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by high_5 656 days ago
WWII??? We haven't managed yet to clean up after WWI! For example, nearly every day unexploded munitions are found on the former Isonzo frontline.
3 comments

There are parts of France that are simply off limits because the volume of UXO left over from WWI was deemed too much to even try to clean up: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/zone-rouge.html
Imagine then having a forest fire in zone rouge: https://www.businessinsider.com/slovenia-wildfires-set-off-h...
This is one reason why cluster bombs are banned (albeit that's ignored) and why anti-personnel mines should be banned (there's the Ottawa treaty but the bigger forces like the US, Russia, China, India and Pakistan have not signed it). As an alternative the US's ATACMS rockets have a variant with tungsten shrapnel, which has been used against Russian force gatherings and transport columns like a giant shotgun blast but without the leftover unexploded ordnance.
I had an engineer friend in an eastern European country who had a contract with their army to build automated equipment to dismantle artillery shells from WWI still in stock at their armories. So, yeah, we still haven't cleaned up from WWI.