Re: [sg] platoon stuff and combat engineers

--- "K.H.Ranitzsch" <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de> wrote:

> Certainly.
> 
> But I guess that we have somewhat more of them than
> the average US city,
> especially in that they are trained to deal with
> WWII ordnance. 

Well, the US has a lot of bomb techs in police
departments, but they are more trained to deal with
IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices, ie mail bombs,
pipe bombs, etc).  Military ordnance is (surprisingly)
the province of Army EOD units.  I'm told that every
now and them some WWII veteran dies and his wife ends
up calling the police, who call the Army to deal with
a collection of stuff the dear departed collected,
say, in 1945 in Germany.  

> When I went to school in the early 1960's, we were
> taught to recognize
> ordnance, not !!!!! to handle it and to inform the
> police.

Which is absolutely right.

Growing up on military posts I remember a few of those
presentations about not picking up duds.  
 
> Maybe I exaggerated my original statement about
> everyday mine breaching, but
> in a mine-ridden country, the population will know
> better how to deal with
> the risks and there will be more trained disposal
> personnel.

Hopefully.  It depends.  If you've got a country
that's being rebuilt by it's occupying powers as a
futue bulwark against the Godless Communists, then
obviously demining and dud clearance will get a lot of
resources to set up the training programs and so
forth.	If you've got some dustball that no one really
cares about, you've got to wait for the UN or some
humanitarian NGO to get the program in place--which
usually requires a ceasefire or something.  These
things don't just 'happen', they have to be started
with a cadre of trained experts.  Trial and error
works for some things, but not demining.

On the other hand, Afghanis and Viets both became
moderately proficient in lifting mines and moving them
to places where their original users did not intend. 
Of course, this was really rough on the no-gos.
 
> BTW, from some of the documentaries I have seen on
> the subject, third-world
> mine clearance workers often get pretty basic
> training and equipment for the
> job.

Yup.  I've heard some stories about factions in Bosnia
demining that make my skin crawl.

John

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