Mine Detection

Land mines, especially those with little metal content, have been used extensively by the warring factions in the former Yugoslavia, and up to seven million mines are believed to be in the region. Before the deployment of U.S. troops in the area, U.N. forces were involved in 174 land mine incidents in Bosnia, which included 204 casualties and 20 deaths. The ability of the Army's AN/PSS-12 portable mine detector to locate low-metal mines has not been clearly demonstrated. The AN/PSS-12 performed poorly against low-metal targets in operational tests. The AN/PSS-12's testing history suggests that the detector may have only limited application in Bosnia, where most of the buried mines are of the low-metal variety. Although the Army claims that the AN/PSS-12 has performed well in Bosnia, other sources raise questions about the detector's abilities there. The Air Force recently cautioned its explosive ordnance technicians in Bosnia that the AN/PSS-12 is not sensitive enough to detect the low-metal mines that they may encounter. In addition, an Army report on U.S. operations in Somalia says that the detector could not find low-metal mines. In Bosnia, U.S. troops have been able to pick routes that avoid minefields or they use heavy equipment, such as vehicles equipped with rollers, to clear paths. The resulting infrequent reliance on the AN/PSS-12 helps explain why its shortcomings in testing may not have been borne out in Bosnia.

GAO found that: (1) the Army has not clearly demonstrated the ability of its AN/PSS-12 mine detector to detect low metallic mines; (2) the detector performed poorly during operational testing and failed to meet the Army's 92-percent detection requirement against low metallic mines; (3) although both candidate detectors performed equally well after the Army removed low metallic targets from the procurement tests, the Army selected the AN/PSS-12 because of its lower price; (4) the detector's field accuracy is questionable, since the Army did not sufficiently control other environmental and operating factors that can affect detector performance; (5) the detector's usefulness in Bosnia may be limited because about 75 percent of the buried mines have a low metallic content; (6) although the detector's reported performance in Bosnia is good, the Army has limited the detector's use there; (7) the Air Force has warned its personnel in Bosnia that the detector is not sufficiently sensitive to low metallic mines and some countries have switched to other mine detectors; and (8) the Army has reduced its reliance on the detector through alternative threat-reduction practices, such as extensive personnel training in mine awareness, avoiding or carefully selecting routes through suspected mine fields, and using heavy equipment to clear paths.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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