Explaining the Fallout Mine with the Ottowa Treaty

[charwo]

I've seen it asked, and I think beyond game mechanics, we deserve an answer to the following questions:

 

1. Why are mines never seen buried?

 

2. Why do they beep loudly and take several seconds to explode?

 

The answer may lie in the Ottawa Anti-Personnel Landmine Treaty of 1997, or Fallout's version of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

 

See, the real moral objection to to landmines is that they are hard to clear out and can main and kill civilians years after conflicts end. In fact it's a war crime to either fail to clear a minefield after hostilities or failure to mark them at any time, for the reasons of civilian risk. Currently in our universe, none of the major powers of the pre-war era are signatories (China, Russia [The USSR was dominated top to bottom by Russians, making it a Russian Empire in all but name] and the United States).

 

The US sites the Korean DMZ as the chief reason why: it'd be stupid to try and clear their side unilaterally or basically to ever trust a Kim. Maybe this means the US won the Korean War and unified Korea which would help explain Anglo-Chinese tensions in the pre-Resource Wars era. I don't hold to that: I think the pre-Resource Wars world looked much like our own, and went batshit crazy after the nukes flew in the EU-Arab League War in 2051. But that's another discussion.

 

I think though, the Fallout mine system represents a compromise: the treaty doesn't ban all landmines, 'command' mines that can only be fired by human direction are allowed. The mines, starting with the 'frag mine' line have all the advantages of landmines: cheap, dangerous area denial weapons that need to be cleared thoroughly and doesn't rely on human control, but gives all commers a chance to escape. Why would you have pressure sensitive, unburied ordinance that doesn't fire instantly, doesn't bounce up like a Bouncing Betty, beats like a timer and even has a glowing light that blinks like a night light?

 

So civilians can run.

 

What this means in practice is that the morale effect of land mines is lost, and mines kill FAR less soldiers than they would. However the point of a mine field isn't to blow up infantry, it's to herd them into kill zones of sniper and artillery fire.

 

It's the best in-universe explanation I can think of certainly.

[bben46]

There was a study done ( I think by the UK) showing that the safest thing for a group of soldiers to do when they find themselves in a minefield is to keep going - don't stop or slow down as that is exactly what the enemy wants you to do. Once you stop, you are a sitting duck for artillery, rifle and machine-gun fire. If you keep going you will actually take fewer casualties. Real world mines don't give a warning - just as real world time bombs don't have the blinking countdown timer that every movie/TV time bomb has. So , don't expect a game to always follow how thing are in the real world.

 

That said - the Fallout world mines beep because it is intended to scare you and allow you to either disarm or run to avoid injury.

[charwo]

That's the mechanical explanation. And while technically correct, it doesn't explain that behavior in-universe. And while you're right about the tactics when going through a minefield, I don't see how that information contradicts or supports the idea of why they behave that way. Unless of course the mine's behavior is designed to induce panic?

[Ethreon]

There are concealed mines in game. Interesting explanation, but the more probable explanation ingame is that the player needs a bit of warning to detect the mines.