What is the cost effectiveness of this "equipment"?
Are the surveillance cameras also included in the $335 toy?
If I have understood correctly, then this whole equipment blows up with each IED it blows up.
That's outstanding!!! Kudos to that young engineer!!! I recently saw an interesting documentary on the Navy EOD training on the Military channel. It's worth watching.
What is the cost effectiveness of this "equipment"?
Are the surveillance cameras also included in the $335 toy?
If I have understood correctly, then this whole equipment blows up with each IED it blows up.
RayOriginally Posted by Ray
Understand where your going with this.
I don't think that the Camera is included in that 335 price tag. I too use RC Clog/ Rock Crawer Trucks. But I'll use a extra Servo to add a Dump Truck body to it or for a "Trailer" to be pulled behind the RC Truck.
Where your at working will drive which still to use. Just like a Bot that can be used. I like RC becuase I can Pack them in on my back and a TALLON is just to heavy in the Mtns.
Good Job for that ENG, make your own RC IEDD Trucks. SO that $$$ Goes to your house not someone else's.
Just my .02
I was trying to look at it in our Indian Army context as you have rightly guessed.
It is quite a novel idea nonetheless.
I've seen alot of investment into technology solutions for IEDs; any thoughts on cognitive situational awareness for the Marine/Soldier?
Rubble
Unattended Vehicles
Scanty street or tracks
Bushes next to the roads
Walls that make a hollow noise (when searching; they can be hidden rooms/ holes behind the wall used as storage or used to hide)
Hollows in the trees
Extra friendly locals wanting to help and guide
A fracas
Etc etc
@ Ray,
All good points.....so how would you teach situational awareness? I'm thinking about using an end user modifiable simulation.
I have been to several LE courses on IED searching and detection. One technique the instructors used was this. Every time we left the classroom on break or lunch they would lock up the classroom. When we came back you had to tell what had been moved or added or taken away, they had several simulated devices they would place around the room, also outside in a field situation around cars sidewalks,etc.
Another technique is to establish what a normal situation looks like by taking a picture!! if it is blown up 8x11 the detail is very good and you can spot something that has been moved or added. I don't know how this would work in a large patrol area, but buildings,room,etc. work well. It was amazing how fast you will learn. Works best if several pictures are taken over time periods.
If this helps there are some other things you can do. Let me know.
Train on mock ups of the type of situations that they troops are to face.Originally Posted by nichols
Well, you got to go back to the basics, since everyone thinks he know it all.
Why are things seen? Shape, shadow, shine, silhouette etc etc. The troops must be trained to observe these practically on mock ups of the type pf area they are to operate in. They must also learn how to avoid them.
(one of the things I have seen in the videos of Iraq is that quite a few soldiers cross the road/ open spaces in an ostrich type of huddle. This is dangerous. While they run and cross, they should be looking rapidly all around, while his buddy covers the move. Any movement, glint etc, the man hits the dust by running, crawling, observe and then fire back).
I am not aware of the problems in Iraq, but the problems that they face could be got from the troops there and such type of situation reproduced for troops to be inducted.
Situational awareness will evolve with such practical training.
The more the training, the better the responses.
We have such training facilities and troops are put through their paces before being inducted.
We have dummy bombs, grenades and the works and the person who is slow is "dead"!
To be frank, even it if sound silly, I have observed that repeating the actions sort of drills into the man/ officer a sort of reflex action in the person and the casualties become less. And our body armour is immensely crude and cumbersome compared to yours and yet the reflexes become good!
2 January edition of the Christian Science Monitor - Relentless Toll to U.S. Troops of Roadside Bombs by Brad Knickerbocker.
... Of the 3,000 American GIs lost in Iraq as of midday Sunday, more have been killed by roadside bombs - improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - than any other cause. More than by rifle fire, mortar attack, or car bomb.
It's a danger that has bedeviled Pentagon war planners for months, one to which they've responded with a high-level task force headed by a retired four-star general, $6.7 billion in research and development, new high-tech equipment and vehicles, and - perhaps most important - intelligence efforts to get inside the decisionmaking of an insurgency that is sophisticated, if largely low-tech.
If anything, the danger is increasing despite efforts to counter it.
IEDs are "the enemy's most effective weapon," Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of all US forces in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services committee last March. "They are the perfect asymmetric weapon - cheap, effective, and anonymous."
Improvised bomb attacks on US troops now top 1,000 a month, four times the rate in 2004. Insurgents have become more sophisticated in their bombmaking, placement, and means of detonation. The British military has determined that there are enough stocks of illegal explosives to continue the same level of attack for years without resupply, reports DefenseNews.com...
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TC 2-91.701 Intelligence Analytical Support to Counter IED Operations, March 2007
By Herschel Smith at his The Captain's Journal blog - The Ebb and Flow of IED Warfare: U.S. Lives are at Stake.
Due in part to a failure to listen adequately to Eric Shinseki and Anthony Zinni regarding Iraq war planning, along with premature cessation of conventional operations (bypassing large urban areas leading to costly MOUT later in the war) and halting invocation or implementation of counterinsurgency TTPs, the Iraq campaign has been problematic. In Concerning the Failure of Counterinsurgency in Iraq, I said “we were utterly unprepared for the toll that IEDs would take on U.S. troops, and even after it became obvious that this was a leading tactic of the enemy, we reacted with lethargy.” IEDs became one of the two most effective weapons of the insurgents, specifically because of two reasons: their cheap and ready availability, and the fact that they are a stand-off weapon, something unthinkable for the insurgents 40 or 50 years ago...
For a period of time the U.S. has enjoyed some degree of success in countering the effect of IEDs by jamming the signals from the insurgents to detonate them (sometimes from cell phones). Electronics has been put to good use in Iraq, but in case the reader hasn’t noticed, this enjoyment has diminished recently, and there is an increasing trend again in successful IED attacks apparently because the insurgents are employing electronics against us...
An interesting opinion or view, but little back-up at this final link
Anyone with a $200 oscilloscope can measure 'visible wave forms' or fluctuating electrical 'quantity'. Any good EOD or LE can figure out what's going on with limited equipment. CI elements should be 'searching' for this 'signal'.
The first and easiest method:
Once the signal strength and 'wave form' are obtained, it's just a question of more power along the same freqs. Most EOD jamming devices run well over 100 grand, and need a lot of power and cooling. This system will unlikely work with camels So, we're looking for vehicles within 500 meters, an antenna or two on the roof, etc. The trouble with this (for both us and them) is, using such high tech jamming equipment requires a huge power source soaking up a lot of juice in order to perform. Worse (for them), they need to be real close, even with 10,000 watts of power.
What does all this Bravo Sierra mean ?
The signal cannot make contact, and when it can’t make contact, it doesn’t detonate...much like a cellular phone call that does not connect. No connection, but the enemy thinks the call went through.
The second method, although a more expensive approach is our current Warlock system, available almost anywhere except K-mart.
It doesn't do anything dramatic, it basically works by intercepting the signal sent from a remote location to the IED instructing it to detonate. Again, override the source and ....boom.
Find it and delete it.
Last edited by Stan; 04-28-2007 at 02:05 PM.
It seems most IED solutions are after the fact detection and/or increasing armor. When I hear about a road called "IED alley", it seems to me that we should be putting as many hidden surveillance resources as possible all over this road. This way we can see the bad guy place his IED follow him and take out his whole network. I realize it would be expensive and not something you could do everywhere all the time, but I have to believe there aren't going to be that many people capable of making IEDs and that we could move on to the next "IED alley" eventually. Let's take the fight to the enemy rather than be pushed by his moves.
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Subject: Defeating IEDs - THE critical Soldier life and death issue of this war!
Defeating improvised explosive devices (IED) is THE critical Soldier life and death issue of this war and is responsible for the vast majority of our casualties.
DA and DOD formed some time ago a coalition consisting of many partners all working toward the same goal of defeating this major threat to our forces. The Battle Command Knowledge System (BCKS) is one of the primary coalition partners and provides the NIPR level (unclassified FOUO or below) online knowledge sharing and collaboration component of the coalition through its IED Defeat Community of Practice.
The mission of the BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice is to provide an online NIPR level community of practice for the collaborative transfer of experiential knowledge on defeating improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from those who have it, to those who need it.
How can participating in BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice (CoP) benefit Soldiers, DA Civilians and leaders?
1. Reduce the time needed to resolve specific IED defeat related technical or leadership problems and challenges.
2. Considerably shorten the learning curve for a job, function or profession working on IED defeat by providing access to relevant online subject matter experts and mentors.
3. By sharing NIPR level IED defeat experiences and knowledge collectively innovative/breakthrough ideas and tools will result to the benefit of all in that job, function or profession.
4. Transfer IED defeat best practices from one Soldier or leader to another in near real-time.
5. Decrease IED defeat negative outcomes for first time real world contact experiences.
6. Avoid costly, life threatening IED defeat situations on the battlefield due to lack of knowledge and experience.
7. Reduce the cost of IED defeat mission accomplishment through superior knowledge transfer.
8. Fill the IED defeat knowledge gap between doctrine and TTPs learned at TRADOC schools and the practical application in a fast changing combat environment.
9. Efficiently support our war fighters by generating IED defeat knowledge "on the fly" as needed by harnessing the collective minds of a particular profession. Precious time is not wasted collecting extraneous information.
To become a member of BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice go to this link: https://forums.bcks.army.mil/secure/...aspx?id=131710
Once at this site click the "Become a Member". Until you do that you will not have access to the many content items (over 200!) and the many discussions. Membership approval is both automatic and immediate.
Link to our downloadable Introduction to BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice" PowerPoint briefing and overview.
Sample content item TC 2-22.601 Radio-Controlled IED Electronic Warfare Handbook - Aug 07 (Final Draft)(FOUO).
Links to other coalition partners can also be found at the BCKS IED Defeat Community of Practice.
Share - Collaborate - Survive - Defend
CBS report on (what they call) "Deadly New Weapon In Iraq", on LiveLeak... I heaved that sucker in my hand. Always made me laugh that can be used in modern war theater. Seams, I was wrong.
link:"Armor-piercing hand grenades have become a favorite al Qeueda weapon in Iraq. There's virtually no defense against them. Lara Logan reports."
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ada_1189106198
Some of this footage has appeared before and was subject of a thread months ago.
Incidentally similar grenades, drogue grenades I think we called them, appeared in Northern Ireland, used by the Provisional IRA in an urban setting. Used against police and army vehicles.
davidbfpo
Danger Room, 17 Sep 07: CSI vs IEDs: Inside Baghdad's Forensic Bomb Squad
They can dig up all the roadside bombs they want, and jam every radio-controlled killer out there. To get ahead of insurgents, coalition forces have to figure out who's really building and planting the bombs.
That's why tens of thousands of improvised explosive devices and their components wind up every month at this nondescript collection of trailers, in the middle of a U.S. military base near Baghdad. Here, troops and geeks from England, Australia and America pore over the weapons 24 hours a day, piecing together forensic evidence about the bombs -- and the bombers. It's CSI meets IEDs. And it's called "Sexy."
Captain Scottie Morris, a lanky, black-haired Aussie, takes me for a tour around the Combined Explosive Exploitation Cell -- CEXC, or "Sexy," for short. To the best of my knowledge, I'm the first journalist they've allowed inside....
Fires Bulletin, Jul-Aug 07: A Different Approach to the Counter-IED Fight in Iraq
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are the preferred weapons employed by insurgent forces in Iraq today. This form of warfare is not easy to counter. Often techniques for countering IEDs are passive in nature, thus allowing the insurgents to have the upper hand. However, as the old saying goes, “There is more than one way ‘to skin a cat.’”
Tasked with the maneuver enhancement mission for the 101st Airborne Division’s area of operations (AO), the 555th Combat Support Brigade (CSB) aggressively attacked the counter-IED fight in Iraq by applying combined arms techniques to the mission. By combining engineer patrols to clear routes with brigade combat team (BCT) intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and division-level lethal assets, the 555th CSB took a proactive approach to countering IEDs and forced the insurgents to react to Coalition efforts, denying the insurgents freedom of action.....
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