Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
A square click is a square kilometre - and that's 1,000 x 1,000 metres = a million square metres.
Ooops - my bad Fuchs. Darn metric system and my Yankee ingenuity these days

Actually the mine breaker 2000 claims 1,000 square meters per hour. No matter, they are much faster than their predecessors and this also brings us back to clearing a "path" wide and long enough that the likelihood of a mine or IED getting a convoy has been substantially reduced.

Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
There's a reason for the use of explosives in battlefield demining; mechanical demining is terribly slow.
Not sure I follow you here. Since we're talking about speed, manual demining or signal sweeping takes hours to cover ground and using explosives for demining "mines" died years ago with the advent of burn out flares. Discovering an IED doesn't always mean it is destroyed using explosives. Most are rendered safe rather than the risk of high order detonations. We also need to perform forensics and post blast forensics are more time consuming. Shooting "it" with frangible ammo or a water cannon retains most of the IED. Got to start somewhere.

Bob's detailed description supports the need for a heavy, purpose-intended vehicle to render such devices safe. Setting off a pressure sensitive IED with a 7-ton roller 3 meters in front of a heavily armored vehicle still translates into survivability.