News Issue 1 – 2010

Inside this issue: Six MineWolf mine clearance Six MineWolf mine clearance machines for the National Institute machines for the National Institute of in 1 of Demining in Angola

Mini MineWolf machine Despite seven years of sustainable peace and personnel (AP) and anti- (AT) mines. In delivered to Colombia 2 stability Angola remains one of the countries accordance with the contract, twelve me- most heavily affected by landmines. People chanics from Angola undertook training at the Training of Iraqi staff in all parts of the country still suffer from the manufacturer’s facilities in Germany during on Mini MineWolf 2 imminent landmine threat and the estimat- July 2009. The first machines arrived in coun- ed ten million mines scattered around the try at the beginning of November and train- Most productive season for country continue to slow down the urgently ing continued in real life conditions. MineWolf NPA in Bosnia-Herzegovina 3 needed development of the country’s infra- Systems will maintain a presence in Angola for structure. Mine clearance on the Since the end of the civil war in 2002, the -Syrian border 4 Angolan authorities together with interna- tional organizations and donors have built Land release using machines a significant capacity, raising in Southern 4 awareness for the landmine problem and providing assistance to the numerous vic- Danish Demining Group tims maimed by the “silent soldiers”. uses the Mini MineWolf In order to enhance its efforts in clearing the in 6 landmines the Angolan Government signed a contract with Swiss defence contractor New robotic arm attachment RUAG for the delivery of six large MineWolf MineWolf being deployed to the field for training for MineWolf machines 6 mine clearance vehicles produced by Swiss- based company MineWolf Systems. The a period of nine months to ensure that INAD MineWolf Systems contract includes support equipment and a (Instituto Nacional de Desminado) personnel presented its products at comprehensive training package. will be fully capable of operating the equip- DSEi 2009 in London 7 MineWolf Systems’ flagship product, the ment. The first machines will be deployed to MineWolf has proven its effectiveness in Angola’s Southern provinces in January 2010 MineWolf Systems demon- many mine-contaminated countries and to free the country’s most heavily affected strates Mini MineWolf to is well suited for dealing with the difficult areas of landmines. German Army Engineers 8 conditions to be encountered in Angola. The machine is operator controlled and is MineWolf Mechanical Opera- capable of clearing all types of common anti- Operator training in Angola tions Workshop – Munich 8

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Mini MineWolf machine delivered to Colombia

On 4th December 2009 Colombia success- tion from the Japanese Embassy in Bogota, fully concluded its hosting of the Cartagena they procured a Mini MineWolf machine with Summit on a Mine Free World. As confirmed a tiller attachment and support equipment. at the summit, Colombia is considered to MineWolf Systems brings its know-how and be the country most affected by landmines experience from other global operations to and explosive remnants of war (ERW) in the assist Colombia in reducing the dangerous ar- Mini MineWolf in Colombia Americas and the casualty rate from mines eas. In July a technical advisor from MineWolf and ERW is one of the highest in the world. Systems spent five weeks in country provid- The improved security situation means that ing training for the operators and mechanics mine clearance efforts will gain momentum. from the military to ensure the machine do- Whilst the exact extent of the contamination nated can be operated and maintained to its is still unknown, Colombia can now use a Mini maximum effectiveness. MineWolf machine to speed up the process Colombia is investing in its own infrastructure of releasing land back to the affected com- to address the mine problem and, follow- munities. ing the success of the summit is looking to The Vice President’s Office is the coordinat- further develop its own capacity to achieve ing body for mine action in Colombia and in the goal to become mine-free. early 2009, thanks to a generous contribu-

Colombian trainees undergoing training course

Training of Iraqi staff on Mini MineWolf for Ronco/IMCO operations

After a long wait for Ronco’s newly acquired driver and the training is being delivered over Mini MineWolf to cross the border from Ku- four weeks through an interpreter. Once the wait, training is finally underway for operators team were accustomed to the machine’s daily & mechanics from IMCO – the ‘ Mine & maintenance procedures, their enthusiasm to Mini MineWolf with camera system UXO Clearance Organisation’ set up by Ron- get working held no bounds and within hours co as part of their Removal & Aba- of training, the operators were processing tement project in Az Zubayer, Basrah. the ground using the tiller, practising overlaps The Mini MineWolf team consists of a team and getting used to the depth controls. The leader, three operators, a mechanic and a final week of training will concentrate on using

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the Remote Video Guidance System which redevelopment, once the training is complete will allow the team to remotely operate the and the SOPs are fine tuned. machine in slightly more built up areas and prevent the operator from running the tiller over war debris and ‘difficult to see’, partially buried steel pipelines, which are abundant throughout Iraq. The equipment delivered included a con- tainerised workshop and a full spare parts package plus six months on-site technical support. IMCO gained their accreditation to work in the South of Iraq in mid-November 2009 and will deploy the machine in suspec- ted hazardous areas to assist with oil field Instructor explaining the use of the

Most productive season for NPA in Bosnia-Herzegovina

During the 2009 demining season in Bos- operators. NPA in Bosnia currently has six nia and Herzegovina, Norwegian People’s operators, who have been trained to operate Aid (NPA) cleared almost two million square both the Mini MineWolf and MineWolf ma- metres of land using MineWolf machines. chines. The precise figure of 1,916,450 m2 of land The demining project in Brvnik is being cleared MineWolf working mechanically prepared between March by NPA thanks to the donation of the German in Bosnia-Herzegovina and November showed that last season Federal Foreign Office (GFFO). was NPA’s most productive so far in Bosnia- In August, NPA hosted representatives of Herzegovina. the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from NPA used their two Mini MineWolf demining the Department for Humanitarian Aid and machines from March to November to me- Humanitarian Demining and representatives chanically prepare a total of 1,457,450 m2. of Brcko District Government at the Brvnik March was the most productive month with site to see the machines in action. The GFFO 116,800 square metres of ground prepared is one of the major donors for Norwegian by one Mini MineWolf machine. People’s Aid humanitarian demining projects In October and November NPA leased a larg- in and thanks to joint er MineWolf machine, and operated with it in efforts the cooperation will continue in future. the village of Brvnik in Šamac municipality in north-eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is an area heavily contaminated with anti-personnel mines with many PROM bounding fragmenta- tion mines. The heavy mine contamination re- sulted in a number of detonations during the two months of operations but these caused no major problems to the machine and NPA was able to continue with their operations as planned, clearing a total of 459,000 m2. During November 2009 MineWolf Systems conducted MineWolf training for two NPA MineWolf clearing in heavy vegetation

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Mine clearance on the Jordan-Syrian border

The last remaining minefield in Jordan is cur- and now benefit from a very effective clear- rently being cleared by Norwegian People’s ance solution. Aid (NPA) along the Syrian border to the The ground proved to be very difficult in the North of the country. It consists of approxi- first ten kilometres of clearance, with buried Mini MineWolf with flail operating mately 100 km of pattern laid military mine- rocks in the minefields both the tillers and the in Jordan fields – established in the 1970’s. flail suffered and both machines required a NPA currently have two Mini MineWolf high amount of maintenance which made machines working primarily in a verification progress slow. The teams are now working role, processing approximately 7–9,000 in the western part of the task site where the square metres of ground a day combined. ground is much better suited to mechanical The machines have each worked in excess treatment and NPA estimate that the task will of 1600 hours and are sustaining multiple be completed within the next two years. To anti-personnel mine blasts on a daily basis. achieve this, NPA are hoping to secure donor They have also survived a number of M19 funds to purchase a large MineWolf machine anti-tank mine detonations. There are two to speed up the verification process. tiller and one flail attachments with the machines, along with a mounted workshop trailer and full support package, giving NPA a permanent backup solution should one of the tools get damaged during opera- tions. Operations began back in April 2008, initially with one machine fitted with cameras to clear a safe path between the mine rows, which were largely visible on the surface. As the manual teams became more ex- perienced, the machines switched to a verification role. NPA purchased a second machine six months after the task started Mini MineWolf undergoing maintenance

Land release using machines in Southern Sudan

MineWolf Systems actively promotes the share this experience with our wider reader- concept of land release using a mechanical ship, their case study has been summarized approach. Land release was chosen as the below. main theme for the 2009 MineWolf Mechani- NPA’s Mine Action Programme in Sudan uses cal Operations Workshop to stimulate discus- a toolbox approach to demining, including MineWolf Bagger working in Sudan sion on the concept and further best practice. non-technical survey, manual demining and At the workshop, one of MineWolf’s partners, the mechanical processing of land. Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) chose to elab- For the mechanical processing of land, NPA orate on how they use MineWolf machines Sudan uses MineWolf products. It has been for the release of land in Southern Sudan. To using the MineWolf machine since October

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2005, the MineWolf Bagger since August containing both anti-personnel and anti-tank 2008 and the Mini MineWolf since May 2009. mines. It is used for ground preparation, Rather than focus primarily on mine clear- technical survey and clearance tasks. ance, NPA uses the concept of land release, The Mini MineWolf is used in a similar way to which focuses on releasing land back to the the MineWolf but used on smaller areas. The community as soon as possible, through Mini MineWolf is good for small tasks and both non technical and technical processes. NPA uses it both for technical survey and the Operator handling the Mini MineWolf Typically a suspected hazardous area (SHA) verification of land after manual clearance. remote controlled is released by either general survey (or a The MineWolf Bagger is used for very small re-assessment of existing survey informa- areas with heavy vegetation, primarily with tion), by technical survey or by full clearance. anti-personnel mine contamination, though it Clearance is obviously the most expensive can deal with anti-tank mines too. It is con- option and so the more land that can be sidered ideal for small tasks with its inter- released through general and technical sur- changeable tiller and bucket for the removal of veys the better. obstacles and it processes about 400 m2/h. NPA uses the MineWolf machines for ground The MineWolf Bagger with the bucket preparation, technical survey and clearance attachment is also used for preparing the operations. For ground preparation they use ground for manual demining tasks. the MineWolf Bagger with the bucket at- NPA always processes ground to a depth tached; for technical survey, a MineWolf with of 20 cm but for road clearance tasks the tiller or flail attachments is used and followed ground is processed to a depth of 30 cm up by a visual search; and for clearance as there are often deep buried bombs there. they use a MineWolf machine with the tiller When processing ground which contains or a flail plus tiller combination which is then small anti-personnel mines, the machine followed up by a manual clearance check passes over the ground twice with the tiller (Quality Control) of 10% of the area cleared. attached, the second time at a 90 degree NPA deploys the three different MineWolf angle to the first. This gives twice the confi- machines according to their capability. dence that every part of the area has been The MineWolf is best suited for processing processed. large areas with light to medium vegetation To give an idea of productivity of the ma- chines, NPA referred to one project in Kenyi. It was an emergency clearance of contami- Suspected nated area for which little information was Hazardous Area given and there was no apparent pattern to the mines laid. A technical survey was con- ducted with the MineWolf machine with the Non Technical Non-Technical Survey is the Land Release tiller attached. Where mines were found there Survey collection of information to was follow up quality control with manual ascertain where to put assets to demining. The MineWolf Bagger was also conduct technical survey. used to remove scraps (such as and Technical Land Release trucks) and to clear the river bank. The Technical Survey is conducted Survey mechanically using the MineWolf MineWolf worked for 530 operational hours machines. processing 500,000 m2 with the tiller attach- ment (averaging 940 m2/h) and 31,000 m2 Landmine Clearance uses both 2 Clearance with the flail (averaging 400 m /h). During this machines and manual clearance time there were two anti-tank mine detona- techniques. tions and six anti-personnel mine detona-

Following each of these stages the tions. land is released and handed back to Land Release the community. We would like to thank NPA for the content of this article.

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Danish Demining Group uses the Mini MineWolf in Afghanistan

The Danish Demining Group (DDG) received the accuracy of the tasking, not to mention their first Mini MineWolf in 2008 and the the security situation. operation team was trained by MineWolf The tools used with the machines include Systems during April and May. Its first opera- the tiller, flail and sifter. In the operation areas tion took place in Bagram in June 2008, and the flail has shown to be ineffective due to Mini MineWolf operating in dusty the machine and operators were accredited the hard ground. The hammers and chains environment in Afghanistan on June 4th by the UN Mine Action Centre in do not penetrate to a satisfactory depth. The Afghanistan. rotary tiller is the main working tool. It breaks The Mini MineWolf machine is part of a tool- up the soil very well and so far has detonated box approach. DDG Afghanistan has 80 all the anti-personnel mines that it has passed clearance sections deployed in the Central over. There has also been low damage to the and Northern Region, and three mechanical chisels, holders and frames. demining units supporting the clearance. The main uses of the Mini MineWolf machine The ground in Afghanistan is very hard, and are for preparing the ground before manual highly contaminated with mines, ammuni- clearance takes place and for verifying that tion and fragments. These conditions make it land is clear. very difficult to work with mine detectors, and We would like to thank DDG for the content of this article. most of the clearance is done by full manual excavation. The Mini MineWolf has shown to be a key-tool in DDG’s operations, to loosen up the soil, and for the direct destruction of mines. Working in Afghanistan DDG faces a number of challenges including the dusty conditions, the mix of anti-personnel and anti-tank mine- fields, the UXO and cluster contamination, Mini MineWolf working in sandy terrain in Afghanistan

New robotic arm attachment for MineWolf machines

prime movers by adding various attachments. In response to further operational require- ments in the fields of EOD, Counter-IED and Military Engineering, MineWolf Systems has developed a new robotic arm attachment to be fitted to any of the MineWolf machines. In addition to attaching any of the attachments, the robotic arm can now also be added to the MineWolf toolbox. It incorporates the follow- Mini MineWolf with robotic arm and bucket attachment ing functions:

MineWolf Systems’ philosophy to product de- • Complete system with independent hy- velopment is to enhance the functionality of its draulics

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• Very agile and functional with sideways movement, kink in the main arm, and tele- scope at the shaft • Multi adapter for various tools (e.g. buckets, grippers, camera), all of which can rotate 360 degrees • Fully remote controlled (one-man operation) • The robotic arm is linked to the base vehicle via a quick release plate which allows exchange to take place in a very short time

MineWolf Systems aims to work together with its customers to develop applications and offer mechanical solutions for dealing with explosive devices on a daily basis. Mini MineWolf with robotic arm and gripper attachment

MineWolf Systems presented its products at DSEi 2009 in London

From 8th –11th September 2009, MineWolf a tiller working head and a sifter bucket, Systems exhibited at one of the world’s representing some of its new range of addi- largest fully integrated defence and security tional attachments. exhibitions – DSEi 2009 in London. The ex- The company, with its portfolio of mine clear- hibition was attended by a large number of ance systems, received comprehensive sup- Mini Minewolf with tiller displayed official delegations from all around the world. port and appreciation for its expertise from a at DSEi Over four packed business days attendees number of high level decision makers. from the defence, security and military aero- MineWolf Systems will exhibit again dur- space community experienced first-hand the ing Eurosatory in Paris from 14th –18th June, latest land, air and sea capabilities of more 2010. than 1,350 companies from 40 countries. MineWolf Systems displayed its Mini Mine- Wolf mine clearance system equipped with MineWolf Systems’ stand at DSEi

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MineWolf Systems demonstrates Mini MineWolf to German Army Engineers

From 14th –18th September 2009, MineWolf MineWolf Systems presented its Mini Mine- Systems participated in the annual demonstra- Wolf in conjunction with different demining Spectators at the German Army tion exercise of the German Army Engineer- services and the mine detection pla- Engineering School ing Corps in Münchsmünster near Ingolstadt/ toon. Those attending were impressed by the Munich. The exercises conducted included a superior performance and clearance rate of wide range of engineering tasks including wa- the Mini MineWolf and in particular praised the ter crossing and field camp construction as well fact that operators are safe due their distance as counter IED and demining missions. The from the machine while operated remote annual event is organized to present various controlled. MineWolf Systems was thanked equipment and services to the German Army with an official certificate for the continu- General Staff Course with national and inter- ous support by the Commanding General of national participants and many other guests German Engineer Corps and Commander like Army attachés as well as national and Engineering school, Brigadier-General Krippl. international General Staff Officers.

Presenting the Mini MineWolf to the German Army Engineers

2009 MineWolf Mechanical Operations Workshop – Munich

MineWolf Systems held its annual Mechani- ing (GICHD), Danish Demining Group (DDG), cal Operations Workshop for its partners and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) and the Swed- customers between 22nd – 25th September. ish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), who The theme of the workshop was “Technical gave theoretical and practical overviews on MineWolf and Mini MineWolf with a Survey and Land Release” and was present- how these processes are being implement- range of attachments ed by Paul Collinson, Director of Operations, ed in the field in relation to the current IMAS for MineWolf Systems. The first day of the series 8.20. event included guest speakers from Geneva The main focus was based on IMAS 8.22 International Centre for Humanitarian Demin- “Technical Survey” and covered mechanical

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processes used within land release concepts. was displayed. Workshop participants were The country presentations from partners shown how data from the machine can in Sudan, Afghanistan and Congo demon- be recorded in digital format which pro- strated how the machines are being used to vides improved quality management on the best effect and also highlighted the logistical machine’s performance . The GPS and data challenges of keeping machines operational logging system provides two functions: ma- in these environments. chine running data (machine temperatures, The second day was more practical in na- engine speed, tiller rotation speed, etc. ) and ture with live demonstrations at the German machine tracking on areas worked. Army Engineering School in Ingolstadt. The As a round up to the workshop on the last MineWolf with the lifter attached demon- evening participants experienced some old- strated a second means of mechanical veri- fashioned German hospitality at the famous fication. The lifter is attached to the rear of “Oktoberfest” in Munich. the machine and brings any large objects MineWolf Systems was pleased to have to the surface after the ground preparation representatives from the humanitarian and process and places them in rows to the side commercial sectors as well as representatives of the machine. The Mini MineWolf was also from the US State Department at the work- demonstrated with its new additional attach- shop and would like to thank all those involved ments. These included the dozer shield, for making this event a great success and an forklift, bucket, sifter bucket, tiller and flail. excellent opportunity to share mechanical The MineWolf global positioning and data demining knowledge from all over the world. logging system was another feature that

Global Headquarters, International Sales & Operations Office MineWolf Systems AG Seedammstrasse 3 8808 Pfäffikon SZ Switzerland

Phone +41 (0) 555 111 500 Fax +41 (0) 555 111 599

Manufacturing, Participants at the 2009 Mechanical Operations Workshop Training & Logistics Office MineWolf Systems AG Winterspürer Strasse 17–19 78333 Stockach Germany

Phone +49 (0) 7771 914 36 10 Fax +49 (0) 7771 914 36 22 [email protected] www.minewolf.com

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