Claymore Camera makes a dumb mine much smarter

This is interesting... some claymore mines (which sit above ground and are triggered by remote control or by trip wires) are being outfitted with cameras to help better identify targets. Here is an excerpt form the original story on gizmag.com.

An age-old problem in battlefield scenarios is collateral damage (i.e. casualties caused by traditional anti-personnel land mines), nowadays the problem is still, to some extent, present due to the imprecise detonation of the command-detonated Claymore mines which have taken the place of old-fashioned AP mines.

This innovative and inexpensive product is a great tool to avoid the loss of innocent lives by mistake, solving the problem of not knowing what the mine is detonated against, but, above all, it turns regular dumb mines into intelligent mines which represents a revolutionary progress in minefield technology. A Claymore Camera Standard Kit is composed of a 50 meters reel of cable connected with MIL connectors to the standard Giraffe tactical ruggedized display unit. The camera is a 380 TV lines IR unit (higher definitions, up to 600 TV lines are available as well as lengths of cable up to 200 meters).

Read the rest of this article here. See the image gallery here.

We can't outlaw war, sadly, but technology can help avoid civilian casualties. Inexpensive cameras are one way to help reduce innocent victims of the claymore ... now why can't we figure out a way to make a cluster bomb inert after it has been lying around for a few days? Argh...

This reminds me of a YouTube video I posted here some time ago. My favorite line in the piece: "If some bombs are smart, then cluster munitions are destructive morons".