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Mine Detection: Army Detector's Ability to Find Low-Metal Mines Not Clearly Demonstrated

NSIAD-96-198 Published: Aug 28, 1996. Publicly Released: Aug 28, 1996.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army's development of a portable land mine detector, focusing on: (1) how the Army's AN/PSS-12 mine detector performed in detecting low-metallic mines in procurement tests; (2) the nature of the land mine threat in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and (3) the mine detector's potential effectiveness in Bosnia.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense The Secretary of Defense should establish and enforce realistic and consistent test standards for testing countermine and mine-detection systems that reflect known threat mines and the conditions under which they are likely to be encountered. Such standards should be applied not only to the acquisition of new systems, but to the evaluation of near-term or experimental solutions as well.
Closed – Implemented
In October 1996, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology) (OUSD (A&T)) ordered an action plan. On March 31, 1997, OUSD (A&T) submitted a report to the Congress that charters, effective October 1, 1997, a Center of Excellence to, in part, establish standards for testing, modeling, and evaluating all Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) detection and clearance technologies. The Center's joint working groups are already in place and working on solutions. It also plans to prepare annual status reports for submission to the Congress. The Center has made progress, having created a standard test field and proposed a standard set of targets. The targets have yet to be accepted by all the members of the community as standards.

Full Report

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Topics

Army procurementDevelopmental testingExplosivesMunitionsOperational testingLand minesSolicitation specificationsWarning systemsU.S. ArmyBosnia