Landmines Of Afghanistan

Improved designs of mines were created in Imperial Germany, circa 1912, and were copied and manufactured by all major participants in the First World War. Both sides employed land mines (defensively) and tunnel mines (offensively). Well before the war was over, the British were manufacturing land mines that contained poison gas instead of explosives. Poison gas mines were manufactured at least until the 1980s in the Soviet Union. The United States was known to have at least experimented with the concept in the 1950s.
Nuclear mines have also been developed, both land and naval varieties. An example is the British Blue Peacock project, while another was the U.S. Medium Atomic Demolition Munition.
Metal detectors were first used for demining, after their invention by the Polish officer Józef Kosacki. His invention known as Polish mine detector Allies used to clear the German mine fields during the Second Battle of El Alamein when 500 units were shipped to Field Marshal Montgomery.