Roadside Bombs & IEDs (catch all)

[SWJED]

18 Jan. - U.S. Helicopters Face Menace of 'Aerial Bombs'.

American helicopters in Iraq are facing a new threat from so-called aerial bombs, which are fired into the air from the ground and explode close to passing aircraft.

The new home-made weapons, known to the Americans as "aerial improvised explosive devices" have been used on numerous occasions.

"The enemy is adaptive. They makes changes in the way they fight, they respond to new flying tactics," Brig Edward Sinclair, a US army aviation commander, told Defense News, which first revealed the new threat.

He refused to say whether they had brought aircraft down. The aerial devices are placed along known flight paths and are triggered when insurgents see a low-flying helicopter approaching...

[SWJED]

20 Jan. Stars and Stripes - Military Backs Off On Claim That Insurgents Are Using Aerial IEDs.

The military is backing away from an initial claim that insurgents are using aerial improvised explosive devices to attack U.S. helicopters.

Defense News first reported Monday that insurgents were setting off rooftop-planted devices that leap 50 feet into the air and spray shrapnel as U.S. helicopters pass by.

In the story, Brig. Gen. Edward Sinclair, commander of the Army’s Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., said insurgents had used aerial IEDs against several U.S. helicopters, but an official later said this was not the case.

“At this time, we do not know of any incidences of insurgents employing aerial IEDs against U.S. helicopters. No aircraft have been lost to this type of device,” said a spokeswoman for the Defense Department task force working to defeat IEDs.

Multi-National Force-Iraq also has no information on reports of aerial IED attacks and would not release specific information on IED attacks due to security concerns, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Other officials spoke about aerial IEDs in general and hypothetical terms...

[SWJED]

March Issue of National Defense - Insurgency Tactics Test Helicopters’ Staying Power.

Technology so far has proven to be of little use in protecting Army helicopters from the ravages of small arms and rocket propelled grenades, military and civilian experts contend.

The Army has spent nearly $2 billion outfitting helicopters with high-tech sensors and flares that help foil shoulder-launched missiles, but none of these devices can prevent choppers from getting shot out of the sky by rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, which are among the preferred weapons of Iraq’s insurgency.

“The longer we stay in this conflict, the greater the ability of the insurgents to counter our countermeasures with their technology,” says Steve Greer, a retired Army command sergeant major, and professor of unconventional warfare at American Military University...

While a number of technologies have been proven successful in deflecting shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles, none exists today that can protect from RPGs or standard rifle rounds, Greer says. “There’s no way to defend from small-arms fire other than visual recognition and maneuvering away from the line of fire.”

RPGs and small-arms rounds fall under the category of “dumb munitions,” which are unguided and far more difficult to counter with technical solutions, says Kernan Chaisson, senior electronics analyst at Forecast International, a market intelligence firm.

“You have high-tech protective equipment, but sometimes it doesn’t do you any good,” he says. “It’s a real predicament for aviation. The threat they face, it’s hard to do anything about.”...

[Merv Benson]

While the A-10 may have more armor than helicopters, it also is more difficult to hit with dumb munitions, because of the way it manuevers for attack. Helicopter pilots are probably going to have to adjust their tactics so that they are moving while attacking and not hovering as much. They also will need to attack from different altitudes making it harder for ground fire to get a bead on them. If the choppers can't find away to avoid the dumb ammo their usefulness in attack is going to be greatly restricted. If the Air Force is phasing out the A-10, the Marines should try to pick them up as a close air support weapon.

[Stu-6]

Some one should get those A-10, they’ll be more useful than F-22s.

Helicopter pilots may need to adjust their tactics in urban areas or anywhere there are an excessive mount of weapons firing at them. Still I think the threat posed to aircraft by things like RPGs is over stated. Small tactical adjustments should be sufficient for them.

[Jones_RE]

A-10's probably shouldn't see much use for attack missions in the Iraq theater of operations - too much collateral damage. In Afghanistan, on the other hand . . .

Traditionally, helicopters are most vulnerable on takeoff and landing - for those situations they'll simply have to exercise a certain degree of tactical caution, e.g. always flying in pairs so that one can cover the other one in case of a shoot down attempt, coordinating with ground forces to watch potential launch sites, consciously randomizing regular flight times and routes etc.

The question is how much effort do we put into helicopter protection? Every dollar we spend on keeping those birds in the air is a dollar that is not spent on reconstruction or training Iraqi soldiers. Both of those activities offer a far greater return in terms of our casualties then some gimmick.

[SWJED]

24 Feb. Inside Defense....

The Defense Department is considering a new, low-tech approach to countering roadside bombs that are the scourge of U.S. forces in Iraq -- construct new roads for supply convoys that simply bypass densely populated, high-threat areas.

The Army is seeking $167 million in military construction funds as part of the Pentagon’s soon-to-be detailed $65.3 billion supplemental spending request for fiscal year 2006 to pave roads capable of supporting two-way traffic, complete with shoulders, drainage structures and interchanges to connect with existing supply routes, according to a draft version of the request.

Rather than trying to defeat improvised explosive devices (IEDs) head-on with new technologies and tactics, the Defense Department is looking to reduce risk to convoys by charting routes around danger zones...

[Strickland]

While maybe just a gut reaction, this sounds like one of the more idiotic and expensive courses of action that we have contemplated or attempted. During my time in Iraq, regardless of how many IEDs we recovered, how many hours we spent patrolling and clearing routes, movement along MSRs was controlled by individuals belonging to Movement Control, who themselves did not participate in clearing operations, nor understood anything other than trying to move things from point A to B. When an IED was discovered on one route, they would simply find another road, and abuse that with traffic until an IED attack, and then find a third route. This cedes routes and entire areas to the insurgents, and prevents freedom of movement and action for ground troops.

Based of this argument, we will build new roads that I assume only US and Iraqi forces can use, thus further alienating the population. The insurgency is the product of long standing grievances that need to be eliminated. By building new roads, we are admitting that we cannot control the current MSRs, and that the insurgents are stronger than we are.

I will continue to argue that they only way to effectively mitigate the IED threat is by persistent infantry patrols and a continued presence.

[Jones_RE]

It sends a great message to the locals about our ability to provide them with security that we cannot even secure our own forces . . . . While there might be certain unique, tactical situations where a new road is the most appropriate solution I'd say that the driving concern should be the welfare of the local people and not the security of our (heavily armed, by comparison) truck drivers. While US public opinion is important in this war, Iraqi public opinion is more so.

Also note the somewhat schizophrenic nature of this action - all the scuttlebutt in the news says that we'll be drawing our forces down sharply in 2006 and yet they want to spend millions of dollars on a project that probably won't even be started this year . . . .

[Hal Schyberg]

The biggest problem with the war in Iraq is American public opinion. We do live in a democracy with freedom of speech. We have to start telling the other story if we are to succeed in this Propaganda conflict. Our own media it seems is in support of the insurgency.
Still we must have more troops on the ground and they must over watch all the high traffic areas day and night. If we build new roads and fail to do this simple thing we will simply have the same problem on the new road

[Stratiotes]

It would be funny if it weren't so sad. I cannot believe there is anybody in favor of this even at the DoD.

[SWJED]

25 June London Daily Telegraph - Precision-Made Mine That Has Killed 17 British Troops.

London Daily Telegraph Graphic

The first picture of an Iraqi insurgent mine, believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 17 British soldiers, has been obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.

The device, which has been used by insurgents throughout Iraq since May last year, fires an armour-piercing "explosively formed projectile" or EFP, also known as a shaped charge, directly into an armoured vehicle, inflicting death or terrible injuries on troops inside.

The weapon can penetrate the armour of British and American tanks and armoured personnel carriers and completely destroy armoured Land Rovers, which are used by the majority of British troops on operations in Iraq.

The device, described as an "off-route mine", was seized by British troops in Iraq earlier this year and brought back to Britain where it underwent detailed examination by scientists at Fort Halstead, the Government's forensic explosive laboratory in Kent.

The Ministry of Defence has attempted to play down the effectiveness of the weapons, suggesting that they are "crude" or "improvised" explosive devices which have killed British troops more out of luck than judgement.

However, this newspaper understands that Government scientists have established that the mines are precision-made weapons which have been turned on a lathe by craftsmen trained in the manufacture of munitions.

A source from the American military, who has been working closely with British scientists, said that the insurgents have perfected the design of the weapon and know exactly where to place it to ensure maximum damage to coalition vehicles...

[SWJED]

12 July New York Times - A Platoon’s Mission: Seeking and Destroying Explosives in Disguise by Michael Gordon.

When American soldiers take to the road they pray they avoid the roadside bombs that seem to explode every day in Iraq. Sgt. First Class Timothy Faust has a very different goal: he hopes to find them.

Sergeant Faust’s Demon Platoon has the “route clearing” mission for Company A, Task Force 1-36. That is the somewhat understated description of an operation that involves driving into a veritable no man’s land in hostile Anbar Province to uncover mines, buried artillery shells and all manner of explosive devices, often under sniper fire.

The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on technology to counter the bombs, which the insurgents have continued to install at a furious rate. But as a recent trip with Demon Platoon showed, detecting the bombs — improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, as the soldiers call them — is often a matter of memorizing the location of trash heaps, bomb craters, dirt mounds and construction sites in Hit, a garbage-strewn city of 40,000...

[SWJED]

29 July Washington Post - Fighting Roadside Bombs: Low-Tech, High-Tech, Toy Box by Renae Merle.

Robert Pervere's fight against insurgents in Iraq started with an Emaxx monster truck from Debbie's RC World Inc. in Chesapeake, Va., a $335 toy that he turned into a weapon for U.S. troops against roadside bombs. The 24-year-old engineer replaced about 80 percent of the toy's plastic parts with aluminum, fastened two small surveillance cameras to the top and made room for an explosive that could blow up suspicious objects from hundreds of feet away.

"I get paid to play with [radio control] cars," said Pervere, who helped build the prototype for Applied Marine Technology Inc., a Virginia-based defense contractor that has said it expects to begin receiving military orders in September. "This has been a very rewarding project, working on a tool that's going to be out the door saving lives shortly."

After more than three years of war in Iraq, roadside bombs remain the deadliest single threat to U.S. troops, and countering them has emerged as one of the chief technological problems of the conflict. The Pentagon has spent tens of millions of dollars on the most obvious fixes -- adding armor to vehicles and deploying jammers to block radio signals used to explode the devices -- only to see the insurgents develop larger, better-concealed and more complicated explosives triggered by cellphones, garage-door openers, pressure hoses and other methods. Soldiers have even developed solutions of their own: Many Humvees in Iraq are outfitted with metal devices the size of a hockey stick that can catch tripwires or detect heat-sensitive triggers on roadside bombs.

Now, a Pentagon agency with a $3.3 billion budget and a staff of 300 has a mandate to focus the defense industry on the problem. The undertaking has attracted not only the country's top weapons makers but also dozens of small businesses like AMTI, all pitching a science-fiction gallery of possible solutions...

[bismark17]

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.

[Ray]

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.

[Mtngoat]

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.

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

[Ray]

I was trying to look at it in our Indian Army context as you have rightly guessed.

It is quite a novel idea nonetheless.

[SWJED]

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...

[Jedburgh]

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TC 2-91.701 Intelligence Analytical Support to Counter IED Operations, March 2007