The Old and the New
Newspapers can sometimes convey the impression that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used in Iraq are innovations developed in response to the US "occupation" of Iraq; a case of homegrown ingenuity defeating a hi-tech superpower. For example, the Washington Post reports:
"Clearly we are not winning the competition over tactics and counter-tactics," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst who heads Brookings' Iraq Index. "The insurgency's ability to hide IEDs better, detonate them more remotely and build them more powerfully has been at least as effective as our improvements in better armor and better tactics."
Of particular fascination to newspapermen are a newly invented type of shaped charge.
The development of shaped charges appears to be a direct response by insurgents to the Americans' use of more heavily armored vehicles, according to soldiers and U.S. military explosives experts. Those vehicles -- principally five-ton, armor-plated Humvees -- are used by all U.S troops traveling outside military bases. ...
To fashion a shaped charge, one end of a cylindrical object such as a pipe is welded shut, and is then packed with explosive material and a conical piece of metal that becomes a molten projectile when the device is detonated. The charge is designed to focus the blast on a small area. In the case of a Humvee, the charge blasts a hole in the armor plating, propelling the scorching metal into the vehicle's cabin.
These are sometimes called SFFs or self-forging fragment warheads in technical literature, explosive devices that, through the shaping of the explosive backing behind a metal layer, create an explosive plasma slug that travels at high speeds to penetrate armor.
Self-forging warheads are used whenever a weapon of necessarily small size must try to penetrate armor ... a way to create a kinetic penetrator out of a shaped charge, without having to move it a great distance. A block of high explosive is formed with a cavity on one side ... lined with ... malleable but reasonably dense metal. When the explosive detonates ... the thin ... sheeting ... is then pushed outward towards the target with great force by the explosion.
Wikipedia adds that the plasma slug
can ... travel up to, and above 1000 cone diameters (CDs) before it's velocity becomes ineffective at penetrating armor due to aerodynamic drag, or hitting the target becomes a problem. ... If the SFF perforates the armor, extensive behind armor damage (BAD) ... occurs .... mainly caused by the high temperature and velocity armor and slug fragments being injected into the interior space and also overpressure (blast) caused by the impact.
That is what the shaped charges described by the Washington Post are. But although they are deadly, they are not new. A Reuters article notes they have been around, in one form or another, for a long time.
Tim Ripley, special correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly said armour-piercing was "pretty old technology" and shaped charges had been used since World War Two. "It's nothing a decent car repair workshop couldn't come up with," he said.
What's more, all the types of IEDs that US is encountering in Iraq have been killing thousands of civilians all over the world for the last twenty five years under the name of landmines. This map from the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) has most of Africa and large parts of the Southwest and Southeast Asia colored in. A fascinating manual in PDF format prepared by the GICHD's technical consultants describes every major type of mine that its workers can expect to encounter, as well as prescribing the engineering principles and armor thickenesses that are required in vehicles to defeat them. The mine types described are:
- blast;
- fragmentation (omnidirectional and directional);
- hollow charge;
- self-forming fragment;
What is fascinating is how the "reference" types of threats described by GICHD, that is the mines most commonly encountered, are Soviet bloc types. Mines are in fact, the most lasting legacy of the Soviet bloc to the Third World, where they are employed as originally designed or in an improvised manner identical to Iraq.
| anti-personnel mine blast type PMN, PMD-6, Type 72 |
| anti-personnel mine fragmentation type POM-Z, OZM-4, OZM-72, PROM-1 |
| anti-tank blast type TM46, TM57, TMA-3 |
| anti-tank blast under wheel TM46, TM57, TMA-3 |
| anti-tank blast under hull TM46, TM57, TMA-3 |
| anti-tank HC AT-4 |
| anti-tank SFF TMRP-6, TMRP-7, TMK-2 |
| heavy-size UXO 250-500 kilogram aircraft bombs |
| According to the United Nations, the 10 countries with the most
land mines still in place are:
(source CNN) |
|
| Afghanistan | 9-10 million |
| Angola | 9 million |
| Iraq | 5-10 million |
| Kuwait | 5 million |
| Cambodia | 4-7 million |
| Western Sahara | 1-2 million |
| Mozambique | 1-2 million |
| Somalia | 1 million |
| Bosnia-Herzegovina | 1 million |
| Croatia | 1 million |
Stacked or linked IEDs -- landmines, in other words -- were already commonly used to attack armored vehicles in Africa a generation ago. The GICHD manual says on page 14:
Double anti-tank blast mines became common during the middle of 1978 in the former South West Africa with the advent of the first generation mine-protected vehicles (MPVs). These mines appeared in both the linked or “goggle” configuration causing blast effect directly under the vehicle hull or, in the stacked configuration (triple mines were not uncommon), detonating underneath the wheel.
It's not coincidental that many of the armored vehicles now making their way to Iraq are related to designs pioneered in Africa, featuring high cabs and V-shaped armor capsules. (BTW, did you know that filling tires with water greatly attenuates blast damage?) SFFs (in particular the Soviet TMK-2 HC mine which dates from 1955) were also in use to attack protected vehicles in Africa, whose designers naturally tried to figure out countermeasures. Because SFF warheads depend on the formation of the plasma slug some protection schemes devised against them are based on preventing the slug's formation. On page 24 of the GICHD manual we have:
The Munroe effect associated with HC mines requires a stand-off distance in free air to form the high-speed jet. This stand-off distance is usually determined by the cone diameter and length of the charge. The optimal formation of this high-speed jet can be prevented by positioning a “capture plate” between the vehicle hull and the ground surface. This capture plate can cause the break-up of the jet. This will reduce the penetration capability of the jet against the vehicle hull.
Commentary
The use of IEDs has long been a feature of warfare in Africa and Southwest Asia. Iraqi insurgents, with strong ties to the Al Qaeda and Soviet bloc-trained advisers, would have a great deal of access to these types of attack techniques. The media have recently commemorated the 2,000th US military death in Iraq. What's not commonly realized is that those casualties share something in common with the 26,000 civilians who die each year from landmines. They've been killed by the very methods the late Princess Diana campaigned against. If the US is ever forcibly expelled from Iraq, it is virtually certain to be called upon to return by the United Nations, to remove at American expense the weapons, once glorious, that will have instantly transformed themselves to instruments of evil.
posted by wretchardthecat at 10/27/2005 11:07:00 AM
12 Comments:
jonewer - it is also not required reading. nor commenting.
jonewar,
Thanks for the Pookie link, which describes a specialized vehicle for demining roads in Zibabwe and Eritrea that's been around since the 1970s. It perfectly illustrates a point I've often made about September 11. The only new thing about it was that it happened in America. Suicide bombs, vehicle bombs, IEDs -- the whole gamut of terrorist tactics -- has been waged against Third Worlders for a long time; and against Americans too in places like Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa.
The only thing different about today, such as in places like Iraq, is that America is fighting back. That may be what people find objectionable or what you find an foolishly optimistic undertaking. I'm grateful to you for pointing out an instance illustrating that IED warfare has been waged unanswered and unnoticed for a long time.
The US is actually the largest funder of Third World humanitarian landmine clearance programs, a fact that gets almost no recognition. But some newspapers actually convey the impression that the US, by not removing mines in the Korean DMZ, where there are almost no civilian casualties, is the main problem nation in the demining effort. There's a very neat division on labor in this area. The ex-Commie nations supply the mines and the expertise to deploy them (infra-red, Jonewer?); the US pays for their removal and gets blamed for planting them in the first place.
The real genius of the Left is to be able to do whatever you want and then snark down at anybody you want.
Jonewer,
The outlook here is only foolishly optimistic to the degree that so many other sources are suicidally despairing. I suppose if there was a band depicting outlooks like the electromagnetic spectrum with calm, true enlightenment in the center, and all the rest of us like radiating frequencies, Belmont would be somewhat closer to the center than, say, the NYT op-ed page, where the darkness is constantly closing all around us. At least since 1/20/01.
I could see this old-fashioned type of warfare leading to the situation in the future where only extremely high value targets are occupied, while the remainder are reduced by stand-off weapons. That's a happy thought for an optimist, eh?
Now that the UN Report on Oil-for-Food scam is out, and Saddam has been shown to be effective in compromising our fellow Security Council members, do you think the endless remonstrances to have all decisions of import be decided in concert with the corrupt Russians, French and Chinese will end? I expect this news, like the news of the Iraqi Constitution's successful vote will be slipped between the covers of Doom and Gloom, never to be mentioned by proper people.
Shaped charges have been around for a long time. The Monroe Effect (1885), was based even earlier work (1792) for the heavy mining industry.
Most recently shaped charges have entered into the Iraqi theater special thanks to the god loving folks of Iran.
I have seen SFF’s that look like a Jiffy-Pop pie tin that you stick in the ground. Upon remote detonation the metal bends into a shape that looks like plum stuffed into a napkin as it flies with great speed towards an armored vehicle with a range up to a hundred meters or so.
I worked on an early version of the Vehicular Array Mine Detection System (VAMIDS). This particular unit was based on the Alvin APC. It was re-badged in the UK because the US had a military export embargo against those bad people in South Africa.
I designed a shock proof rack for the electronics equipment in the interior that required creating a thru-hull fitting near the drivers side firewall. I was joking about this that or the other thing when I was thoroughly upbraided by the retired SADF EOD expert that ‘came along’ with the vehicle, he in the harshest terms possible described to me how his best friend was cut in half by a sheet of sand that sprayed into the vehicle when a thru-hull fitting was breached. I worked the rest of the project with unwavering decorum. The last I saw of the Alvin was in a picture at the proving ground, it was at the top of what was estimated a 45 foot tumbling apogee after the Army Colonel had a 60 pound high explosive placed under the axle instead of four feet outside of the axle because he didn’t want us to win.
To state that all US forces are driving around in up-armored Humvees is an outrageous twist of fact. I think it is fair to say that the media has not commemorated, but ‘celebrated’ the 2000th death.
The US is not a signatory to treaties banning the use of land mines because it is an important delaying tactic for small unit operations while evading a closely pursuing enemy. It is to the US’s great credit that mines are being developed that either deactivate themselves after a time or detonate. I think though, that you can thank China for being the most prolific exporter of anti-personnel mines… these are the ones that are blowing off the feet of countless school children. But as the world is busy chastising the US, bigger issues are not being addressed.
Annoymouse, thanks for the tremendous post on physics and puny human technology.
One time in a visit to an EOD "library" I held one of the Soviet "butterflies." It was pink, plastic, the size of a large keychain fob, roughly shaped like a butterfly. They were made in that shape because they would flutter and auto-disperse when air-dropped. And also because kids and curious natives would pick them up. They would lose a hand or foot to this random war against people.
Notice we're not doing any of that.
Imaginary "damage to this Presidency" be damned. Don't mean nothin', walk on.
I've seen "cages" newly placed on the outside of Strykers.
Is that only for RPG's or would they also mess up an SFF?
I find it just a risible commentary on the puerile innumeracy the libs wallow in that they think that doubling the peacetime death rate of just fielding a reasonable military at all during what appears to be the height of the GWoT is surely demanding of immediate surrender to the cavemen/ beheaders!
Look it up yourself:
http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/wwt.pdf
A run rate of nearly 800 military deaths per year in 2000 with no war in progress.
And in the early 80s the military death rate from accidents ALONE was twice the yearly death rate we have now in Iraq with what I'm estimating was a 50% higher force level than now (post Clinton of course). And speaking of the oh so meaningful 2000 mark, in the early 80s the yearly military death total was over 2000 consistently.
Another way to look at it is that we have raised the military death rate from 50 per 100,000 per year recently to back up around 100 per 100,000 per year -- again, about the run rate that the military somehow survived in the early 80s with no war in progress.
Where was the rage and anguish in the early 80s? Well of course, if they complained about that then anyone with no more than a kindergarten degree would demand that they be immediately committed to the insane asylum as they would be in anything resembling a rational world.
Power Line also had an interesting take on this here:
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011443.php#011443
I also laughed when one of the MSM (I forget which one) let the curtain slip -- probably being too stupid to even realize they did -- and actually broke down the 2000 as including 400 accidents and 1600 deaths from action!
For further calibration, the U.S. runs at approximately 13 deaths per 100,000 per year from auto accidents alone.
And also a sad commentary on the inefficacy of our educational system that the analytical and math skills of the population aren't able to immediately slice this kind of buncombe to shreds. But then that might be because the libs and Gramscian neo-Syndicalists have been strangling the life out of our educational system for a few too many years, no?
You do remember Antonio Gramsci, right?
http://wethefree.blogspot.com/2005/10/top-10-reasons-you-might-be-liberal.html
I see the same media spin as C4 attempts: when the insurgents do it, its keen and brilliant (even when its murderous and counter-productive).
When America does ANYTHING even resembling it, America is clumsy, naive, ignorant, wasteful, driven by poisoned motives, deranged, blind and shameful.
Did I miss anything?
carridine: Yes. "Stupidly optimistic".
These "Clearly we are not winning..." statements ought to include the second half of the assumption. "I know what winning looks like, and since I do not see this, clearly..." This reasoning sound like the atheist creed: Because thus and such evil, or disease, or injustice exists, there is no God, because if there were, this evil, unjustice etc. would not exist. Therefore..."Clearly..."I think both are fallacious.
"Fukuyama came to the conclusion that Islamic fundamentalism ought to be allowed to collapse within itself." I'm confused, because it seemed to me that is essentially what we were doing for thirty years, while the stink only grew. There is a futher problem. This is a virus that needs a weak and ignorant host. Europe has become that. It will absorb nothing but the virus.
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