[Mobhack]

In future, please try to limit questions to one per post, and not laundry lists. It makes dealing with posts much easier if they are limited to the one subject.

As regards artillery or bombs clearing wire and mines, well basically that does not work worth a darn. Wire clearing by means of massive bombardments was tried in WW1 with no result, the tank being originally designed to flatten or pull aside wire entanglements.

Artillery does not remove mines, or set off the fuses muchly. It can fling the things around, thus making clearance more difficult for the troops when they arrive, however. The mines are no longer in their geometric alignment (mines are not flung down randomly unless in the hands of 3rd world guerillas).

The giant viper etc are a special case that use a humongous charge of explosives to "clear" a 2-3 metre wide path. Mainly by flinging the mines out of the exploded area. You still need to send engineers or engineer vehicles in to make the "cleared" path safe since you won't detonate or move anywhere like 100% of the mines. Modern mines also have much more sophisticated fusing than WW2 ones.

See de-mining operations in Africa etc - manual clearance with prods is still the best way to properly clear land mines.