Quote Originally Posted by Van
If someone's got an older example, I'd like to push this date further back. Candidly, I'm frustrated and annoyed by the folks who talk as if IEDs are innovative and new.
No offense, Van, but I think you're just letting your frustration with simpletons set you off on a tangent. The tactic of one Navy sending flaming ships into their opponents certainly predates what you'll find in the historical record. The same goes for armies sending flaming carts into the wooden gates of fortresses. But both bear limited resemblence to the various permutations of the tactical use of IEDs today.

For educating the idiots who believe that the IED is a new innovation that arose post-9/11, I feel its best to keep rooted in relatively modern warfare. An easy example is simply to state how elements of various allied special operations units during WWII trained and advised partisan forces on the use of IEDs against the axis - both purely military and civil infrastructure targets. There is a tremendous amount of material from that period that is directly applicable to the COE. And, of course, during the Cold War there is a broad spectrum of conflicts to draw upon where IEDs of all types were used against a dazzling array of target sets.

(As an aside, its also usually surprising to some when they are informed that much of Hezbollah's skill in using roadside bombs was not gained from Iran, but from South Africa. For members of the ANC with a great depth of experience in IED tactics against the apartheid-era South African army, sharing that knowledge with Hezbollah was getting a little payback against Israel, which was heavily engaged in military collaboration with South Africa in the '70s & '80s.)

Dealing more specifically with VBIEDs, and just looking at post-WWII, the Stern Gang really was the first to use a VBIED - targeting a Brit police station in Haifa on 12 Jan 47. But despite occasional usage after that - including a few particularly nasty examples - VBIEDs didn't really gain traction among terrorists until March '72, when the PIRA initiated two ANFO VBIEDs in Belfast. From that point on, the history is pretty damn clear, and anyone who still believes that it is a unique development of the GWOT is an idiot, plain and simple.

Ultimately, I think you'd make your point better when you demonstrate what little understanding they have of relatively recent military history rather than catching them out on obscure historical examples.

....just another retiree's biased opinion...