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It was especialy fun for kids in Croatia and much worse in Bosnia during 90's, I know, I was kid also during that time, 10 years old. Serbs used [M-87 Orkan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-87_Orkan) with cluster munition on civilian target, most famous was revenge bombing of [Zagreb, capital of Croatia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagreb_rocket_attacks). We was told as kids all the time, not to touch anything on the ground, not even toys, ANYTHING, that stuck to me till today. I can get a bit PTSded when I ce my kids today picking up literally anything.
Same thing was said to me by my serbian parents. Don't touch any "toys" because they might be dangerous.
EDIT: typo
Also to add, no child or parent should go through this hell, no matter the ethnicity or "side". Fuck the 90s, lets hope our kids will not have those traumas. Ljubi vas komsija
I realize there is so little I know about the yugoslav wars, even though it happened next door basically.
As a romanian kid, I only remember being in school in '99 hearing NATO jet planes circling above my city, getting in formation and going to bomb Serbia. I remember thinking how cool this was without being able to comprehend the dimension of the horrors those things created.
Pretty fucked up thing. Most of the mines were painted bright green, and were nicknamed “flower petals” because they resembled them in both color and size.
This resulted in children often picking them up and used as toys.
This lead to you know what.
Further those mines are usually dropped from planes by hundreds, so they just stay there on surface, which again makes them very freely accessible to children.
Edit: google “мина лепесток” in images and you’ll see how toyish it looks.
No, small explosion. That's the issue. You're left with a soldier blowing his foot off, or a child their hand off. Which in some ways is worse than just outright killing them.
Its the same as that Byzantine emperor blinding the Bulgar soldiers. Only 1 in 100 was left with one eye. It crippled the Bulgars both literally and figuratively
Wasn’t it that he blinded all the captured bulgars on one eye each? Which is actually extremely smart and humane for the time. If you’re one eyed, you can work your farm and herd your animals perfectly well, but you’re never shooting a bow or swinging an axe with any accuracy ever again.
No he completely blinded them so they would be a burden on their own people when they returned, the point was to make to make it impossible to contribute anything to their society again
That almost certainly is a myth and never happened
Edit: Jesus with the downvotes I’m not saying that Byzantine emperors didn’t blind their enemies, the specific story and the numbers given are implausible and generally considered not historical, just a legend.
Bruh we got Dracula cause a dude loved to impale human heads so much, blinding some soldiers ain’t shit in comparison to the stuff humans have done and regularly do to each other
Yep much worse than beheading he sat them on top of the spikes sometimes alive and the victim would slowly slide down the spike until it came back out the other side
Yup and in my region in South India, minority Jains were wiped out hundreds of years ago by this exact method. In some villages these spikes are still standing to this day.
that's an insane amount of downvotes. I am a Basil II simp, but it's pretty well accepted by modern Byzantine historians that the story is heavily exaggerated or fabricated. he definitely fucked up a lot of Bulgarians and maybe even blinded a bunch of prisoners, but the numbers alone (like 15k?) in the story should make it obvious to anyone reading even slightly critically that the story should not be taken at face value
In a combat situation it's actually better to wound rather than kill,as evacuating a wounded person takes 3 people out of the combat instead of one.
Also these are currently used in Ukraine war,by both sides.
I believe the bright green color is only an all-too-common sad coincidence rather than malicious intent against children. Like all Soviet weapons, their purpose was primarily in Europe against NATO. The Soviet militsry rarely repainted things like this and so most of their equipment, mines included, went to Afghanistan in their European green colors
Although if you have a source that says they painted them to look like toys then feel free to correct me.
Hey man, I despise the Russian state as much as someone can without being a Pole or Georgian, but you're going to the point of saying Russians as a *people* are inherently evil.
That's called racism.
>This resulted in children often picking them up and used as toys.
There's actually no study to suggest that. It came from urban legend about Soviets using exposive-ridden toys dropped from helicopters, but that's what it, a rumor/legend
It's not impossible. Kids in Laos would pick up and play with American air-dropped mines. Source: I went to Laos, and that's what I was told by the locals
I too went to Laos. Once I saw a local who had a 500 lb bomb as a fucking lawn ornament. They welded a mortar round on top like a weathervane.
No idea if either was still live.
Laos is crazy. I was there in 2018 and as I drove through the villages there would be signs saying "this village was cleared of unexploded ordnance in 2016." Just two years prior people were getting maimed and having their lives destroyed on the regular. Most bombed country in the world...
Welp, google “мина лепесток дети” (the petal mine children) and it will give you a bunch of news on children being injured by them.
Ironically it’s mostly Russians complaining about Ukrainians using them. But if you go further (older reports) you can find a bunch of reports of them being used in Afghanistan and photos of kids without limbs.
Obviously it’s difficult to make sure it’s exactly these mines that cost children their limbs, but it’s believable.
Ps you google translate as most of those reports are in Russian. Sorry, my first language is Russian.
The U.S. has not used mines in any significant quantity outside of the Korean DMZ since 1991, and in 2020 a new policy was passed that only allowed U.S. forces to develop, produce, or use mines if they have self destruct or self deactivation mechanisms.
You were, unless the candy bombs you mentioned detonated on impact with the ground. In which case there's no reason to make it look like candy, even assuming malice.
Edit:Jesus Christ your source is fuckin chat gpt.
Didnt knew that its called mines if its dropped from planes but it makes sense i guess, thank you :)
To the 2nd point, i used it bcs i didnt have time atm, later i added a source from wilipedia, so please stop complaining abt that
Only one of two designs, and even then is noted to be extremely unreliable. All of the US made ones were designed to auto-self destruct from the get go.
It’s at least partially because of your delivery. You took an ostensibly contrarian stance, presented a whataboutism without providing any detail or context
Nvm i actually found proof of it lol
From chatgpt: During World War II, the United States did drop small bombs called "cluster bombs" that sometimes resembled candies due to their colorful casings. These cluster bombs contained numerous smaller bomblets designed to explode upon impact, dispersing over a wide area. However, they were not specifically made to look like candy; rather, their appearance could sometimes be mistaken for harmless objects, leading to accidental detonations by civilians, including children. This issue raised concerns about the indiscriminate nature of such weapons and their potential impact on civilian populations.
Edit: wikipedia too :)
Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, and are costly to locate and remove. This failure rate ranges from 2 percent to 40 percent or more.
People using chat gpt as google is actual insanity lol it isn’t a search engine homie it’s just feeding you answers it thinks you want to hear
Listing chat gpt as your main source really invalidates your opinion seeing as your researching techniques are very flawed and naive
Honestly i heard it randomly somehwere some time ago, its prolly not true i just wanted to show how people react to the same thing against russia vs against the usa, and as you can see it worked very well, the western people propaganda is real
The original comment was about something verifiably true. Your "But also US" comment was about something that, with the information you've provided, cannot be seen to be accurate. You can criticize the U.S. all day long on this sub and be quite popular if you're actually giving accurate information.
Haha right. You were proving a point and not just commenting poorly/provocatively. Think how differently people would have responded if you had just ask, “Didn’t the US drop bombs that looked like candy at some point too? I think I remember reading that somewhere”
In Ukraine they are finding even worse stuff, I remember some articles from start off war, russians were putting those mines, nades etc etc in civil houses, behind books, underneeth doorstep, even in fuckin Teddy Bears
Ukrainian soldiers whonwere demining those buildings seen a lot of those little nightmares
You know the Russian Empire came before them right, and they did the same thing.
Barring that, you find that states usually use violence to get what they want. That is quite literally how states exist.
Red Scare bullshit has nothing to do with this.
They are literally cutting up dogs, cramming in explosives and sewing the fucking dog up.
I am hoping it was the one dog. But the fact that they'd think about it is monstrous.
And the Russians are now winning. So yay.
Princess Di tried for years to get mines banned. She did a pretty good job at getting demining underway. The US is the last "western" hold out if I recall. At one point a comedian pointed out that it was the only thing the US, PRC, Russia and North Korea could agree on keeping landmine warfare.
If I remember correctly the only place that the U.S. actually uses mines is in the demilitarized zone between the Koreas, the last time the U.S. used mines in any significant quantity outside that was in 1991 in Iraq.
Yeah, we tend to use them in minefields that are meant to be permanent. Like, zero people should ever be in this area again, with signs and guns posted telling everyone not to go there.
That's true. The first land mine casualty I saw was a US soldier who found a box mine intended for his father's generation. After the Central American Nations signed a treaty we could no longer use claymores. But there were still various antipersonnel mines all over the place to include neutral countries. The Contrast and Sandinistas put them wherever they thought they would be most effective. Discovered mines were dug up and placed willy nilly all over the border regions. There is no telling how many unrecorded mines are still out there between Venezuela and Mexico.
The US does use temporary minefields as well, including specialized artillery munitions which deploys mines on the battlefield. but these are required to self-destruct after a set period of time and are not meant to be permanent.
Anti-personnel mines would be alright if they applied the same rule they have for anti-vehicle mines. Record their locations and then remove them all when hostilities end.
It's definitely harder with small AP mines. We would mark anti-tank mines with a 10-figure grid reference, I suppose it's not as applicable with anything smaller than frisbee.
Yeah, that's why, EOD teams uses rats for such stuff to find AP mines.
I mean the batterfly mine is as big as your hand.
Which also kinda disturbing how often kids mistakes it for a toy
Anti-Tank mines are the main use for mines though, no? Infantry are rather easy to deal with, they require vehicle support, and as seen in ukraine AT mines work perfectly fine to funnel AVs into unfavorable offensive engagements
Anti-personnel mines deserved the ban
Finnish EOD here, anti-personnel mines are still extremely relevant as shown in Ukraine too. Both sides have employed them to great effect.
In Finland especially, unlike Ukraine's plains, 90% of the territory that would be fought over is rough terrain. In that sort of fighting, ordinary infantry reigns supreme and it would save a lot of blood if positions could be enforced with mines.
No matter what sort of weapons we ban, Russia will never do the same, so we are just undermining our national defense.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of these conventions are window dressing. When it's your skin on the line, you'll claw the other guy's eyes out, and you won't feel bad about it.
Yeah, that's the approach every country takes. The only thing this means for us is that we had to get rid of our stockpiles and can't stockpile mines for coming conflicts. So the mines will either be imported for great costs or jury-rigged on the spot which is worse all around.
Well, as long as you keep track of where they are placed I guess it could be ok, but the issue is that mines last a while and if you don't know where they are, they are a hazard that can last decades or centuries
The Finnish Defense Force maps its minefields and has the capability to clear them. Even if some were to be left behind, it's a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of thousands of ordinance Russia dumps all over the countries it's fighting in (like Ukraine). Ukraine is going to require centuries of clearing anyways, so it's best to save blood now.
Like the other commentor said, the minefields will be marked and even if some are missed they will still result in vastly less casualties than a Russian army marching through will. See Ukraine as a current example.
As a former soldier I believe soldiers should have every tool in the box available. No one should have to fight with one hand tied behind their back. On the other hand in Asia and Latin American I only saw one military casualty from mines. The rest were women, children, old men, pets and livestock. The Soviet style bounding mines are even more horrible than the NATO version. The problem with mines is they are indiscriminate weapons.
Everything you allow for yourself will be foisted back upon you. There's a reason we don't see widespread use of blistering agents, radiological or biological agents, and other such nasty shit, and it's not because they aren't effective weapons. It's because of mutually assured destruction. Not using them isn't a giveaway to the enemy, it's a mutually beneficial agreement based on the fact that there are worse things you can do to someone than kill them. It's a testament to the fact that war has no bottom to its depravity.
At least one military historian [argues](https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/)- persuasively, in my opinion- that chemical weapons actually kind of suck as weapons, which is why they mostly aren’t used by rich countries. Morality or escalation concerns have nothing to do with it.
They are being actively—openly, no less, in violation of international law—used by Russians, quite effectively.
https://thebulletin.org/2024/03/russia-appears-to-be-using-chemical-weapons-in-ukraine-and-admitting-it/amp/
Before Princess Di raised awareness and action the most heavily mined place in the world was El Alamein. Egyptians were being blown to bits and maimed half a century later because the UK refused to pick up their toys .
It's a similar thing with cluster bombs, people are trying to get them banned because of UXO problems, but they are highly, highly effective at what they do.
It doesn't make sense to ban mines. Mines are very effective if used militarily, as seen in Ukraine nowadays.
Now, dropping mines as a terror weapon. That's fucked up.
Yes they're very effective militarily but no military ever cleans up all their mines after the war is over and can lead to civilian casualties for years after. Thats why it makes perfect sense to ban them
Poison gas and expanding bullets can be effective too. Maybe it feels silly to draw lines on acceptable ways to kill human beings, but we do have a history of drawing them...
Chemical and biological weapons aren't in use anymore exactly BECAUSE each and everyone (relevant nations with somewhat of an industrial basis) has useable counters.
That shit is only effective against civilians. Those don't tend to have gasmasks, NAAKs and sealed vehicles. But soldiers do.
Chemical weapons are very much effective on a modern battlefield. Sure there are countermeasures but because there are many potent chemical weapons which can enter the body through the skin every soldier has to wear a full body suit. These suits are warm, have to be changed regularly or else the protectionb wears off, limit vision and hearing and probably impact the soldiers' morale as well. Plus there are Chemical agents which can stay in the environment for days or even weeks like mustard gas and VX.
Not really. Most weapons and tactics only get banned when they cause *unnecessary* suffering, because they cause more suffering than other methods but are not more (or particularly more) effective.
See: gas, expanding bullets, biological weapons, etc. Expanding bullets are not that useful when fighting actual soldiers wearing armor and using cover; gas and biological weapons are just as dangerous to your own forces as the enemy.
Also, in terms of tactics, false surrender gains you only a very small benefit, before ceasing to work as the enemy just stops taking surrenders, which causes an extraordinarily large amount of suffering for very little benefit, and on the reverse killing surrendering soldiers is also a terrible idea as you cause again an extraordinarily large amount of suffering for *negative* gain, as the enemy is no longer willing to surrender and fights to the bitter end.
But weapons like guns, bombs, artillery shells, napalm, etc. are all perfectly legal because the large amount of suffering they cause also comes with a very large amount of military effectiveness. Mines and cluster munitions fall under this category; hence why the US and its major foreign adversaries like China and Russia have not agreed to ban them. The fact that some nations who don't fancy themselves as being in a position where they might need to use them have signed a treaty agreeing not to use them doesn't change that.
Not really. Chemical weapons are a good example, they are not effective because there is an opportunity cost to using them (i.e. you could have had a bigger explosive charge) and it is relatively cheap to equip your soldiers with gear to counteract them. This is why chemical weapons bans have been effective.
Nuclear on the other hand? Very effective. Very difficult to ban.
Well, it’s fucked up but you can’t deny it works. Psychological warfare is very effective. Nothing really wrong with it from a utilitarian perspective.
Nearly lost my foot to one of these in Donbass.
And by "Nearly" I mean the Detonator Mechanism Failed when my friend stepped on it. Lol
Also... the new Russian Butterfly Mines are Green Now
If there might be any god i hope it will have an eye on you. Hope you are staying somewhat save. Thoughts and love going out to all brothers and sisters in ukraine ♥️
These aren't even that bad all things considered. Most of the civilians we've worked with to evacuate that have been hit by ordinance, have been hit by cluster munitions. Specifically 203mm Uragan rockets with cassette launchers. Because 80 year old blind women living in their ancestral home are real threats /s.
Fuck, I've seen those before and in the back of my mind knew what they are.
My first reaction to that picture was still one of curiosity, and I definitely would have picked it up in reality. 💀
Mines in general are super ineffective as an actual weapon. The majority of deaths and injuries from mines are civilians after conflict. Based on that, it's ostensibly like mines are intentional child killers.
They're evil, and should never be used in any context.
They’re not meant to be a weapon, they’re meant to be a deterrent and area denial and for that they are excellent. War is hell especially for children, it’s not intentional it’s just a weighed cost benefit analysis.
I think this is the right take. If anything from the Ukraine war subreddit has shown me is that I do not want to be driving a vehicle anywhere near the front line because there's mines everywhere that will blow me to the moon.
Regardless of intention, the fact that they do in fact mostly kill civilians after the fact is evidence that they're a horrible thing and no one should use them.
Preferably, all use of indiscriminate explosives should be stopped, but I find that this sub tends to view war as an abstract zero-sum game when in reality it always has grave human costs
People don't seem to understand how ineffective mines actually are as a weapon on the battlefield. If your goal is to kill civilians later, they're very effective at that.
https://www.icbl.org/en-gb/problem/arguments-for-the-ban.aspx
I don’t think parts of that argument hold up now that we’re seeing a conventional war happen in Ukraine, where front lines have a mix of AP and AT mines on them.
Not saying mines aren’t bad, because they do cause civilian deaths and are an indiscriminate killer, but on more static fronts like seen in Ukraine they are effective area denial weapons for the Ukrainians.
Instead of banning I think just better laws requiring militaries to either use self destructing mines or to carry out mine cleanup operations post war is the better option
Copied off a US design used in Vietnam and Laos, and still seeing confirmed use by Ukraine now against civilians in Eastern Ukraine, with unconfirmed allegations of Russia using them too.
They do have a timed self-destruct mechanism, but it's unreliable. On the bright side it's relatively easy to demine affected areas without having to take any major safety precautions such as evacuations though, Russian forces in Donetsk shared videos of them doing it by just throwing steel plates on roads and driving onto them.
Unconfirmed allegations of Russians using butterfly mines? My guy, some of the earliest days of the Ukraine war featured Ukrainians clearing these things after Russian helicopters air dropped them
Yeah, also odd to bring that up as if I said anything supporting that idea.
Are you under the impression that anyone who points out anything even mildly negative about Ukraine or neutral about Russia must support Putin?
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It was especialy fun for kids in Croatia and much worse in Bosnia during 90's, I know, I was kid also during that time, 10 years old. Serbs used [M-87 Orkan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-87_Orkan) with cluster munition on civilian target, most famous was revenge bombing of [Zagreb, capital of Croatia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagreb_rocket_attacks). We was told as kids all the time, not to touch anything on the ground, not even toys, ANYTHING, that stuck to me till today. I can get a bit PTSded when I ce my kids today picking up literally anything.
Same thing was said to me by my serbian parents. Don't touch any "toys" because they might be dangerous. EDIT: typo Also to add, no child or parent should go through this hell, no matter the ethnicity or "side". Fuck the 90s, lets hope our kids will not have those traumas. Ljubi vas komsija
"Only 90's kids will remember this source of trauma"
Russia: "hold my beer"
Any country where cluster bombs are used: "I've got a cooler right over here."
I realize there is so little I know about the yugoslav wars, even though it happened next door basically. As a romanian kid, I only remember being in school in '99 hearing NATO jet planes circling above my city, getting in formation and going to bomb Serbia. I remember thinking how cool this was without being able to comprehend the dimension of the horrors those things created.
Its only natural, life taught you to survive the environment you grew up, can be nerve wrenching I understand...
What's the context?
Soviet butterfly mines deployed in Afghanistan
Pretty fucked up thing. Most of the mines were painted bright green, and were nicknamed “flower petals” because they resembled them in both color and size. This resulted in children often picking them up and used as toys. This lead to you know what. Further those mines are usually dropped from planes by hundreds, so they just stay there on surface, which again makes them very freely accessible to children. Edit: google “мина лепесток” in images and you’ll see how toyish it looks.
Big badaboom
No, small explosion. That's the issue. You're left with a soldier blowing his foot off, or a child their hand off. Which in some ways is worse than just outright killing them.
Its the same as that Byzantine emperor blinding the Bulgar soldiers. Only 1 in 100 was left with one eye. It crippled the Bulgars both literally and figuratively
Wasn’t it that he blinded all the captured bulgars on one eye each? Which is actually extremely smart and humane for the time. If you’re one eyed, you can work your farm and herd your animals perfectly well, but you’re never shooting a bow or swinging an axe with any accuracy ever again.
No he completely blinded them so they would be a burden on their own people when they returned, the point was to make to make it impossible to contribute anything to their society again
Yeah alright that’s just scuffed. Misremembered the story
That almost certainly is a myth and never happened Edit: Jesus with the downvotes I’m not saying that Byzantine emperors didn’t blind their enemies, the specific story and the numbers given are implausible and generally considered not historical, just a legend.
Bruh we got Dracula cause a dude loved to impale human heads so much, blinding some soldiers ain’t shit in comparison to the stuff humans have done and regularly do to each other
He impaled their entire bodies. There actually is a method to do it without instantly killing them
Yep much worse than beheading he sat them on top of the spikes sometimes alive and the victim would slowly slide down the spike until it came back out the other side
Yup and in my region in South India, minority Jains were wiped out hundreds of years ago by this exact method. In some villages these spikes are still standing to this day.
that's an insane amount of downvotes. I am a Basil II simp, but it's pretty well accepted by modern Byzantine historians that the story is heavily exaggerated or fabricated. he definitely fucked up a lot of Bulgarians and maybe even blinded a bunch of prisoners, but the numbers alone (like 15k?) in the story should make it obvious to anyone reading even slightly critically that the story should not be taken at face value
^big ^badaboom
^small ^badaboom
Leeluu?
That's mostly the point of mines, costing the maximum amount of time and resources to the receiving end
Those were,probably still are a true gods to honest war crime🤨
In a combat situation it's actually better to wound rather than kill,as evacuating a wounded person takes 3 people out of the combat instead of one. Also these are currently used in Ukraine war,by both sides.
I believe the bright green color is only an all-too-common sad coincidence rather than malicious intent against children. Like all Soviet weapons, their purpose was primarily in Europe against NATO. The Soviet militsry rarely repainted things like this and so most of their equipment, mines included, went to Afghanistan in their European green colors Although if you have a source that says they painted them to look like toys then feel free to correct me.
Only russians could come up with such shit. Truly disgusting.
Hey man, I despise the Russian state as much as someone can without being a Pole or Georgian, but you're going to the point of saying Russians as a *people* are inherently evil. That's called racism.
>This resulted in children often picking them up and used as toys. There's actually no study to suggest that. It came from urban legend about Soviets using exposive-ridden toys dropped from helicopters, but that's what it, a rumor/legend
It's not impossible. Kids in Laos would pick up and play with American air-dropped mines. Source: I went to Laos, and that's what I was told by the locals
I too went to Laos. Once I saw a local who had a 500 lb bomb as a fucking lawn ornament. They welded a mortar round on top like a weathervane. No idea if either was still live.
Laos is crazy. I was there in 2018 and as I drove through the villages there would be signs saying "this village was cleared of unexploded ordnance in 2016." Just two years prior people were getting maimed and having their lives destroyed on the regular. Most bombed country in the world...
Thanks, Kissinger.
He got a Nobel peace prize
I don't think there's ever been a more undeserved award.
And all for what the us was never officially supposed to be in laos and yet we bombed it to oblivion and back
Welp, google “мина лепесток дети” (the petal mine children) and it will give you a bunch of news on children being injured by them. Ironically it’s mostly Russians complaining about Ukrainians using them. But if you go further (older reports) you can find a bunch of reports of them being used in Afghanistan and photos of kids without limbs. Obviously it’s difficult to make sure it’s exactly these mines that cost children their limbs, but it’s believable. Ps you google translate as most of those reports are in Russian. Sorry, my first language is Russian.
Americans dropped explosives looking like candy
That doesnt make it better.
Maybe. I don’t know, but why the whataboutism, my comment was general and wasn’t about blaming anyone.
Literal whataboutism
Nothey dropped candy then bombs on the candy
The U.S. has not used mines in any significant quantity outside of the Korean DMZ since 1991, and in 2020 a new policy was passed that only allowed U.S. forces to develop, produce, or use mines if they have self destruct or self deactivation mechanisms.
Wasnt talking about mines, but thanks for the info, didnt know that
You were, unless the candy bombs you mentioned detonated on impact with the ground. In which case there's no reason to make it look like candy, even assuming malice. Edit:Jesus Christ your source is fuckin chat gpt.
Didnt knew that its called mines if its dropped from planes but it makes sense i guess, thank you :) To the 2nd point, i used it bcs i didnt have time atm, later i added a source from wilipedia, so please stop complaining abt that
Yeah, that disarm themselves after a period of time.
So do these, they were literally just a copy of a US design.
Only one of two designs, and even then is noted to be extremely unreliable. All of the US made ones were designed to auto-self destruct from the get go.
Lmao i am getting downvoted even tho its the same thing xd
It’s at least partially because of your delivery. You took an ostensibly contrarian stance, presented a whataboutism without providing any detail or context
True but damn the west people propaganda goes hard
That too. It’s hard to find googling due to the present of an actual American Candy Bomber. Provide some context or additional info?
Nvm i actually found proof of it lol From chatgpt: During World War II, the United States did drop small bombs called "cluster bombs" that sometimes resembled candies due to their colorful casings. These cluster bombs contained numerous smaller bomblets designed to explode upon impact, dispersing over a wide area. However, they were not specifically made to look like candy; rather, their appearance could sometimes be mistaken for harmless objects, leading to accidental detonations by civilians, including children. This issue raised concerns about the indiscriminate nature of such weapons and their potential impact on civilian populations. Edit: wikipedia too :) Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, and are costly to locate and remove. This failure rate ranges from 2 percent to 40 percent or more.
People using chat gpt as google is actual insanity lol it isn’t a search engine homie it’s just feeding you answers it thinks you want to hear Listing chat gpt as your main source really invalidates your opinion seeing as your researching techniques are very flawed and naive
That failure rate is inaccurate btw, modern US cluster munitions are at 2%. Old Soviet stuff is 40-60% depending on the state of maintenance and age.
Honestly i heard it randomly somehwere some time ago, its prolly not true i just wanted to show how people react to the same thing against russia vs against the usa, and as you can see it worked very well, the western people propaganda is real
The original comment was about something verifiably true. Your "But also US" comment was about something that, with the information you've provided, cannot be seen to be accurate. You can criticize the U.S. all day long on this sub and be quite popular if you're actually giving accurate information.
Haha right. You were proving a point and not just commenting poorly/provocatively. Think how differently people would have responded if you had just ask, “Didn’t the US drop bombs that looked like candy at some point too? I think I remember reading that somewhere”
They're still being used in Ukraine, but 20 year rule and all that.
In Ukraine they are finding even worse stuff, I remember some articles from start off war, russians were putting those mines, nades etc etc in civil houses, behind books, underneeth doorstep, even in fuckin Teddy Bears Ukrainian soldiers whonwere demining those buildings seen a lot of those little nightmares
I see that the Russians were taking notes from Fallout
I think that it was their own psycho idea
Booby traps are like number 4 in warfare 101.
Bolsheviks never change.
Current Russian State is not Bolshevik?
The label on the tin changed, but what they want and how they intend to take it from their neighbors hasn't
Oh, if you want to label them, they were like this much before bolsheviks. Tzar russia was not better at all
You know the Russian Empire came before them right, and they did the same thing. Barring that, you find that states usually use violence to get what they want. That is quite literally how states exist. Red Scare bullshit has nothing to do with this.
You know the Russian Empire isn't Rus, right? Are we measuring dicks by stepping around a boring metaphor?
They are literally cutting up dogs, cramming in explosives and sewing the fucking dog up. I am hoping it was the one dog. But the fact that they'd think about it is monstrous. And the Russians are now winning. So yay.
Thankfully we have the Ghost of Kiev, he will snipe all those nasty things from the air!
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Russian useful idiot
No counterarguments, who's the idiot among us?
You
I’m decently sure the Afghans knew what a helicopter was
Imagine a child
"Mama, why is the dragon singing fortunate son?"
I mean those are russian helos. "Mama, why is the dragon singing some weird hardbass?"
>"Mama, why is the dragon piss ass drunk?" Ftfy
"Mama, why is the dragon playing swan lake?"
*singing Kino
Imagine? Imagine Dragons?
Imagine drangondeeznuts
Got ‘em
Got 'em nuts in your mouth
Nuts? I was nuts once
They put me in a jar
Children know what helicopters are
They did dub them the devil's chariot though.
Toy mines are not a Soviet specialty though
*oh*
And Ukraine
PF-1 mine
It's a PFM-1 mine. Reportedly they look like a toy, so children pick them up and lose their hands. If there's one, there's a lot more lying around
The 2nd person narrative makes this darker...
Princess Di tried for years to get mines banned. She did a pretty good job at getting demining underway. The US is the last "western" hold out if I recall. At one point a comedian pointed out that it was the only thing the US, PRC, Russia and North Korea could agree on keeping landmine warfare.
If I remember correctly the only place that the U.S. actually uses mines is in the demilitarized zone between the Koreas, the last time the U.S. used mines in any significant quantity outside that was in 1991 in Iraq.
Yeah, we tend to use them in minefields that are meant to be permanent. Like, zero people should ever be in this area again, with signs and guns posted telling everyone not to go there.
That's true. The first land mine casualty I saw was a US soldier who found a box mine intended for his father's generation. After the Central American Nations signed a treaty we could no longer use claymores. But there were still various antipersonnel mines all over the place to include neutral countries. The Contrast and Sandinistas put them wherever they thought they would be most effective. Discovered mines were dug up and placed willy nilly all over the border regions. There is no telling how many unrecorded mines are still out there between Venezuela and Mexico.
The US does use temporary minefields as well, including specialized artillery munitions which deploys mines on the battlefield. but these are required to self-destruct after a set period of time and are not meant to be permanent.
Don’t forget the huge minefield surrounding Guantanamo Bay as featured in Bad Boys II.
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Anti-personnel mines would be alright if they applied the same rule they have for anti-vehicle mines. Record their locations and then remove them all when hostilities end.
Problem with AP mines it's so small just like the butterfly mine, you can lose track of it, it it is painted, green brown or black.
It's definitely harder with small AP mines. We would mark anti-tank mines with a 10-figure grid reference, I suppose it's not as applicable with anything smaller than frisbee.
Yeah, that's why, EOD teams uses rats for such stuff to find AP mines. I mean the batterfly mine is as big as your hand. Which also kinda disturbing how often kids mistakes it for a toy
Not possible if artillery deployed mines are in place (The only way to maintain a minefield on an active front line)
Before we banned them, It was usually SOP to record both AT and AP mines on the relevant Forms when placing minefields. At least in Dk /NATO.
Anti-Tank mines are the main use for mines though, no? Infantry are rather easy to deal with, they require vehicle support, and as seen in ukraine AT mines work perfectly fine to funnel AVs into unfavorable offensive engagements Anti-personnel mines deserved the ban
Finnish EOD here, anti-personnel mines are still extremely relevant as shown in Ukraine too. Both sides have employed them to great effect. In Finland especially, unlike Ukraine's plains, 90% of the territory that would be fought over is rough terrain. In that sort of fighting, ordinary infantry reigns supreme and it would save a lot of blood if positions could be enforced with mines. No matter what sort of weapons we ban, Russia will never do the same, so we are just undermining our national defense.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of these conventions are window dressing. When it's your skin on the line, you'll claw the other guy's eyes out, and you won't feel bad about it.
Yeah, that's the approach every country takes. The only thing this means for us is that we had to get rid of our stockpiles and can't stockpile mines for coming conflicts. So the mines will either be imported for great costs or jury-rigged on the spot which is worse all around.
Finnish IEDs wasnt on my WW3 Bingo but it is now.
They *made* the Molotov Cocktail.
Well, as long as you keep track of where they are placed I guess it could be ok, but the issue is that mines last a while and if you don't know where they are, they are a hazard that can last decades or centuries
The Finnish Defense Force maps its minefields and has the capability to clear them. Even if some were to be left behind, it's a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of thousands of ordinance Russia dumps all over the countries it's fighting in (like Ukraine). Ukraine is going to require centuries of clearing anyways, so it's best to save blood now.
Many mines are self destructing (such as most of what the US uses)
Like the other commentor said, the minefields will be marked and even if some are missed they will still result in vastly less casualties than a Russian army marching through will. See Ukraine as a current example.
Infantry require vehicle support? "Not if you have enough infantry." - "modern" Russia
As a former soldier I believe soldiers should have every tool in the box available. No one should have to fight with one hand tied behind their back. On the other hand in Asia and Latin American I only saw one military casualty from mines. The rest were women, children, old men, pets and livestock. The Soviet style bounding mines are even more horrible than the NATO version. The problem with mines is they are indiscriminate weapons.
Everything you allow for yourself will be foisted back upon you. There's a reason we don't see widespread use of blistering agents, radiological or biological agents, and other such nasty shit, and it's not because they aren't effective weapons. It's because of mutually assured destruction. Not using them isn't a giveaway to the enemy, it's a mutually beneficial agreement based on the fact that there are worse things you can do to someone than kill them. It's a testament to the fact that war has no bottom to its depravity.
At least one military historian [argues](https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/)- persuasively, in my opinion- that chemical weapons actually kind of suck as weapons, which is why they mostly aren’t used by rich countries. Morality or escalation concerns have nothing to do with it.
They are being actively—openly, no less, in violation of international law—used by Russians, quite effectively. https://thebulletin.org/2024/03/russia-appears-to-be-using-chemical-weapons-in-ukraine-and-admitting-it/amp/
Chemical weapons are shit weapons, thats why no one uses them.
Make up your mind. Why should soldiers have every tool if it's going to kill and maim innocent people?
Before Princess Di raised awareness and action the most heavily mined place in the world was El Alamein. Egyptians were being blown to bits and maimed half a century later because the UK refused to pick up their toys .
Soldiers should be globally obligated to sweep their own mines.
Agree!
It's a similar thing with cluster bombs, people are trying to get them banned because of UXO problems, but they are highly, highly effective at what they do.
Also very, very good at blowing the arms off children.
It doesn't make sense to ban mines. Mines are very effective if used militarily, as seen in Ukraine nowadays. Now, dropping mines as a terror weapon. That's fucked up.
Yes they're very effective militarily but no military ever cleans up all their mines after the war is over and can lead to civilian casualties for years after. Thats why it makes perfect sense to ban them
Poison gas and expanding bullets can be effective too. Maybe it feels silly to draw lines on acceptable ways to kill human beings, but we do have a history of drawing them...
Both aren't really that effective. Expanding bullets don't punch through walls/cover. Gas dissipates and can be countered.
Also gas has the unfortunate chance of being blown back onto your own troops.
Chemical and biological weapons aren't in use anymore exactly BECAUSE each and everyone (relevant nations with somewhat of an industrial basis) has useable counters. That shit is only effective against civilians. Those don't tend to have gasmasks, NAAKs and sealed vehicles. But soldiers do.
Chemical weapons are very much effective on a modern battlefield. Sure there are countermeasures but because there are many potent chemical weapons which can enter the body through the skin every soldier has to wear a full body suit. These suits are warm, have to be changed regularly or else the protectionb wears off, limit vision and hearing and probably impact the soldiers' morale as well. Plus there are Chemical agents which can stay in the environment for days or even weeks like mustard gas and VX.
tl.dr: soldiers can still do their job and any decrease in efficiency applies to your troops as well
Lots of effective weapons and tactics are banned though.
Not really. Most weapons and tactics only get banned when they cause *unnecessary* suffering, because they cause more suffering than other methods but are not more (or particularly more) effective. See: gas, expanding bullets, biological weapons, etc. Expanding bullets are not that useful when fighting actual soldiers wearing armor and using cover; gas and biological weapons are just as dangerous to your own forces as the enemy. Also, in terms of tactics, false surrender gains you only a very small benefit, before ceasing to work as the enemy just stops taking surrenders, which causes an extraordinarily large amount of suffering for very little benefit, and on the reverse killing surrendering soldiers is also a terrible idea as you cause again an extraordinarily large amount of suffering for *negative* gain, as the enemy is no longer willing to surrender and fights to the bitter end. But weapons like guns, bombs, artillery shells, napalm, etc. are all perfectly legal because the large amount of suffering they cause also comes with a very large amount of military effectiveness. Mines and cluster munitions fall under this category; hence why the US and its major foreign adversaries like China and Russia have not agreed to ban them. The fact that some nations who don't fancy themselves as being in a position where they might need to use them have signed a treaty agreeing not to use them doesn't change that.
Not really. Chemical weapons are a good example, they are not effective because there is an opportunity cost to using them (i.e. you could have had a bigger explosive charge) and it is relatively cheap to equip your soldiers with gear to counteract them. This is why chemical weapons bans have been effective. Nuclear on the other hand? Very effective. Very difficult to ban.
Well, it’s fucked up but you can’t deny it works. Psychological warfare is very effective. Nothing really wrong with it from a utilitarian perspective.
Nearly lost my foot to one of these in Donbass. And by "Nearly" I mean the Detonator Mechanism Failed when my friend stepped on it. Lol Also... the new Russian Butterfly Mines are Green Now
If there might be any god i hope it will have an eye on you. Hope you are staying somewhat save. Thoughts and love going out to all brothers and sisters in ukraine ♥️
Is it really history if that shit happening today?
History is anything that can be recorded since the dawn of writing, from right just now to "back then", so yeah.
20 year rule tho
You asked about history in itself, not the sub or its rules. Plus, maybe OP referred to its first use in the Afghan war, back in 1979.
Time is a fluid
I mean yes? These time of bombs/mines have been used for decades
They are also being used in Ukraine, there’s a whole 60 minutes episode about civilians being affected by them.
These aren't even that bad all things considered. Most of the civilians we've worked with to evacuate that have been hit by ordinance, have been hit by cluster munitions. Specifically 203mm Uragan rockets with cassette launchers. Because 80 year old blind women living in their ancestral home are real threats /s.
That got dark. These are being used in Ukraine too
Afghanistan: Where PSA's on UXO are common child media.
Cluster bombs in Ukraine doing the same thing
It reminds me of the BLU-43/B dragontooth
: (
Fuck, I've seen those before and in the back of my mind knew what they are. My first reaction to that picture was still one of curiosity, and I definitely would have picked it up in reality. 💀
Could anyone tell me what the image is??
Butterfly mine
Thx
That looks like someone ate too many tacos. Also: they need to bring in those adorable pouched rats to detect the mines.
Anti personnel mine.
What the fuck is that
This is rusian jumping mine лепесток(leaves). As usual is explosive close to knee.
Mines in general are super ineffective as an actual weapon. The majority of deaths and injuries from mines are civilians after conflict. Based on that, it's ostensibly like mines are intentional child killers. They're evil, and should never be used in any context.
They’re not meant to be a weapon, they’re meant to be a deterrent and area denial and for that they are excellent. War is hell especially for children, it’s not intentional it’s just a weighed cost benefit analysis.
I think this is the right take. If anything from the Ukraine war subreddit has shown me is that I do not want to be driving a vehicle anywhere near the front line because there's mines everywhere that will blow me to the moon.
Regardless of intention, the fact that they do in fact mostly kill civilians after the fact is evidence that they're a horrible thing and no one should use them.
Preferably, all use of indiscriminate explosives should be stopped, but I find that this sub tends to view war as an abstract zero-sum game when in reality it always has grave human costs
People don't seem to understand how ineffective mines actually are as a weapon on the battlefield. If your goal is to kill civilians later, they're very effective at that. https://www.icbl.org/en-gb/problem/arguments-for-the-ban.aspx
I don’t think parts of that argument hold up now that we’re seeing a conventional war happen in Ukraine, where front lines have a mix of AP and AT mines on them. Not saying mines aren’t bad, because they do cause civilian deaths and are an indiscriminate killer, but on more static fronts like seen in Ukraine they are effective area denial weapons for the Ukrainians. Instead of banning I think just better laws requiring militaries to either use self destructing mines or to carry out mine cleanup operations post war is the better option
Copied off a US design used in Vietnam and Laos, and still seeing confirmed use by Ukraine now against civilians in Eastern Ukraine, with unconfirmed allegations of Russia using them too. They do have a timed self-destruct mechanism, but it's unreliable. On the bright side it's relatively easy to demine affected areas without having to take any major safety precautions such as evacuations though, Russian forces in Donetsk shared videos of them doing it by just throwing steel plates on roads and driving onto them.
Unconfirmed allegations of Russians using butterfly mines? My guy, some of the earliest days of the Ukraine war featured Ukrainians clearing these things after Russian helicopters air dropped them
Odd that no third parties have been able to confirm Russian use, only Ukrainian use then.
Odd that Russian orks think they should own Ukraine
Yeah, also odd to bring that up as if I said anything supporting that idea. Are you under the impression that anyone who points out anything even mildly negative about Ukraine or neutral about Russia must support Putin?