RE: Mines, detection of

You wrote: 

>Around dusk they'd fly over a suspected or known minefield in a
>helicopter.  Scanning the ground with an IR scope, certain mines would
>show up due too the difference in temperatures between the mines and 
the >cooling ground around them.

That 'some' makes me nervous.  :)  But then again I'm a nervous kinda 
guy.  SGLI is all well and good in theory, but I don't want my next o' 
kin to find out how good it is in practice, capice?[1]	I think I 
permitted mine detectors in VTOLs, flying low and slow.  If not I 
should have.

>Sheep herds would be used.  Bad for sheep, but better a dead sheep 
than >a dead person.  They would literally drive a sheep herd over a 
field and >see if anything was tripped.

Good method, but has the major disadvantage that if your enemy has a 
large-caliber machine gun overwatching the minefield (as he should). . 
. Not really practical in combat, I'd say.

>The coolest thing about these methods is the mix of low tech and high
>tech.

When it all comes down, there is still no substitute for a sapper with 
a stick, probing carefully once every inch.

[1]SGLI, Serviceman's Group Life Insurance, the only life insurance 
policy that specifically covers acts of war.

John M. Atkinson