Ward and I had an interesting discussion with an engineer with the Joint IED Defeat Organization at this year’s Modern Day Marine expo in Quantico.
She gave us a good rundown of the differences between the kinds of threats found in Afghanistan and those we’ve had to deal with in Iraq. She described the situation to us in front of a display called the “Petting Zoo” that shows representative triggering devices and IED setups (there was even a suicide vest…eek).
Bottom line, Afghanistan ones aren’t evolving as fast as those in Iraq did, but the countermeasures are largely the same but challenged by terrain.
– Christian
Strange how they can use:So called “ignorance” in Afghan but not in Iraq?
Well, concerning IED’s, I’ve posted on the boards many times about this. How about a REIED (a “reverse-engineered” IED? It may be time to “fight fire with fire.” And, it would seem at least to me that they have a lot more to fear from IED’s (especially the ones that unknown to them the detonators have been altered to “prematurely” detonate at a most inopportune time from an insurgents’ perspective) than we do. When I say “reverse-engineer” I’m referring maybe more to a concept (an idea) more than a simple device. You might focus on the detonators (the device buried in the explosive charge), with a reverse-engineered alteration designed to cause the charge to explode when it is “set” (initially buried) by the insurgents. From that point backwards you may reverse-engineer a strategy to bring about an effective counter-insurgency strategy. Of course, there’s no “miracle cure” to this problem and what’s needed more is an effective counter strategy.
I think that Jim has a great idea.
Why don’t we reverse engineer all of the Russian nukes?
But then again, why stop there?
Lets reverse engineer the rifle, the sword, fire, etc.
Jesus H. Christ!
The US Navy has been reverse engineering things for decades.
They now have designed and built a ship that won’t float.
They refer to it as their Stealth ship.
It looks exactly like the USS Arizona, but without the museum on top.
Go Navy!
To the poster “Zandor”:
You wrote: “My, isn’t it nice to see that all of the techno nerds who spend hours here on differentiating about the minutea between different styles of camo clothing, seem to not take into account that 10 US soldiers got iced yesterday.“
Negative news is forbidden here on “Defensetech”. The U.S.A. is winning this war. Change subject. Did you hear about D.A.R.P.A.‘s last wonder weapon, the V3 ? It is going to save us from the terrorists!
“Israel” is our ally.
Flood the black market with faulty blasting caps. The only people using them will be people that shouldn’t be, and in the case of a blasting cap, the explosion will be small, only enough to injure or kill the guy holding it. It wouldn’t be difficult, blasting caps are very sensitive.
By the way, my cousin was involved in that firefight. Keep them in your prayers.