

After clearing a breach lane, you follow with a roller to ensure all mines in the lane are disposed of “proof the lane.”

Once the lane is proofed, there is a quick disconnect on the roller so you can have a fully functioning tank in the battle, which is pretty cool imo.

[genericpersonx]

What I think is the real lesson of the present Ukrainian Conflict is that no matter how ink military and political leaderships spills on the topic of "Combined Arms" during peace time, they most always fail to actually apply it in war time to begin with and many fail to ever really apply it, dragging out wars that should have been relatively short.

[imortal]

Very well-thought-out and produced video! Excellent work!

[brianreddeman]

"Note this video includes product placement"
Omg? I can buy an M1?
"Today's sponsor is..."
Oh well.

[-Zevin-]

This definitely ranks up there for the jobs I would least like to do in the military. Sitting duck, trapped in a metal coffin, and you can't even leave even after you did some clearing because the flails may have tossed mines on top of the vehicle. Yeah, couldn't pay me enough to do that. Seems like it should be a priority to make full size drone mine clearing tanks.

[VulpeculaJoy]

Since these systems are rather rare, expensive, slow and very exposed when they're used, the fist thing you need to do to clear a minefield, is completely suppress any artillery system in the surrounding area and obtain air dominace.

[qrstw]

Army engineers train for years to be able to clear minefields and IEDs. A few weeks of months of training will not prepare them for the most complex minefield since WW2. In a few months, the remaining Ukrainian combat engineers, having gathered enough experience can pass that to new recruits and eventually they'll be much more effective.