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

As the female sui­cide bomb­ing in Diyala the other day demon­strates, the more Iraqi gov­ern­ment and secu­rity forces take charge and the US takes a back seat to coun­terin­sur­gency, the empha­sis on offense is going to increas­ingly shift to defense.

Some folks I met at the Modern Day Marine Expo last week have an inter­est­ing sys­tem called “Counter Bomber” that uses radar and some wiz bang algo­rithms to detect if some­one is con­ceal­ing a sui­cide vest under his clothing.

Here’s a short video that explains how the sys­tem works…

Counter Bomber costs about $300K, and that includes a com­puter and soft­ware that gives a no-joke “Marine proof” indi­ca­tion of whether someone’s hid­ing some­thing or not. A chime sounds if the radar detects a sig­na­ture (it basi­cally can pick up metal­lic objects under cloth­ing) and gives a green-for-safe or red-for-threat indi­ca­tor as the per­son passes the Counter Bomber’s radar. The sys­tem works up to about 150 meters and the design­ers say it’s best to have a cou­ple arrayed so secu­rity offi­cers can get a 360-degree view of what the per­son might be hiding.

Company reps say there are 12 Counter Bombers fielded to Marines in com­bat: eight sys­tems are fielded in Iraq, includ­ing al Asad air base and the busy entrance to Ramadi on route Michigan, and four are sta­tioned in Afghanistan.

– Christian

The U.S. has taken the unprece­dented — and some would say ques­tion­able — step of sell­ing some of its most sophis­ti­cated counter-IED tech­nol­ogy to the Iraqi gov­ern­ment, equip­ping spe­cial­ized police, mil­i­tary and inte­rior min­istry troops with elec­tronic sys­tems designed to det­o­nate road­side bombs and jam trig­ger­ing signals. 

Officials from Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq announced April 20 that its for­eign mil­i­tary sales office had sold the Iraqis 411 Lockheed Martin-built “Symphony” counter-IED sys­tems. A few of the Symphony sys­tems are already up and run­ning on Iraqi gov­ern­ment vehi­cles, the com­mand said, with the rest due to be installed by the end of the summer. 

“This sys­tem will afford the Iraqi secu­rity forces long-term, inde­pen­dent counter-IED pro­tec­tion and relieves coali­tion troops from this respon­si­bil­ity so the lat­ter may per­form other tasks,” said Army Lt. Col. Will Flucker, the command’s Symphony pro­gram man­ager, in an April 20 release. “This sys­tem is a crit­i­cal part of secu­rity tran­si­tion from the coali­tion forces to the gov­ern­ment of Iraq and inte­gral to devel­op­ing [Iraqi secu­rity forces] into a long-term part­ner in the global war on terror.” 

But some might see hand­ing over America’s most sophis­ti­cated and top secret counter-IED tech­nol­ogy to Iraqi min­istries, whose loy­alty to Baghdad is less than cer­tain, as extremely risky. Electronic jam­mers like the Symphony have saved American lives in a war where the road­side bomb is the number-one killer, and the pos­si­bil­ity that an Iraqi offi­cial could hand over the tech­nol­ogy to an insur­gent or unfriendly gov­ern­ment is all too real. 

“You have to assume that about the third one that we ship over there is going to go straight out the back door,” said John Pike, direc­tor of the Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-area defense research group. “We have a fun­da­men­tal dilemma here in try­ing to indi­g­e­nize these secu­rity forces.”

(more…)

First of all, let me just say up front: Since my recent return from Iraq, I have offi­cially become a fan of the MRAP.

O.K., I said it. You’ve read plenty of skep­ti­cal sto­ries here at DT on the use­ful­ness of the MRAP and the pru­dence of a “crash” pro­gram to buy gobs of them for Iraq. I stand by my prin­ci­ple crit­i­cism. But after hav­ing spent some time in MRAPs — par­tic­u­larly the RG-33 6x ver­sion — I have to admit I feel pretty safe rid­ing in them.

I’ll lay out more of my case in sub­se­quent posts, but suf­fice it to say in the Humvee I have to get my 6’2″ frame in and out of one like a clown car — fold­ing one leg in and reach­ing out to fold the next one into the small foot wells. There’s no place to stow a bag and tri-pod or other report­ing gear in a Humvee.

Not so the MRAP. Cushy seats, room for mul­ti­ple cool­ers, back­packs full of snivel gear and snacks and radios, DVD play­ers and iPod speakers.

I’ll take an MRAP over a Humvee any day.

Now to the point…

One of the cool pieces of gear I noticed when I was tromp­ing around with some EOD folks near Tikrit is this crazy snow blower look­ing gizmo attached to sev­eral of the unit’s MRAPs. The unit com­man­der tells me they’re called “Blow Torch” and what the guys tell me is that they shoot out a blis­ter­ing stream of air to uncover IEDs, com­mand wire and other det­o­na­tors attached to a road­side bomb with­out hav­ing to tin­ker with it by hand or with a robot.

The sys­tem was rec­og­nized in August 2007 as one of the Army’s “great­est inven­tions” and so far it’s been deployed to prin­ci­pally Army units in Iraq for about two years.

– Christian

The Army is report­ing on a new hel­met sen­sor that might lead to bet­ter hel­mets in the future. Here’s a bit:

The sen­sors gather data on impacts rang­ing from a dropped or kicked hel­met to a vehi­cle crash to a nearby weapon fir­ing or explo­sion, Maj. Schaffer explained. They mea­sure two spe­cific actions: the energy wave gen­er­ated by the “event,” and the “accel­er­a­tion” or jolt that follows.

In the short term, data col­lected through the sen­sors is expected to help the Army improve the hel­mets and other pro­tec­tive equip­ment it pro­vides its sol­diers, Maj. Schaffer said.

A longer-term appli­ca­tion — one Maj. Schaffer empha­sized the med­ical com­mu­nity isn’t yet ready for — is to use impact data to help diag­nose trau­matic brain injuries.

“With the num­ber of IEDs that we’re see­ing in Iraq and the trau­matic brain injury that’s com­ing out of it, obvi­ously some­where down the line we are look­ing at cor­re­lat­ing the blast and the injury,” he said. “But in the near term, we are look­ing at devel­op­ing a more pro­tec­tive piece of equip­ment. The advanced com­bat hel­met we have out there is the best in the world, but we are always look­ing at ways to make our prod­ucts bet­ter, and this is a great way to start.”

Read the entire arti­cle here.

– Ward

For those of you who were (and still are) skep­ti­cal of Boeing’s claim on the 1 Kw laser’s abil­ity to destroy an explo­sive or IED, here’s more detail I got from them on how it was done.

Target muni­tions (IEDs, UXO) are destroyed by heat­ing, result­ing in a low-yield det­o­na­tion. In other words, instead of explod­ing with their intended full force, the tar­get muni­tion “pops” or “fiz­zles” out, ren­der­ing it safe.

The opti­cal sys­tem focuses the 1 kW laser into a “few cm diam­e­ter” spot at the tar­get range. Within that spot, the aver­age inten­sity is over 200 W/cm2. That inten­sity is approx­i­mately 20 times the aver­age ther­mal out­put of a stan­dard burner ele­ment on an elec­tric stove­top. Over sec­onds or min­utes of illu­mi­na­tion time, that effect is suf­fi­cient to pro­vide the ther­mal load nec­es­sary to det­o­nate the tar­gets used in the demonstration.

– Christian

Late last month, the folks at Boeing test fired a Humvee-mounted laser that can be used to destroy IEDs and unex­ploded ordnance. 

Boeing says the 1-kilowatt solid state laser took out five tar­gets dur­ing a test shoot at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. The laser was mated to an Avenger air defense vehi­cle, which usu­ally fires Stinger anti-aircraft mis­sile at low fly­ing air­craft.

The com­pany said the Laser Avenger also zapped two sta­tion­ary UAVs sit­ting on the ground a long way from prov­ing the sys­tem can shoot down air­borne drones, but still enough for Boeing to claim the laser could be used for UAVs on the move. 

Whether it can blow up fly­ing robots is super­flu­ous at this point. Typical IED dis­posal in Iraq and Afghanistan is a very high risk propo­si­tion, requir­ing a tech­ni­cian to place charges on the bomb, use a robot to do it or a mechan­i­cal arm. I know from expe­ri­ence that one insur­gent tech­nique is to allow the EOD per­son­nel to deploy to Buffalo arm on an IED, then det­o­nate it, blow­ing the com­plex and vul­ner­a­ble hydraulic arm off and ren­der­ing the vehi­cle useless. 

Boeing wouldnt say how far away the laser works, but even if its a lit­tle fur­ther than the range of a robot or a Buffalo arm, it could be a bet­ter solu­tion than todays options. 

Boeing release follows:

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has suc­cess­fully demon­strated that its Avenger-mounted laser sys­tem can neu­tral­ize the kinds of impro­vised explo­sive devices (IEDs) and unex­ploded ord­nance (UXO) that threaten U.S. troops deployed in war zones. 

During laser fir­ings Sept. 26–27 at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., the Laser Avenger engaged and destroyed five tar­gets rep­re­sent­ing IED and UXO threats. Laser Avenger, equipped with a 1-kilowatt solid-state laser, proved its effec­tive­ness at ranges that allowed the sys­tem to be oper­ated at safe dis­tances from the tar­get. During the test, the sys­tem also took a step toward demon­strat­ing a counter-unmanned aer­ial vehi­cle capa­bil­ity by destroy­ing two small unmanned aer­ial vehi­cles that were sta­tion­ary on the ground. 

(more…)

The gen­eral in charge of oper­a­tions for coali­tion forces in north­ern Iraq had an inter­est­ing tech­ni­cal request dur­ing an inter­view with fel­low blog­gers this morn­ing (Sept. 24). He had a lot of other things to say, of course, but I thought DT read­ers would be par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in this lit­tle tid­bit.

When asked what kind of gear items he needed that he didnt already have, Brig. Gen. Mike Bednarek applauded the money and effort put into devis­ing counter IED tech­nol­ogy and get­ting urgent needs out to the field, but had one sim­ple request.

Ill para­phrase a bit here:

If I could have one thing that could help me right now, it would be some sort of low-power laser cut­ter that we could mount to a Humvee and as we drive along, it would cut com­mand det­o­na­tion wires along our route.

This perked my inter­est and Id like to see if any DT read­ers have some input here. This idea cer­tainly makes sense, but I won­der if theres any­thing out there already to meet Bednareks demands, or whether this prob­lem has already been con­sid­ered and deemed unworkable.

Ive seen that weird IR trig­ger­ing device that has been recently retro­fit­ted to Humvees the one that looks like a big, flat black square on a pole extend­ing from the front bumper which is used to det­o­nate EFP road­side bombs. But I dont know if theres some­thing out there like the laser cut­ter Bednarek needs.

Let us know if any of you have heard any­thing about some­thing like this. Id like to be able to put some­one in touch with the gen­eral if there is maybe we here at DT can do a lit­tle more than debate amongst our­selves. Maybe we can help some­one save a few lives in the process

– Christian

Its dan­ger­ous work search­ing vehi­cles at a TCP, or traf­fic con­trol point, in Iraq. Any one of those pick­ups, taxi cabs or dump trucks pass­ing through could hide thou­sands of pounds of explo­sives and a sweat-soaked sui­cide bomber itch­ing for a run at some heav­enly vir­gins.

Forcing the occu­pants to exit the vehi­cle, search­ing under every seat and in every nook and cranny can be extremely haz­ardous to your health, to say the least. But one tool the troops are using in the sand­box is help­ing keep the dan­ger at bay in busy checkpoints.

Backscatter x-ray machines have proven vital in the bat­tle against VBIDs. But the panel truck-sized vehi­cles are large, con­spic­u­ous, meaty tar­gets for insur­gent RPGs. So American Science and Engineering, Inc. passed along a release to Defense Tech that could offer a much more ele­gant solu­tion to the backscat­ter capa­bil­ity needed in aus­tere envi­ron­ments abroad.

AS&E writes:

American Science and Engineering’s ZBV Military Trailer™ is a rugged X-ray screen­ing sys­tem built onto a stan­dard mil­i­tary trailer. With one-sided, Backscatter imag­ing, secu­rity offi­cials can use ZBV Mil Trailer for screen­ing vehi­cles, con­tain­ers, and other cargo for ter­ror­ist threats and con­tra­band sim­ply by tow­ing the trailer past the sub­jects, or by remain­ing sta­tion­ary while vehi­cles drive past the trailer. The ZBV Mil Trailer employs AS&E’s patented Z Backscatter™ tech­nol­ogy, which pro­duces photo-like images of the con­tents of a con­tainer or vehi­cle, high­light­ing organic mate­ri­als such as explo­sives. Development of the ZBV Military Trailer was sup­ported by a November 2006 R&D con­tract for $2.2 Million to deliver a ruggedi­zed ZBV for the U.S. Government. The ZBV Mil Trailer is ideal for screen­ing vehi­cles for car and truck bombs.

ZBV Mil Trailer also includes Forwardscatter tech­nol­ogy to com­ple­ment Z Backscatter imag­ing. Forwardscatter presents a sec­ond scat­ter per­spec­tive that dis­plays dense objects in cargo, such as the shield­ing found around nuclear WMD. With ZBV Mil Trailer in sta­tion­ary scan mode, Forwardscatter detec­tors are posi­tioned oppo­site the X-ray source in the trailer. The Forwardscatter image is dis­played simul­ta­ne­ously with the Z Backscatter image, pro­vid­ing the oper­a­tor with more infor­ma­tion on the con­tents of a scanned vehicle. 

I know from my expe­ri­ence in Ramadi that these trucks are a life­saver. But theyre expen­sive, obtru­sive and only opti­mized for high flow areas…there was only one of them for the entire cap­i­tal city of al Anbar. With this sleeker solu­tion, troops might be able to posi­tion this capa­bil­ity at many more check­points, leav­ing insur­gent bombers few avenues to deliver their vehi­cle borne devastation.

– Christian