Next in Iraq: Remote-controlled land mines

No comment from the Pentagon
Representatives from the Pentagon and the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, which developed Matrix along with contractors Alliant Techsystems Inc. of Edina, Minn., and Textron Systems of Wilmington, Mass., would not comment for this story.

Alliant Techsystems spokesman Bryce Hallowell said, “We’re very pleased with the rapid development and fielding of Matrix and look forward to its deployment in support of our troops.” He would not comment further.

In a January statement e-mailed to reporters to announce the planned deployment of Matrix, Picatinny said the system was meant for “firebase security, landing zone security, remote offensive attack and both infrastructure and check point protection.”

“The system is user friendly and a soldier will require a minimal amount of training in order to safely employ and use the system,” Army Maj. Joe Hitt, the Matrix project’s leader, said in the prepared statement.

When sniper fire won't work
Military analyst John Pike of Globalsecurity.org believes the system could be used to attack enemies who are encroaching on a base but are too far away to hit with sniper fire, which he says can only reach out about a mile.

“You can see much farther than that. If you wanted to set up a perimeter security so that the enemy could not sneak up and mortar you, you could do it by putting out a mess of these things,” he said. “And then with motion detectors or something, if somebody’s sneaking up on you, you can look up in their direction.”

Added Pike: “If you’ve got 500 of these mines out there, trying to figure out which one you want to detonate, when the clock’s ticking, well that could be a brain teaser.”   The Matrix system is an offshoot of a more ambitious smart-mine program called Spider that would incorporate other types of munitions. But Spider is not expected to be fielded for a few more years.

When Army officials saw what could be done with the Matrix system, they said, “This is good enough for right now. Let’s get it fielded,” Alliant’s chief executive Daniel Murphy said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts in February.

He said the initial order is “not in excess of $10 million, I don’t believe,” but added: “I think they’re both (Matrix and Spider) going to be deep programs over the long haul.”

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