IEDs

There's an interesting article in last month's Wired magazine about improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan and the military's attempt to defeat them. I'm behind in my magazine reading, along with everything else, which is why I'm only now getting around to reading it/blogging on it.

What really caught my attention was a sub article where the evolution of IEDs was discussed, specifically the nasty explosively formed penetrator (EFP).

EFPs are a copper canister filled with explosives and capped with an inversely shaped conical top. When detonated the copper top creates a copper slug or several copper slugs that can punch through armored vehicles. Here's some pictures:

They are detonated either by command wire, cell phone (or other electronic device, or best of all...IR heat signature. I wouldn't exactly call anything detonated by an IR device "improvised", but they don't ask my opinion. Due to the way the copper top has to be pressed and the often sophisticated way these devices are detonated the organization using EFPs has to be fairly well funded and supplied. It is that reason that EFPs are entirely a Shia insurgency weapon in Iraq. The Jaysh al Mahdi (as well as its offshoots) are the only organization known to build and use EFPs effectively. I'm sure there are a couple of cases where Sunni organizations have managed to get ahold of and use EFPs and there are a few known groups that attempted to make their own EFPs, but those are the exception and the weapons remain a problem for those units unlucky enough to have to deal with large Shia populations.

1-14 CAV, with all the problems we had in N.E. Diyala, did not have a Shia/JAM problem. So no EFPs. However, the rest of Diyala had a significant Shia population which meant driving from FOB Cobra to the brigade headquarters at FOB Warhorse, or the logistics hub of Joint Base Balad, meant driving through several EFP hotspots. Whenever I visited FOB Warhorse I would joke with the folks on brigade staff or the military intelligence company about the amount of EFP hotspots I drove through just to visit them. Gallows humor.

EFPs would cause some problems this past deployment. The brigade field artillery battalion, 1-37 FA lost a soldier to an EFP. 1-14 even had a run-in with one on a movement from Balad back to Cobra. 1-23 IN spent the last half of the deployment focused on one town to defeat the issue and 2-3 IN spent their last couple of months essentially watching roads to prevent emplacement of EFPs.

The myriad of ways insurgents have devised to initiate these devices is what fascinates me. They started with just a wire or an electronic device; once we countered the electronic devices with jamming equipment IR sensors that detected the heat of the engine were used; heat decoys, at first just improvised such as toasters hung at the end of vehicles, were designed to defeat the IR sensors; next step, adjust the sensor and device so the EFP explodes on the vehicle after the heat decoy sets it off; American solution, adjustable poles for the heat decoys.

The adjustable heat decoys, known as Rhino mounts, didn't always work as insurgents would sometimes get lucky. Many EFP builders just went back to command wire initiated devices which, while dangerous for the guy pushing the button because he is more likely to get caught, cannot be defeated by technological countermeasures. However, a newer, sneakier way has been developed to set off the device. According to Wired, some EFPs are now being detonated by the signals set off by the electronic countermeasure devices on our vehicles. Genius.