I was skeptical, when I first heard about the idea of using lasers and man-made lightning to detonate explosives at a distance. Not only did the technology sound fantastic. But the company pushing the real-life ray gun, Tucscon’s Ionatron Inc., seemed so damn squirrely — long on press releases and shady political connections, short on specifics about how their technology really worked. And that’s before you start digging into the questionable stock deals and patent violations. So I wrote Ionatron off for while, despite more and more headlines about the firm and its “Joint IED Neutralizer” — JIN, for short.
Then, over the summer, I got a call from an Army general who had seen the thing in action. By using femtosecond lasers light pulses that last less than a ten-trillionth of a second JIN could carve conductive channels of ionized oxygen in the air. Through these XXXX-foot channels, Ionatron’s blaster sent man-made lighting bolts. And they actually seem to work at neutralizing bombs. “We understand the physics of what we’re trying to do. Now we’re just working on the engineering,” the general told me. “I think we’re going to solve that problem — and this is just a guess — in 12 months, maybe 18.“
It turns out the general wasn’t the only one who was impressed. Last year, “then-deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz recommended investing $30 million in research and sending prototypes to Iraq for testing,” the L.A. Times reports. Ionatron CEO Tom Dearmin told eDefense that the first of 12 units would be in Iraq by the end of July.
“But 10 months later and after a prototype destroyed about 90% of the IEDs laid in its path during a battery of tests not a single JIN has been shipped to Iraq,” the Times notes. “To many in the military, the delay in deploying the vehicles, which resemble souped-up, armor-plated golf carts, is a case study in the Pentagon’s inability to bypass cumbersome peacetime procedures to meet the urgent demands of troops in the field.”
“The decision has been made that it’s not yet mature enough,” said Army Brig. Gen. Dan Allyn, deputy director of… the Joint IED Defeat Organization. Iraq is “not the place to be testing unproven technology.“
But the Marine Corps believes otherwise and recently decided to circumvent the testing schedule and send JIN units to Al Anbar province in western Iraq… Based on their performance, Marine commanders said, they hope the device can eventually be used throughout Iraq.
Just about every arm of the Defense Department that deals with R&D has been struggling to figure out when to send new technologies to the field. Wait too long, and you’re robbing troops of a valuable tool. Field a gadget too quickly, the un-worked-out kinks can ruin its reputation in the military for a while. Troops can even get hurt, relying on an unstable machine.
Usually, the Pentagon errs on the side of caution. Some of the most valuable tools in Afghanistan and Iraq — the Predator drone, the Stryker armored vehicle — were deemed not ready for prime time by Defense Department testers.
But despite “thousands of little items found wrong with the Stryker,” it was fielded anyway, Army Test and Evaluation Command chief Major General James Myles told me recently. The problems were small and fixable enough that the Stryker was sent out “four or five years” earlier than what the old regulations would’ve required. So what if the brakes don’t work in the extreme cold? “We can’t wait for a perfect solution to get a weapon to the field.“
The Times pairs the JIN hold-up with the “military’s failure to provide sufficient body armor and adequate armor for transport vehicles.” But that’s not quite right. There’s a big difference between getting proven life-savers to a combat zone, and figuring out when something brand new is good enough to be deployed. That goes double for ray guns.
UPDATE 03/21/06 9:38 AM: This post, and some of the comments to it, have been modified in the interest of operational security.
Good Afternoon Folks,
I’m not sure if the 90% claim is corrector or not but this is a device that deserves a test in Iraq and the Marines intend to do so.
A story in todays L.A. Times deals with this and the problems of DoD procurement.
It appears that in order to get something in the Pentagon pipe line fast is more important to buy a Congressman on the House Defense Appropriations Committee.
Saving troops lives doesn’t matter as much as keepping Congress well greased.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
I always thought the main problem with IEDs was detection, not disarming..
Interesting none the less.
Weren’t the SuperHornets fielded ahead of schedule too?
Well, JIN detects and neutralises all in one by arcing and zapping all in one go.
But if the IED is wearing a tinfoil hat (or at least is wrapped in conductive material) it won’t work.…
I’m very happy to read some good news about how we are attacking this assymetric IED threat to our troops with our own arsenal of high tech innovation. It dosen’t take much immagination to foresee that the threat of IEDs can easily migrate into other theaters of military operation outside of Iraq and even pose a possible future domestic terror threat. Given the fact that IESs have accounted for most of our casualties in Iraq I’m shocked to hear that the beauracrats are still taking a cautious tact in pushing this technology for deployment at the front.
Between the agencies of DARPA, the Secret Service, Homeland Security, and the Pentagon, isn’t there any of them who can fast track the development of this project given its potential to counter so many furure multiple threats?
Technology is not the answer to IED’s in Iraq or Afganistan. We are waisting milions of dollars on high tech solutions to the low-tech applications the bad guys are using. This is just another expensive toy that distracts the government from attacking the real problem, of the terrorist organization itself. As pointed out nuturalizing an IED once its found is simple, its the finding them thats hard. Better yet is lets insure the damn things arn’t built and placed on the roadside to begin with at all. Just as powerful as the explosive is the liberal anti-bush/anti-war on terrorism media coverage, they provide the terrorists the worldwide stregic impact, damage assessment, lessons learned, and encourgement they need to carry on. So long as we only focus on the device we will never solve the problem.
We are the most technologicly advanced and richest
nation on the face of the planet,can spend 300 mil
on trailers for katrina victems (which aren’t beingused by the way)but we can’t get our war fightersthe tools,armour and protection they need,and areASKING for,and WILL use the help!
Get this stuff to the field and put it to use,make
changes to it as you go to improve and refine the
tech to make it even more usable.I cannot believe
we can’t have this ied problem nipped already if
the solution is right there in our hands,ready to
go.
what aload of crap…
look this is ou r new brokyray!!
Throwing more technology at a non technology problem won’t make an iota of difference.
It is not that the technology doesn’t look impressive.
It is not that the thinking ability and innovative approach is un-valued
It is simply that the issue in Iraq is not about the technology, it is about different approaches to valuing the world. Until we realise that, more lives will be lost and substantial amounts of money will be spent achieving little. There is a big difference between activity and productivity. At the moment, there appears to be an awful lot of activity.
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Maarten– This seems to be above your paycheck. Get a dictionary and use it. Your ideas or the ones you quote from John Kerry may then be taken seriously.
As we adapt our tactics so do the insurgents; we, wervicemen and women, need to stay a step ahead. Eventually, Iraqis will step up and take control of their country. Foreign aid happens… Days of the “people rising” have been eliminated in part to technological advances. Sit-ins don’t work when life is not valued by fanatical Muslims.
Don’t comment on what you don’t know; that is ignorance.
what is the Amount of reward for reducing losses from IED’s in Iraq and the Far east? We can reduce your losses to near zero In a short period of time and maintain near zero losses.
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This must be the silly season. Too many young boys think that war is just a video game. Deaths are not avoided by destroying stationary IEDs that have already been identified as stationary IEDs.
How about a DNA scanner that can detect suicide bombers in realtime! Then you can float these in space and scan the whole population of the world, well at least the one’s you catch in the carpark walking between the mall and the car, and those on the golf course.
PS Don’t forget to downplay the 10% issue for the sake of saving lives.
It seems to me that the Marines should be the ones to ask about this device.They should be able to tell you very quickly if the thing lives up to it’s billing. When it comes to military spending and the defense department I always look with skeptical eyes. Which company stands to lose if this device works and which congressman is getting greased by a company that makes military vehicles. Our troops shouldn’t have to deal with these realities, but they do.