Mine/UXO Clearance

Innovative Approaches

Eleven years of work in live mine fields throughout the world, each with its own unique problems, requires extensive innovation and adaptation. RONCO has thrived in this environment and continuously develops innovative systems to deal with mine/UXO clearance.

Explosives are required to destroy the mines and UXO that are located/lifted. The movement of these explosives e.g., C-4, by commercial transport is next to impossible and, when done, is extremely expensive. RONCO now uses oil well perforators that have been modified by RONCO, after extensive testing, to achieve the same "high order" detonation received from C-4. Perforators can be shipped via commercial carriers. We are now achieving high order detonation with a less expensive system that can be shipped with relative ease.

When destroying mines and UXO that are in close proximity to buildings and populated areas, a low-order detonation (a very hot burn with no explosion) is required. RONCO has adapted hot burning flares to fill this need. Through this testing and adaptation, we now achieve a 90 to 95% success rate with low order detonations.

One of RONCO's highly innovative approaches: the use of oil well perforators to destroy landmines and UXO.

Flails are an important component of RONCO’s demining "took kit." Their use has evolved more from their vegetation cutting capability than detonating AP mines. By operating flails so the chains are just touching the ground, they eliminate all heavy vegetation and trip wires. With the vegetation removed, RONCO mine detecting dogs have easier access to the area so the speed of operation is greatly enhanced. With this approach RONCO’s ability to clear suspected and actual mine fields is greatly accelerated.

In Namibia, RONCO was tasked with clearance of electric transmission pylons over a 160 kilometer stretch. Although all mines had been scraped into "berms" at the base of each pylon, the danger from lethal mines remained. After trying sophisticated "berm sifters" with limited success, we locally fabricated a steel box on legs with a steel grate in the bottom of the box. When an armored front-end loader dumped existing berm material into the box, the dirt drops through and the mines and large rocks remain. It is then a simple matter of carefully removing the mines that remained in the steel box. This "low tech" approach was highly successful.