Sydney Alford helps in anti-IED fight

[buglerbilly]

Civilian counter-IED expert helps Army defeat Taliban bombs

20 Jan 10

Civilian contractor Sidney Alford has been fascinated by bombs since World War Two. He is now an expert on the Taliban's current weapon of choice, the improvised explosive device (IED), and has been working with the Army to help disrupt the insurgent campaign in Afghanistan. Report by Cliff Caswell.


Sidney Alford has been using his lifetime of expertise to help British troops battle the improvised explosive device
[Picture: Graeme Main, Crown Copyright/MOD 2009]

When German Luftwaffe commanders ordered the dropping of thousands of bombs on the UK during the Second World War, they could never have imagined the extraordinary effect their campaign was having on one small child.

Intrigued by the enemy that was trying to kill him night-after-night, 11-year-old Sidney Alford would venture out into the shattered landscape after air raids, collect parts of ordnance, and attempt to put them back together to find out how they worked.

It was the beginning of a career that would culminate with him becoming one of the world's leading authorities on explosives and how to manage them:

"I grew up in Ilford, north east of London, and learned all about bombs and incendiary devices first-hand from a very young age," Sidney said with a smile.

"I collected bits from all sorts of shells and tried to piece them together - I shall never forget my excitement after discovering a complete V1 motor in Epping Forest.

"Unfortunately, as I was so young, I wasn't strong enough to take this find back home with me - it was extremely heavy and I couldn't lift it. But on another occasion, I was so close to a V2 rocket when it came down that it blew my hat off."

Despite his brush with death, the fascination with enemy weapons and tactics has remained with Sidney throughout his adult life.

Now an expert on the terrorist's current weapon of choice - the improvised explosive device - the former craftsman with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) has been pressed into helping the Army to disrupt the insurgent campaign in Afghanistan.

Enduring the harsh conditions of field trials at a time of life when most pensioners would be enjoying retirement and making use of their free bus passes, his expertise has been hugely appreciated by bomb disposal experts from both the Royal Engineers and the Royal Logistic Corps:

"The issue we have is that IEDs in theatre were previously based on munitions such as artillery shells," Sidney said. "But Taliban tactics are now changing.

"We are, however, adept at disposing of all kinds of explosive devices and I'm very pleased to report that the gadgets that we have been testing have been performing very well."

Sidney's company - Alford Technologies - has certainly forged an impressive track record in ordnance disposal. The firm has won a clutch of accolades, receiving a Queen's Award for Innovation on two occasions, and has found its services in high demand in both military and civilian sectors.

The explosives guru, who runs his firm with son Roland, is also routinely used by newspapers and broadcasters for comment on stories, most recently the car bomb attack on Glasgow Airport and the liquid bomb plot to bring down airliners.

It is all a far cry from Sidney's humble beginnings when he began an unsuccessful career in the pharmaceutical sector after studying for his chemistry degree:

"I left the industry and obviously had to think about doing something else," he recalled. "So I started looking at how I would attempt to defeat bombs and ultimately discovered that people were prepared to pay me for my services.

"Earlier in my career I was actually better known for my work with the United States Army - notably the company provided them with a means of dealing with vehicle-borne IEDs - but I'm delighted to now be assisting British forces."

Despite working closely with the military, Sidney said he was pleased to be a civilian contractor, admitting that his stint in National Service had been tough:

"I was conscripted and served with the REME for two years during 1955 and 1956," he explained. "I found it very boring because I didn't want to be in the Army and the Army didn't want to have me there.

However, it was good to be in the battalion shooting team, which got me out of the workshop for a few days.

"Interestingly, my father had been a soldier and had served in Egypt during the First World War - he actually met Lawrence of Arabia while he was out there."

Although a life in uniform did not suit Sidney, soldiers who have worked with the veteran counter-IED specialist were delighted to have the benefit of his experience and were impressed with his methods of dealing with deadly ordnance.

Staff Sergeant Snowy White, of the Royal Engineers Trials and Development Unit, described Sidney as a 'pure genius' who was accessible to General and Sapper alike:

"You could spend a lifetime looking for somebody comparable to Sidney and it is really interesting for guys to work alongside him," the Senior Non-Commissioned Officer said.

The emerging teamwork of military and civilian personnel is proving to be a success story. Against the backdrop of a fluid operation, where solutions to problems must quickly be found, a new relationship between the MOD and its contractors has emerged over the last few years.

Nowhere is the work of experts like Sidney more crucial than in the badlands of Helmand.

With the Taliban choosing the roadside bomb as its weapon of choice, staying one step ahead of the insurgents is crucial to delivering security, reconstruction and the rule of law for the Afghan people.

This article is taken from the January 2010 edition of SOLDIER - Magazine of the British Army.

[buglerbilly]

MineWolf Shows New Military Solution for Landmines and IEDs in Afghanistan and Beyond

(Source: MineWolf Systems; issued January 29, 2010)



MUNICH --- MineWolf Systems, a leading provider of mine clearance vehicles and services to the humanitarian and military markets yesterday demonstrated a new mechanical solution developed specifically to meet the requirements of the US Army for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ‘Medium MineWolf’ machine (MW 330) caused quite a stir as it was presented for the first time yesterday in Munich’s city centre at the Military Engineering Summit, Europe's largest gathering of military engineers, procurement officers and equipment and technology providers with over 150 attendees from all over the world looking for latest developments in military engineering.

This machine is the latest addition to the MineWolf product range, built in Germany in response to a specific requirement from the US Army for an area mine clearance system for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. US forces are looking for a capability to safely and quickly clear open ground of land mines and unexploded ordnance while minimizing the risk to soldiers.

“We have produced a machine robust enough to survive blasts from heavy anti-tank mines, yet mobile enough to be transportable in a 20ft ISO container or on a C-130 plane. The Medium Mine Wolf also offers a variety of other interchangeable attachments such as a blade, bucket, sifter or forklift”, said Phillip von Michaelis, the company’s Sales Director.

MineWolf Systems also demonstrated a sophisticated robotic arm attachment which can be mounted on any of their mine clearance vehicles to remotely deal with IED threats. Summit participants saw the robotic arm mounted on their smaller, remote controlled ‘Mini MineWolf’ machine.

“This is a very interesting development offering excellent efficiency and mobility for both humanitarian and military demining missions. The multi-purpose attachments which can be mounted to the base vehicle make it even more useful to field operations” said Colonel Radlmeier, Director, NATO Military Engineering Centre of Excellence.

MineWolf Systems has machines clearing minefields in Europe, Africa, South America and the Middle East. Their reputation plus their flexibility to develop bespoke engineering solutions makes them of particular interest to the military engineers in Munich who are looking for just such new technology to deal with the challenge of explosives faced by their soldiers on a daily basis.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

More Money, More Projects, for Anti-IED Shop

Posted by Paul McLeary at 2/8/2010 6:56 AM CST


A vehicle smoulders after a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint in
Iraq. (Pic: Paul McLeary)

Since its inception in 2006, the Pentagon has funneled about $20 billion to its anti-IED shop, the Joint IED Defeat Organization -- known as JIEDDO -- a figure that includes the $3.4 billion the Obama administration is asking Congress to approve in FY 2011, a boost from the $2.2 billion approved in FY 2010. And the organization expects to receive more money in 2010 to support the surge in American forces to Afghanistan.

According to new information posted on the program’s Web site, JIEDDO’s FY 2011 plans identify over 200 projects, including “counter-IED force protection, exploitation of device signatures, counter-IED persistent surveillance, sensor data fusion, and network analysis.” The technologies JIEDDO is throwing into the fight in Afghanistan run the gamut from the “Self-Protection Adaptive Roller Kit (SPARK)”—otherwise known as a roller bolted on the front of a vehicle to pre-detonates pressure-plate IEDs—to the unfortunately-named VADER (Evil Empire references, anyone?) program. The Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar “can detect, track and characterize suspicious enemy actions – mounted and dismounted – in real-time and in high-resolution using the VADER system. The system is a combination of state-of-the-art hardware sensors and exploitation-focused software on both Army and Air Force aerial platforms,” the site says.

Twenty billion, even in today’s environment where increasingly large military outlays have become the rule, is real money. And JIEDDO has had its share of problems in recent years. This past fall in particular was rough on the organization, as then-director Gen. Steven Metz admitted to an incredulous Congress in October that the organization keeps no centralized database on IED information it has collected. Just a month later, the Pentagon launched a new anti-IED task force, led by Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Paxton, tasked with exploring the IED problem and coming up with possible solutions in Afghanistan, essentially duplicating JIEDDO’s profile.

At the time, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told me that this move didn’t signal a vote of no confidence in JIEDDO. “This is more than a JIEDDO problem,” he said. “If it’s just the bombs themselves, that’s one thing, if it’s just the vehicle protection itself, that’s one thing, if it’s just the intelligence, that’s another thing. [Gates] wants to make sure that all of these efforts are integrated and collaborating, and that’s what this is about.”

Despite the fact that it’s working to defeat a threat that has been responsible for more American combat deaths than any other weapon since 2001, JIEDDO hasn’t been made part of the Pentagon’s base budget, and is forced to rely on supplemental funds on a year-to-year basis. This creates problems, particularly when it comes to giving the shop the bureaucratic teeth to compel the services branches to share their own closely-held anti-IED research and development information that they themselves use to justify funding on a year-to-year basis. This isn’t to say that the services don’t play nice with JIEDDO—they do when it benefits them—and the organization played a big role in several big-ticket programs, including upgrading the armor on Stryker vehicles before they deployed to Afghanistan last summer.

[buglerbilly]

From The Sunday Times

February 21, 2010

Robots and bees to beat the Taliban

The homemade IED is the extremists’ deadliest weapon and America is spending billions on trying to combat it. We are granted access to this secret, smart and bizarre world

Christina Lamb

The soldier breathes loud and fast as he lays a timed charge on an explosive in a Baghdad street. “I want these people to know if they’re going to leave a bomb on the side of the road for us, we’re just going to blow up their f****** road,” he growls, walking away. Before he can reach safety, an Iraqi punches a code into a mobile phone. The explosion sends the soldier flying in a cloud of dust and debris.

The opening eight minutes of the Oscar-nominated movie The Hurt Locker bring to light the terrifying work of bomb disposal units. The special effects may be Hollywood, but there is no exaggerating the horror of IEDs, the improvised explosive devices that are by far the biggest killers of British and American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The IED has supplanted the Kalashnikov to become the insurgent weapon of the 21st century. It can be assembled by villagers in a back yard and it enables the Taliban to take on an enemy with far superior numbers and fire power just as Stinger surface-to-air missiles enabled the Mujaheddin to neutralise Soviet air power in the 1980s.

In Afghanistan now, in the battle for Marjah, the coalition has 15,000 soldiers ranged against an estimated 400 Taliban fighters. It sounds like no contest. Yet progress is slow and bloody because the Taliban have ringed the town with IEDs in what soldiers call the “belt of death”.

The work of the British and American soldiers who disarm these devices is heroic. But the real race to counter the threat is going on thousands of miles away in secret laboratories on America’s east coast.

Over the past three years, the Pentagon has spent $15.5 billion and employed top scientific minds in an effort to come up with the best ways to detect and survive IEDs. Its scientists and engineers are working round the clock on robots, lasers, chemical detectors and even specially trained bees.

The Sunday Times has had unprecedented access to this massive shadowy programme, which brings together brainpower and money on a scale last seen in the second world war when the Manhattan project raced to develop the atom bomb.

Its headquarters is a grey office block with no name. Inside, the Wall of Fallen Heroes is covered with plaques bearing the names of US soldiers killed by IEDs. January was a bad month, with about one a day killed, all in Afghanistan. In 2003 there were 81 recorded IED incidents in Afghanistan. Last year there were 8,159. In Helmand it is common to see soldiers vomit before they go on patrol because the chances of being hit are so high.

IEDs are nothing new. Guy Fawkes used one to try to blow up parliament. Lawrence of Arabia placed bombs on the road and railway to disrupt Turkish supply routes during the first world war. They were common in Vietnam when the Vietcong fashioned them from unexploded American ordinance. The term IED was coined in the 1970s by the British Army when the IRA made bombs from fertiliser and Semtex smuggled from Libya.

The war in Iraq saw them used on a new scale. The country had enormous stockpiles of munitions. By September 2003 there were 100 explosions a month, soon rising to 2,000. General John Abizaid, who took over US central command in July 2003, asked the Pentagon for a “Manhattan project-like” approach. The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organisation (Jieddo) now has more than 3,000 staff and funds of $4 billion a year.

The man in charge is General Michael Oates, a four-tour veteran of Iraq. “The war against IEDs is very personal,” he says. “I’ve lost many of my men to them and I’ve been in proximity many times. A vehicle behind you blowing up, a vehicle in front, your own vehicle getting hit ... My driver killed. Virtually every soldier I know has seen an IED or been close to one or knows someone who died.”

About half of all American soldiers who died in Iraq were killed by IEDs, while in Afghanistan the figure is now about two-thirds. But insurgents quickly learnt that they inflict more than just death and injury. “The IED is a tactical weapon in that people use it to maim and kill us, but also a strategic weapon in that it impacts the will of our countries to operate overseas,” says Oates. “So tactically we need to find ways to detect and defeat it, and survive it if we don’t, but in our national capitals we have to remove it as a weapon that overly influences our strategy, and that’s very difficult.”

Oates views the task of defeating IEDs as a combination of improving protection for the troops, detection and interrupting the financial networks behind the attacks. To this end, his team includes all sorts, from FBI agents specialising in gangs, top scientists, cultural specialists and social anthropologists as well as demolition specialists.

To see what progress is being made, I head north to the Aberdeen proving ground in Maryland. It’s a spooky place that houses the world’s first programmable computer (on which the ballistic calculations for the Manhattan project were done) and sealed buildings behind barbed wire.

In a hangar a group of soldiers is operating a remote-control robot the size of a lawnmower. The men are explosive ordnance disposal specialists in the 20th Support Command, whose informal motto is “Initial success or total failure”.

Sergeant John Stricklett has done four tours in Baghdad, often taking the “long walk” to defuse a bomb. He shows me how he can operate the Talon robot from a laptop in a case, studying the area from its four mounted cameras and manoeuvring its claw-like hands.

“It becomes my hands and disassembles the bomb while I can stay at remote distance,” he says. “On my last deployment I lost three robots. If I’d walked down that street instead, they would have got me.”

At $150,000 a time, the robots are expensive, but cheap in comparison with the lives they save. When robots don’t work, the technicians have to put on a blastresistant suit and a transparent face shield, resembling an astronaut’s mask. The suit is enormously heavy and suffocatingly hot.

“All you can hear inside is your breathing and your heart beating,” says Master Sergeant Charles Wyatt.

The scientists working on ways to defeat the IEDs are led by Dr Augustus Way Fountain, the US army’s chief chemist and an expert in electro-optics. I meet him at his lab in the Edgewood chemical biological centre. Every IED encountered in Afghanistan is sent here to be replicated.

“The operational word in IED is ‘improvised’. As they are constantly changing, we need to keep vigilant and maintain our technological expertise to stay ahead of the game,” he says. The main focus of his work is finding chemical signatures of bombs. A ground-penetrating laser known as a Huskie has been developed to try to detect them through mass spectroscopy. The task now is to miniaturise it and enable it to work from a distance.

The irony of amassing all this money and brainpower to defeat a bunch of largely illiterate Afghan farmers assembling bombs in their mud houses using fertiliser packed in kitchen jugs is not lost on him. “Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to defeat,” he says. “As Americans we like technology, we like complicated things. That’s what I’ve been trying to get my head round — how to think more simply.”

One of the more bizarre suggestions has been to use honeybees because of their acute sense of smell. The small hairs that bees use to detect pollen can be used to detect any scent, prompting them to stick out their tongues.

A defence research laboratory in Los Alamos has found they can be trained within 20 minutes to recognise a particular chemical. It proposes putting bees in a detecting machine with a monitor that registers a signal when the bees stick out their tongues. But the logistics of carrying bees inside army vehicles moving around Afghanistan have proved unworkable.

The main testing site for the counter-IED programme is an island in Chesapeake Bay at a facility so secret I am asked not to name it. It is dotted with concrete bunkers. Signs proclaim “extreme noise area” and “firing in progress”. Every so often there is a loud boom. Every device encountered in Afghanistan, once replicated, is tested here, and for the past five years Scott Schoenfeld, a computational physicist, has been studying nothing else.

A siren sounds and he takes me into a bunker with a thick steel blast wall and lots of computers. About 100 yards away a copy of the latest Taliban IED is blown up and the screens all light up. “As it explodes, the device sends out lethal fragments and explosive gases, and what we are doing is using X-ray imaging to capture this in real time,” he says. The information enables Schoenfeld and his team to design better armour for army vehicles.

Once the debris stops raining down and the all-clear sounds, we go outside. The wooden stall where the IED was placed has been obliterated and the wall where the armour is tested is pitted with scars.

Schoenfeld admits that, whatever his team comes up with, the insurgents always seem to be one step ahead. “As soon as we discover a way to find this stuff or protect our men, the enemy adapts.”

First the army strengthened the Humvee from a 1.25-ton chassis to 2.5 tons. Then it built 20-ton MRAPs — mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles with V-shaped hulls to deflect blasts. Now even those are being hit as the Taliban have adapted by using larger explosives.

“You might argue, why don’t you just armour more,” says Oates. “But the problem is, you reach a crossover point where you can so protect yourself you can’t do your mission. What we really want to do is cause the population to stop people placing IEDs and we can’t do that if we’re inside vehicles so protected we can’t go outside.”

Last month Afghanistan banned ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which is the main ingredient of Taliban bombs. But most of it comes from across the border. And there’s no ban — yet — on ammonium nitrate in Pakistan.

The real secret, as Schoenfeld says, to defeating the IED is to get into the minds of the insurgents. Jieddo has set up a group called the technical gaming team that sits in an office plastered with maps of Pakistan and Afghanistan and tries to predict what future IEDs might look like.

“Think chess, not checkers, always trying to be one move ahead of insurgents,” says Erin Piateski, a mechanical engineer who is part of the group. “They come up with things we never expected,” she says, in an almost admiring tone. “They take something extremely simple and make it extremely complex. These guys are really creative.”

She takes out a big cardboard box of what looks like junk — old mobile phones and wires, circuit boards, 7-Up cans, toy cars, walkie-talkies, key rings, handheld electronic games. “This is what we call the IED petting zoo,” she says, “otherwise known as the ‘petting zoo of death’.”

The most common IEDs in Afghanistan are simple pressure plates — two wooden blocks with metallic strips inside that make contact when a person or vehicle goes over them, attached to a command wire that sets off the explosion.

“Look at this,” says Piateski, taking out some metal-lined strips of wood. “They come up with pressure plates so intricate and I wonder, ‘Why did you go out of your way to make it so complicated?’ Maybe the maker is a budding engineer.”

She pulls out a wire with several pressure plates along it. “This is what’s known as a Christmas tree light,” she says.

The problem with the basic pressure-plate design is that the insurgent can’t select a target and may end up blowing up a farmer and his goat. For a while, insurgents were using wireless devices that could be triggered by punching a code into a cellphone as a convoy passed. When coalition forces started using jammers on their vehicles to block the phone signal, the Taliban devised new command-wire and pressure-plate IEDs. These are hard to detect because they use graphite for the connections to avoid being found by metal detectors, though this is expensive. The insurgents are also working on ways to defeat the jammers.

The Taliban are not believed to have a centralised IED unit, and there is a lot of regional variation. But everyone under a certain regional commander will tend to use the same design. “After a while we begin to recognise their signature,” says Piateski.

The Taliban are good at disguising IEDs in rubbish, potholes or craters from previous blasts. But for all the US technology, a high percentage of IEDs found are spotted by soldiers noticing that something doesn’t look right.

In the assault on Marjah last week, a British lieutenant moving into a bazaar with his men noticed a new wire on an old pole. Further investigation revealed it was connected to eight buried mortar shells.

“Finding devices is in my view a stop-gap measure,” says Piateski. “If someone really has it in their mind to set off an IED they will succeed — you can’t catch them all the time.”

Back in Jieddo’s head office, Oates agrees. Though optimistic that his scientists will come up with new means of detection, he believes the real answer is to go after the financiers who pay for the explosives. To help, he has brought in organised crime experts from the FBI as well as experts in Afghan culture and society.

“IED networks are like organised crime — people have turf,” he says. “You’ve got to understand who is operating where and why. At first we assumed the IEDs were all there to kill us, but they may not be. The purpose may be very different if you’re involved in a criminal enterprise such as drug smuggling. The last thing you want is coalition forces interdicting your free flow, so you may put a device out there to say ‘don’t mess with this porcupine’.”

The money Oates has to spend is almost double the entire spending of the Afghan government. Not everyone agrees throwing all this money at the problem is the best way to go. “Defeat of the IED is not an arms-race type environment where you win by protecting or detecting,” said Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, the Canadian general who commanded Nato forces in Kandahar until November. “It’s the Afghan population who will defeat IEDs — it’s them who see them being made and planted. Just as your towns are safe not because of the police but because of you — picking up the phone to the police to say there’s someone doing X.”

Oates does not agree. How can he? The money protects his soldiers. It saves lives: civilian as well as military. And he knows what it feels like to face IEDs when you are just trying to do your job. His emotion when he talks about it is infinitely more powerful than the Hollywood special effects that give The Hurt Locker its force. “After you’ve survived one but clearly felt the effect, you know the feeling next time you go out, when you’re looking around all the time so much your neck hurts, waiting for the next,” he says. “Try and explain that to someone. That’s why we’re doing this.”

[buglerbilly]

C-IED troops make a difference to Op MOSHTARAK

A Military Operations news article

1 Mar 10

The Counter-Improvised Explosive Device (C-IED) Task Force were among the first troops to be involved in Operation MOSHTARAK, helping ensure that, when the infantry launched the first assaults just over two weeks ago, routes were clear.


A soldier from Fire Support Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, carries out a search for improvised explosive devices during a patrol on Op MOSHTARAK
[Picture: SSgt Mark Jones, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Operation MOSHTARAK has involved thousands of Afghan, British, American and other ISAF forces clearing parts of central Helmand of insurgents in a bid to bring the area under the authority of the Afghan Government who are already setting about improving the lives of the inhabitants.

The operation was launched on 13 February 2010 with a series of helicopter and ground offensives.

See Related News to read more on the operation itself.

Amongst those in the Counter-IED Task Force involved in the preparations was Staff Sergeant Karl Ley. He said:

"We were on MOSHTARAK before MOSHTARAK started. We had to make sure that the routes were clear of devices so that the infantry guys could pass through safely."

The Counter-IED Task Force, comprised of Royal Logistic Corps explosive ordnance disposal teams and Royal Engineers search teams, has developed new tactics and equipment, much of it secret, to find and destroy the bombs before they explode.

SSgt Ley has been in Helmand province since September 2009. Describing his role as a commander of a team within the Counter-IED Task Force, he said:

"I'm an Ammunition Technician by trade and as a result of that I'm doing the ATO [Ammunition Technical Officer] job out here. That post always used to be a commissioned officer's post but the name has stuck with us as well.

"Essentially it's my team's job to get rid of the IEDs. We work closely with a seven-man REST [Royal Engineer Search Team]. If a device has been found my team take the lead to get rid of it and we are backed up by the RESA [Royal Engineer Search Advisor]. If we are conducting a search, they lead, and we are called upon if something is found.

"We move around each of the battle groups and become their asset for whatever they need us for; responding to a call if a device is found or a deliberate search op."

SSgt Ley's Second-in-Command is Corporal Stewart Jones. He described his role:

"My job is to operate any remote-controlled equipment to disable these deadly devices.

"We have tracked vehicles - robots if you like - which I control using a joystick. I basically drive them out to the IED and try to make it safe. If this doesn't work then I can always set up explosives to blow up the main charges on the IED."

SSgt Ley explained how careful the process of destruction needs to be:

"We have to work carefully and methodically. It does take a long time but I would prefer to be thorough than rush the job and have me or one of the guys killed or maimed.

"If you don't work in this field you tend to think it's very dangerous but when you get out here an IED is just an IED and we just get on with it. Training for this has all been progressive and we do lots of courses prior to deploying so we are very well equipped for what may come up."

Members of the Joint Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team conduct a high-risk search patrol on the training compound at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan
[Picture: SAC Kimberley Waterson RAF, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Although this is SSgt Ley's first time in Afghanistan he has completed operational tours in the Falklands, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Belize and believes the kit he has now is better than it has ever been:

"Our kit has improved so much since I first started. In the Counter-IED team we have new bomb disposal suits with in-built fans to cool us down. This is becoming increasingly important as the hot weather kicks in.

"We have the Vallon, which is a fantastic piece of kit. Basically it is a state-of-the-art metal detector. We also have the new little robots and the like, so clearly a lot of money has been spent on kitting us out properly."

One of the new pieces of equipment is the Python rocket, a trailer-mounted, rocket-propelled mine-clearing system pulled behind the Trojan armoured engineer tank, which fires a snake of high explosives. See Related News to read about the Python's first outing in Afghanistan.

SSgt Ley said:

"Python is great but you can't use it in closely built-up areas, only in the desert or sparser populated areas in the country.

"Our team is ideal for more urban areas. Out here we are trying to win the hearts and minds of the locals so we work hard with local communities. This is where the human side of C-IED is needed."

The task force also work with their Afghan counterparts through embedded partnering. SSgt Ley explained:

"We work alongside the Afghan National Army. They are a great bunch though sometimes a little too brave and try to tackle the IEDs by themselves.

"We have spent a lot of time training them about how we work and how to do it properly. We have made a lot of progress with them and they are working well alongside the team by cordoning off devices and calling us in to assist."

SSgt Ley believes that during this tour his team have destroyed over 150 IEDs and on one particular day they found and destroyed 14. But the team has also lost members:

"It's been hard at times," he said. "We have lost quite a few people since the tour began and I've personally lost a lot of mates.

"I was very good mates with Olaf Schmid. Dave Markland was my RESA who I spent three months with.

"As we are such a close-knit community we tend to know everyone so it's very hard when there is a loss or a severe casualty."

Cpl Jones added:

"This is my second operational tour and it has been a real mix of emotions. I have great laughs with the guys but then there is the other side of the job.

"Hearing about the death of a mate or someone you have been training with brings everything into sharp focus. It really registers just how dangerous this job is. But we cannot and do not let it beat us. We have to be stronger than that. We will take time when we get back home to remember them. For now we have a job to do."


As part of the Counter-IED Task Force, members of 5131 (Bomb Disposal) Squadron demonstrate their skills in dealing with improvised explosive devices
[Picture: Andy Cargill ABIPP, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Speaking about his role on Operation MOSHTARAK, Cpl Jones added:

"While this tour has been challenging, I felt like I have been making a real difference to the overall Op MOSHTARAK mission."

Brigadier James Cowan, the Commander of Task Force Helmand, emphasised the importance of the work that people like Cpl Jones and SSgt Ley are doing. He said:

"The men and women of the C-IED Task Force are an extraordinary group of people. Selflessly committed to their dangerous work and utterly professional, there isn't a soldier in Task Force Helmand who doesn't hold them in the utmost respect for what they do and the way they do it.

"I am deeply proud to have them serving as part of my brigade, saving military and civilian lives day-in and day-out. They are some of the true heroes of this campaign."

[buglerbilly]

The Real-Life Baghdad Bomb Squad, Revisited

By Nathan Hodge March 8, 2010 | 9:47 am



“The Hurt Locker” may have swept the Oscars, but it drew plenty of fire from veterans for its inaccuracies. (And personally, I liked “Point Break” a hell of a lot better.)

http://iava.org/press-room/press-coverage/rieckhoff-discusses-hurt-locker

Criticisms aside, the movie did put the spotlight on the extraordinary work done in Iraq and Afghanistan by explosive ordnance disposal teams — and the terrible lethality and sophistication of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. It would be hard to overstate how quickly the threat evolved: Back in 2005, Maj. Bruce Paterson, director of the IED working group at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, reminded people working on technological solutions that there was no quick fix, no silver bullet, when it came to detecting and countering these deadly devices.

“I get a whole lot of folks who tell me … oh, we’ve got the answer, we can pick up that 155-mm shell under the ground,” he said. “Great. Can you tell me what 6 155-mm shells, one 500-pound bomb, a tire filled with explosives and two propane tanks all piled together under the road looks like? And is your system smart enough to figure that out? I highly doubt that. No IED is the same. Everyone is different: use your imagination. The enemy does.”

Of course, getting “left of boom” by tracking bomb-building networks was one of the main advances in the counter-IED fight. For an account of that, it’s worth going back and re-reading Rick Atkinson’s indispensable series on the Joint IED Defeat Organization in the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/specials/leftofboom/index.html

And for a more intimate look at the work of a bomb-fighting team, I’d also recommend Noah’s 2005 story on Team Mayhem and the soldiers of the Army’s 717th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company. It’s another must-read.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/bomb.html

Also online, Foreign Policy has a decent photo essay on the real-life “Hurt Locker.”

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/05/photo_essay_the_real_hurt_locker

And for good measure, read Buda’s Wagon, Mike Davis’ history of the car bomb. It’s not focused on the current wars, per se, but it’s a timely account of one of the more spectacular weapons in the terrorist’s arsenal.

[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0hdYrvdHU

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0hdYry9rb

[buglerbilly]

The real-life 'hurt locker' crew

View as one page 1:30 PM Tuesday Mar 9, 2010


Photo / AP

American bomb disposal experts in Iraq say few people understood what they did.

Not any more.

Now, the US military's explosive experts are basking in their job's newfound fame after the Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker took home the best picture prize at Sunday's Academy Awards in Hollywood.

But the specialists still have to explain they are not all like the film's arrogant, adrenaline-junkie hero.

Set in the summer of 2004, the movie tells the fictional story of an elite US Army bomb squad that has 38 days to go before its members can leave Baghdad. Under enormous pressure, since one false move can kill them and everyone around them, they are itching to get the job done and head home.

Enter Staff Sgt. William James, who's either a swaggering, brilliant, bomb disposal expert, or an egomaniacal showoff - perhaps a bit of both. The character and the screenplay were inspired by the screenwriter's own experience while he was embedded with such a squad in 2004.

But James' character earned mixed reviews from bomb experts in Iraq attached to the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

"That guy was more of a run and gun cowboy type, and that is exactly the kind of person that we're not looking for," said Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Phillips, a team leader in Iraq's eastern Maysan province.

Phillips, 30, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, called the movie's portrayal of a bomb expert "grossly exaggerated and not appropriate."

Airman 1st class Stephen Dobbins said such swagger would put a whole team at risk.

"Our team leaders don't have that kind of invincibility complex, and if they do, they aren't allowed to operate," said Dobbins, 22, of Paulden, Arizona, one of many Air Force experts who have been flown in to back up Army explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team operations. "A team leader's first priority is getting his team home in one piece."

But that doesn't mean the movie doesn't have its fans among bomb disposal experts serving in Iraq.

"While it was sexed up quite a bit, I really enjoyed it," said Tech Sgt. William Adomeit, 31, of Las Vegas, Nevada. Adomeit saw the movie for the first time at his base in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.

Other than the best picture prize, the movie earned five more Oscars, including best director honors for Kathryn Bigelow - the first woman in the 82-year history of the Academy Awards to earn Hollywood's top prize for filmmakers.

The movie's title can mean different things - from GI slang for severe injury to a place no one wants to go, to a tricky, locked-in space a bomb expert finds himself in when a blast goes off.

Most bomb technicians accuse the movie of taking cinematic liberties that would never occur in a war zone, such as hunting bomb-makers down dark alleys alone, or riding around Baghdad unescorted by US Army vehicles.

"The one vehicle going out by itself, that would not be realistic at all," said Senior Airman Katie Hamm, 23, of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Six years after the film takes place, bombings remain the primary threat to Iraqis. Bomb disposal teams are still finding weapons caches and responding to rocket attacks, but the nature of their mission has changed dramatically since 2004, when the film takes place.

With the US military preparing to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by September, American EOD teams are teaching Iraqis to do a job American technicians usually spend years training for.

This new task moves American bomb technicians from the field into the classroom, where they pass on their knowledge to Iraqis who will take over the high-risk job.

"We weren't really trained to be teachers necessarily, or advisers," said Staff Sgt. Andrew Krueger, 24, of Greeley, Colorado. "It's something you kind of have to learn how to do as you go."

Collecting intelligence on bomb-makers is one duty of explosive experts' that hasn't ebbed over the years - but trophies from disposed bombs are not exactly souvenirs you can take home.

The movie's lead character, played by actor Jeremy Renner, keeps bomb parts under his bed as keepsakes of the bombs that nearly killed him. In the real world, he would be accused of withholding evidence.

American bombs technicians take care to preserve pieces of bombs so they can use that intelligence to track down and identify bomb-makers.

"Each bomb maker has his own way of doing things, it's like a hard-wired routine - they all have a signature, they all use a certain kind of tape, or they use a certain kind of battery," said Phillips.

Reality is at odds with the movie when it comes to the film's iconic bomb suit. Most of the time, it sits unused on a shelf in the teams' vehicles. Even the robots - the workhorses of bomb-disposal teams - rarely see action nowadays in Iraq since the Americans use them only when called in for a response to a planted bomb.

The explosives experts say they never go for the suit first but use it as a last resort, preferring to do everything as remotely and safely as possible. So the movie's idea that they show up every day and throw on the suit first thing is unusual, they said.

But one thing the movie got down pat, the experts in Iraq say, is a bomb disposal expert's love for the adrenaline rush of a job well done. Now, with improved security across Iraq, their missions are rare.

"If we're slow, and nothing's going on, it means something is going right," said Dobbins.

-AP

Troop video comments here...........

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/video.cfm?c_id=2&gal_objectid=10630908&gallery_id=109819

[buglerbilly]

Army Debuts New Tool to Defeat IEDs

(Source: U.S Army; issued March 9, 2010)


The Tanglefoot anti-IED robot. (US Army photo)

DETROIT ARSENAL, WARREN, Mich. --- Soldiers spoke and the Army listened. Officials will debut a new device designed to combat the deadly threat of improvised explosive devices during a Florida conference later this month.

The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command's tank and automotive center will publicly display its newest technology for the first time at the National Defense Industry Association's Ground Robotic Capabilities Conference and Exhibition March 16-18 in Miami, Fla.

The Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center will display military robots in an industry-wide push for interoperability during the event. To highlight the theme "Dual Role of Robotics Technologies - Public and Private Sector," the conference will bring warfighters, first responders, and government and industry technology professionals together to address increased responsiveness to user needs.

The center will introduce Tanglefoot, a device designed to be attached to more than 8,000 currently-fielded robots. Tanglefoot combines an interface kit, wire rake and mast to create a simple, low-cost, universal tool to assist the defeat of IEDs and route clearance.

Improvised explosive devices are the most deadly threats to United States and coalition forces today and are responsible for nearly two-thirds of causalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center.

The conference's focus includes how the best ideas from the military, automotive industry and NASA can be shared.

"The Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center plans to take advantage of the conference to spur cooperation between government agencies and private partners," said Dave Thomas, TARDEC Intelligent Ground Systems associate director. "This year, TARDEC will unveil a technology that was directly requested from our Warfighters as well as focus on how we can get the entire robotic community working together on communications challenges."

The Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center develops and integrates the right technology solutions to improve current force effectiveness and provide superior capabilities for the future force.

Army officials said the Tanglefoot initiative demonstrates the importance of collaborative efforts. "The teaming of TARDEC and the Robotics Systems Joint Project Office made this possible, said Maj. Chad Harris, assistant project manager for maneuver support systems.

"The Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center rapidly developed and tested the device, then transferred it to us for fielding. This collaboration helps the warfighter get the best equipment he or she needs to be effective."

At the show, TARDEC will also demonstrate how multiple robots can be operated by a single controller. While TARDEC will demonstrate this capacity with PackBot and Omni Directional Inspection System robots and an iPod Touch, an iPad - or similar device - will be leveraged to show this awesome capability and how diverse systems can work together to better optimize and integrate future technology.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Defusing 139 Taliban bombs was nothing special, says British soldier

A British soldier who defused 139 Taliban bombs in six months has described how he survived one of the bloodiest periods in the history of Army bomb disposal.

By Sean Rayment in Camp Bastion, Helmand
Published: 9:00PM GMT 13 Mar 2010


29 year old Staff Sergeant Karl 'Badger' Ley Photo: HEATHCLIFF O'MALLEY

Staff Sergeant Karl "Badger" Ley worked in temperatures of 122F (50C) defusing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and braved being targeted by insurgent snipers, while deployed to Helmand.

The 29-year-old bomb disposal expert from Sheffield saved the lives of countless British soldiers and Afghan nationals during a tour of duty in which three of his closest friends were killed and several others were injured by Taliban bombs.

SSgt Ley, who is married with four children, insisted he was not a hero and said: "I was just doing my job – and by the way it's nothing like The Hurt Locker."

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the soldier with 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment (11EOD), Royal Logistic Corps, said: "Soldiers tend to be scared of IEDs because they know that they can kill.

"They don't scare me because it's my job to defuse them. It's all about being in your comfort zone. When I'm defusing bombs I'm in my comfort zone.

"I have been under fire many times and that is something which does scare me. I hate it because I am not in my comfort zone but many guys in the infantry enjoy it, they get a real buzz out of being in a firefight - but it terrifies me."

The use of IEDs by the Taliban has soared in the last two years and the devices are now are responsible for 80 per cent of all British casualties.

The experts charged with defusing them are known as IED operators.

The number working in Helmand cannot be made public for security reasons but they make up just a small fraction of the 300-strong Counter IED Task Force.

The bomb disposal specialists always deploy with support from specialist Royal Engineer searchers.

SSgt Ley has defused more than three times as many bombs as some of his colleagues have, but insists he has done "nothing special".

The staff sergeant, whose job title is Ammunition Technician, told how he was ambushed by the Taliban as he took the "long walk" along a track to defuse a bomb.

He said: "I was a few metres from the bomb and about 100 metres from the rest of my team when the Taliban spotted me and opened up.

"Two RPGs flew over my head and I could hear the bullets cracking above me. I just turned and ran. I was terrified. By the time I reached my blokes they were all laughing at me. I think they saw the look on my face."

During one 72-hour operation last September he defused 28 pressure plate IEDs, tackling 14 bombs in a single nine-hour period.

The operation took place close to a British base which was being targeted by Taliban bomb teams.

He continued: "I was with WO2 David Markland, who was the Royal Engineer Search Advisor in my team. We were waiting for the searchers to finish when we were attacked.

"All of sudden there was this enormous weight of fire raining down upon us.

"The bullets were flying just above my head, literally inches away. I got down on my belly but Gary was a big bloke and was struggling to get behind cover.

"The Taliban position was eventually suppressed by our troops and we set about defusing the devices.

"It was a bit nervy – I think the Taliban got wind that we were removing all of the devices they had spent hours laying and were not very happy. I cleared seven on the first day, 14 on the second and seven on the third.

"It was very hard work, shattering actually, the temperature was hitting 104F (40C) and you had to keep your focus and remain methodical."

SSgt Ley and WO2 Markland worked together for the next five months and became firm friends, trusting each other with their lives.

But on Feb 8, just prior to Operation Moshtarak, WO2 Markland was killed when he triggered an IED in the Nad-e-Ali district of central Helmand while conducting a search operation.

SSgt Ley admitted to being devastated by the loss of one of his best friends.

The death formed part of a grim period which left many within the Counter IED Task Force bereft and distraught.

On Jan 11, Captain Daniel Read, another IED operator with 11EOD, who had previously been injured in an explosion yet had returned to the front line, was killed by a homemade bomb.

Then, only days after WO2 Markland's death, Sapper Guy Mellors, a member of a search team from 33 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers was killed by a home made bomb in Sangin on Feb 15.

"It was a really bad period," said SSgt Ley. "After Dave was killed I had a little cry but you don't have time to mope – you just have to man-up and get on with it. But I think we were all deeply affected."

Earlier, Captain Daniel Shepherd of 11EOD was killed last July, and Olaf Schmid, a bomb disposal expert also with the same regiment, was killed last October after five months working in Helmand, the day before he was due to fly home for two weeks' leave.

"Olaf Schmid was a very good mate of mine and he was killed very early on in our tour," said SSgt Ley.

"That was a big blow. He was fantastic bloke – he lit up a room, he was such a big personality.

"I had known him for a very long time and whenever I was sent on a course the first thing I would do would be to look at the list of names to see if Olaf was on it – if he was you knew you were in for a good time."

Major Tim Gould, the officer commanding of the Counter IED Task Force, said the tour had been one of the most arduous in his regiment's history.

He said: "We haven't sustained losses like this since the early days of the 1970s when bomb disposal was in its infancy.

"You will not hear any of my men complain about the workload or the dangers but it has been unrelenting and arduous.

"The teams are out almost every day doing fantastic work and there are a lot of soldiers and Afghans alive today because of their courage – but there has been a price to pay and we have lost more men in the last six months than the regiment has lost in over 30 years."

[buglerbilly]

From The Sunday Times March 14, 2010

Bomb disposal hero to get George Cross


Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid

AN ARMY bomb disposal expert hailed by his commanding officer as the bravest man he had ever met is expected this week to be awarded the George Cross posthumously.

Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid died in Afghanistan on October 31 last year as his team tried to defuse an improvised explosive device (IED) in Helmand province. Over the previous five months he had made safe 64 roadside bombs before he was killed clearing an area of mines.

When the 30-year-old’s body was repatriated to Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire his grieving widow, Christina, greeted his coffin with smiles and applause as she wore his medals. “I am very pleased to have my husband home. He is an absolute hero,” she said.

It is expected she will now accept her husband’s George Cross from the Queen later this year.

The George Cross, which can also be awarded to civilians, ranks alongside the Victoria Cross as . It is awarded to military personnel for acts of heroism not in the presence of the enemy.

Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Thomson, the commanding officer of 2 Rifles Battle Group, described Schmid, who was known as Oz, as “simply the bravest and most courageous man I have ever met”.

He added: “Under relentless IED and small arms attacks he stood taller than the tallest. He saved lives in 2 Rifles time after time.”

Schmid, of 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps, was serving with 2 Rifles Battle Group and died the day before he was due to return to the Winchester home he shared with his wife and her five-year-old son, Laird.

At his funeral at Truro Cathedral, the town where Schmid was born, his widow said the last 18 months of her husband's life presented his “toughest, darkest challenges ever”. During the summer Schmid took part in Operation Panther's Claw, the offensive to clear populated areas in central Helmand of Taliban insurgents.

The George Cross was created by George VI in 1940 and only 159 have been awarded to civilians and military personnel.

Last night an spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said: “We do not discuss operational honours and awards before they have been presented.”

[buglerbilly]

General Leads Effort Against IEDs

(Source: US Department of Defense; issued March 12, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- Improvised explosive devices are one of the most deadly threats to servicemembers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Though they’re often as unsophisticated as a homemade pipe bomb, they have has forced the U.S. military to dedicate entire units to finding and destroying them.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates, director of the Joint IED Defeat Organization, discussed the effort to provide comprehensive counter-IED support to warfighters, as well as the organization’s direct support of the surge in Afghanistan, during a “DODLive” bloggers roundtable today.

“Although [the organization is] only four years old, a lot of great things have been done,” he said. “But we have a ways to go yet in ensuring that we can provide the equipment and training that’s necessary for our soldiers as the enemy adapts its techniques and procedures.”

Oates said he has seen a number of differences between Iraq and Afghanistan concerning the IED threat. Two to three years ago in Iraq, the issue was military-grade weaponry being sold and used in IEDs, with fairly sophisticated detonation equipment that Oates said he believes came from Iranian sources. Since then, the threat has dwindled.

In Afghanistan, the volume of IEDs has about doubled, he said, and the casualty numbers reflect that growth. The quality of explosives is much lower – they’re largely homemade explosives, centered on potassium chlorate and ammonium nitrate fertilizers with “very rudimentary” detonation mechanisms such as trip-wires, pressure plates or remote control.

“In Afghanistan, we’ve seen evidence of support coming from Pakistan, so we’re working with the Pakistani government to shut out these shipping routes to keep the fertilizers away from bomb makers,” Oates said.

But whether the explosive is a military-grade bomb or something made in a garage with household products, both have still proven a very dangerous threat to troops on the ground.

“The effectiveness is still good in both [Iraqi and Afghan IEDs],” Oates said. The fertilizer bombs are still effective because they provide a unique challenge for detection, he added.

Because of the nature of fertilizer bombs in Afghanistan, the government there has banned ammonium nitrate-based products. No such fertilizer is produced in Afghanistan, so in theory, the ban will help to weed out bomb-makers from people who use ammonium nitrate products legitimately.

“But the enemy, as you know, adapts, and we have to stay ahead of the game,” Oates said. “As ammonium nitrate becomes more difficult to employ against us, they’ll shift to some other forms. We’re already anticipating and preparing for those contingencies.”

The Pakistani government has discussed placing restrictions on ammonium nitrate and potassium chlorate, since their country has been the primary source for the chemicals. But the same chemicals used in IEDs in Afghanistan are used for mining, farming, road construction and in products like safety matches.

“This is a very complex challenge, because a flat-out ban on these chemicals will affect commercial industry,” Oates said. “A lot of these homemade explosive chemicals are used for very benign purposes.”

Oates said getting the resources needed to Afghanistan has been a problem of physics – a lack of enough room on transport vehicles to carry all of the equipment requested. It hasn’t been a critical problem, he said, but it is a limiter.

Congress has allowed the Joint IED Defeat flexibility for spending, Oates said, a benefit the services as a whole don’t enjoy. As the warfighters see a new threat, the organization can respond as rapidly as possible to get troops more suitable equipment and training.

“There is a tyranny of time to acquire, produce and transport [those resources], so nothing happens overnight,” Oates said. “But I can assure you we are in the ‘urgent response’ mode, as often as we can push industry and training to make [quick response] happen. Our business is very serious; it’s a matter of life and death.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Lockheed Martin Awarded Task Order for Continued Production of Symphony IED Jammer Systems

(Source: Lockheed Martin; issued March 16, 2010)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. --- The U.S. Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a sole source indefinite-delivery-indefinite-quantity contract for Symphony Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device (RC-IED) Defeat jammer systems. With an initial task order valued at $40.8 million, the contract runs through September 2014 and has a ceiling value of $940 million.

The Symphony systems are U.S. Government-approved for sale through the Foreign Military Sales program to allied, coalition and partner nations for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations.

"Symphony is mounted on convoy vehicles and has been proven in combat against Radio-Controlled IEDs," said Carl Bannar, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Radar Systems business. "The system was engineered and built to provide continuous electronic force protection against RC-IEDs in the most rugged, tactical and extreme environments."

Symphony is programmable and designed for easy installation, operation and maintenance on a diverse set of platforms used by security forces worldwide. It is compatible and interoperable with other communications systems and jamming devices.

Lockheed Martin performs Symphony system production, vehicle system integration, depot and logistic support and engineering work at facilities in Florida and Virginia, as well as in theater. Lockheed Martin has produced Symphony since 2006, has delivered more than 1,000 systems and, prior to the latest contract, had received orders totaling $126 million.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation reported 2009 sales of $45.2 billion.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Soaring IED attacks in Afghanistan stymie U.S. counteroffensive


Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, relying on explosives that are often far more primitive than the ones used in Iraq. An Afghan Army engineer tries to photograph an IED they dug up after local residents reported it at Howz-e-Madad in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. (John Moore - Getty Images)

By Craig Whitlock

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, relying on explosives that are often far more primitive than the ones used in Iraq.

The embrace of a low-tech approach by Taliban-trained bombmakers -- they are building improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, out of fertilizer and diesel fuel -- has stymied a $17 billion U.S. counteroffensive against the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, military officials say. Electronic scanners or jammers, which were commonly deployed in Iraq, can detect only bombs with metal parts or circuitry.

"Technology is not going to solve this problem," said Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the military's Joint IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO. "I don't think you can defeat the IED as a weapon system. It is too easy to use."

U.S. military officials said they expected the number of IED attacks to climb further this year as 40,000 U.S. and NATO reinforcements pour into Afghanistan.

Oates said technological advances have enabled the military to save lives by providing better armor and other forms of protection for troops. But he said the high-tech approach -- despite billions of dollars in research -- has failed to produce an effective way to detect IEDs in the field. About four-fifths of the devices that are found before they explode are detected the old-fashioned way: by troops who notice telltale signs, such as a recently disturbed patch of dirt that might be covering up a bomb.

Despite the insurgents' crude approach, the explosive power of their IEDs is growing. Each bombing in Afghanistan, on average, causes 50 percent more casualties than it did three years ago, Oates said Wednesday at a House committee hearing. U.S. officials say even armored troop-transport vehicles that were designed to protect against roadside bombs are now vulnerable.

All told, the U.S. military recorded 8,159 IED incidents in Afghanistan in 2009, compared with 3,867 in 2008 and 2,677 the year before.

Last month, 721 IEDs blew up or were defused in Afghanistan, slowing a major Marine-led offensive in Helmand province and killing 28 U.S. and allied troops. These bombs are the leading cause of U.S. casualties by a large margin.

The number of IED attacks in Iraq, meanwhile, has plummeted, mirroring the overall decrease in violence in that country. At their peak, in 2007, Iraqi insurgents employed 23,000 IEDs. Last year, that number fell to about 3,000, according to U.S. military figures.

Oates credited U.S. countermeasures -- such as interrupting the flow of military-grade explosives and detonators from Iran -- for some of the decrease. Other military officials said a bigger factor was the overall reduction in the intensity of the insurgency; as sectarian fighting faded, people simply stopped planting bombs.

Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the head of U.S. military intelligence in Afghanistan, has said that the most effective way to combat the flood of IEDs is to embrace an overall counterinsurgency strategy. If U.S. and NATO forces can win the support of the local population, the thinking goes, the bombings will stop.

But with the number of IED attacks soaring in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates created a task force in November to devise more short-term solutions for responding to the threat. He gave the group six months to come up with recommendations.

"There's no doubt the urgency has picked up," said Oates, who took over as director of JIEDDO in January and sits on the task force. "We don't have years to wait to start changing the momentum in Afghanistan."

JIEDDO, which has a staff of about 3,500, was created in 2006 after U.S. commanders in Iraq said they needed a major research effort to come up with ways to fight IEDs. Some military officials likened the campaign to a modern-day Manhattan Project, the code name for the secret program that developed the first atomic bomb.

Congress has spent nearly $17 billion on IED research and training programs, not including money allocated for armored vehicles and other equipment to protect troops.

In Iraq, in addition to using electronic jammers, the U.S. military employed a range of tactics to detect IEDs. Unmanned aircraft and blimps armed with cameras roamed the skies to look for insurgents as they placed bombs along roadsides and under bridges.

But experts said those tactics are only marginally useful in Afghanistan. Because of the country's mountainous terrain, surveillance drones have a harder time spotting bombers at work. Unlike in Iraq, most of the roads are unpaved, making it more difficult to detect bombs buried in the dirt.

"It's just a tough environment," said Command Sgt. Maj. Todd M. Burnett, who oversees training programs for JIEDDO. "It's the harshest conditions imaginable for a soldier."

Kenneth Comer, JIEDDO's deputy director of intelligence, said insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq were constantly adapting their bombmaking tactics to stay a step ahead of U.S. technological advances. He said that it was unlikely that the U.S. military would ever catch up but that it needed to keep trying until broader counterinsurgency efforts take root. The alternative, he said, would result in higher U.S. casualties and more momentum for enemy forces.

"We will never win in that space," he said. "But we can lose in that space."

[Exsandgroper]

Medal for ending phone bombs
Brad Norington, Washington correspondent
From: The Australian March 20, 2010 12:00AM

MICHAEL Steer feels rightly pleased that he has saved the lives of thousands of allied soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq after his work stopped the use of mobile phones to trigger roadside bombs.
The US military establishment feels the same way about the Australian, who often spent up to 90 hours a week for several years in his laboratory to pinpoint the vulnerability.

Professor Steer, an expert on electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University, has received a special civilian medal for his efforts.

Major General Nick Justice, head of the US Army's research and development command, described his work as a "game-changer of modern warfare" when he handed him the US Army Commander's Award for Public Service last week.

Much of Professor Steer's work remains classified but he told The Weekend Australian yesterday that his invention combined abstract communications theory and basic physics to prevent mobile phones being used to trigger explosives.

Military vehicles now carry a device that is the direct result of his work.

When it became widely known a decade ago that the frequency fields from mobile phones could be used to set off bombs, it made the efforts of militant groups quicker, cheaper and more lethal.

Ending the use of mobile phones forced them to return to detonators such as tripwires and pressure plates that take time to set up and are easier to detect.

"Professors are good for something. They have a long-term body of knowledge that can be drawn in time of need," Professor Steer told The Weekend Australian. Professor Steer, 54, moved from Brisbane to North Carolina in 1983. He has since become a US citizen. He received an army grant in 2002 to develop technology to stop wireless devices being used as detonators.

Cheers

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

The National Character of IEDs

Posted by Paul McLeary at 3/23/2010 10:15 AM CDT


Weapons cache found in Iraq. (Photo: Paul McLeary)

Part of the difficulty in finding and defeating improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the roadside bombs that have wreaked such havoc for Americans and their allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that they come in so many different varieties. Not only are some command detonated using things like cell phones or garage door openers to trip the fuse, but others are “victim-operated”—meaning they go off when someone steps on top of them.

Furthermore, they’re made of different materials. In Iraq, the vast majority of roadside bombs were made from military ordinance like rockets, mortars and mines. As US forces became more adept at figuring out the threat they posed, things like mine detectors, (since most were made of metal) and radio jammers (to thwart the command-detonated threat) worked well. Iranian forces also supplied technologies necessary to make the nightmarish EFP, or explosively formed projectile, which essentially launched a molten ball that could tear through the side of tactical vehicles. But the U.S. military and its NATO allies hadn’t fully confronted the threat posed by fertilizer and chemical-based bombs until relatively recently in Afghanistan, according to Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, the head of the Army’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).

Speaking on a conference call earlier this month, Oates confirmed what most anyone knows, that the IED threat in Afghanistan is expanding, nearly doubling over the last year. He added that as opposed to the artillery shells and more sophisticated detonation devices used in Iraq, in Afghanistan the threat is “largely homemade explosives centered around two types of fertilizer: potassium chloride and ammonium nitrate, with very rudimentary detonation capability, the majority of which is victim-operated, pressure plate or tripwire, followed by some command wire detonated, and third, remote control.”

The Haqqani network for example, is known for its use of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. As a result, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has worked to impose a ban on the import of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to Afghanistan. But shutting down the importation of ammonium nitrate—even if that were possible given the porous borders Afghanistan shares with Pakistan—still won’t negate the threat, something Oates admitted.

A new U.N. report (large PDF) about piracy in Somalia shows how the militant group al Sahab is going about making its own IEDs with the materials that it can scrounge up. The report says that IEDs have grown more sophisticated in Somalia, and that the use of keyless motorcycle starting systems to initiate IED detonation is “increasingly common, since cell phone networks in Somalia can be unreliable.”

As for the explosives themselves, the U.N. reports that “most IEDs recovered and inspected in southern Somalia employed powdered TNT, suggesting that the explosive was recycled from high explosive shells and mines. Powdered TNT produces a lower order explosion than cast TNT, rendering IEDs less effective. The report also notes that at least one attack was carried out using Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil, a liquid explosive often produced with fertilizer. The attackers exploited the fact that the cans filled with liquid would not attract attention.

The cat and mouse game continues.

[buglerbilly]

Photo above: The Pincher micro-rocket system mounted on a miniature Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV). The weapon employs a miniature remotely operated launcher, equipped with a video camera and laser pointer, and miniature pyrophoric rockers capable of defeating IEDs in a non-violent method, fired from safe distance of several tens of meters. the system can be employed inndoors and outdoors.

Mini-Robot Employs Fiery Darts to Neutralize IEDs

A new robotic operated countermeasures designed to disable Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) from long distance are in development in Israel at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. According to Ram Fabian, director of Rafael's Land Warfare Systems, The micro-rocket system called 'Pincher' is currently in prototype phase, and could become operational next year. Pincher uses 'pencil size' rockets capable of destroying explosive charges from extended range. "The rocket causes the charge to burn, instead of explode (a process called 'deflagration'), eliminating the risk of blast, shrapnel and debris." Fabian told Defense Update.

Rafael's Pincher system comprises a miniature remotely operated multi-launcher system, which comes integral with a robotic platform, sensors, aiming devices, and remote control.

The eight inch (20 cm) long arrow-shaped rocket has a miniature rocket motor and stabilizing fins. Unlike kinetic projectiles fired from a gun, the arrow stores enough kinetic energy to fracture the outer envelope of the target, however, its unique pyrophoric material (an incendiary mixture comprising various metal powders such as titanium-boron-Teflon combinations), creates a thermal effect as it combusts in flames at very high temperature instantly as it penetrates the target, burning the explosive compound in a consuming it in a 'non violent' process, without causing an explosion.

Israel's Ministry of Defense Research & Development Directorate has already tested representative miniature arrows for possible use on miniature unmanned ground vehicles. Such mini UGVs could be employed in 'micro-tactical' applications, used indoors to seek targets, locate and deactivate IEDs, clearing buildings while avoiding excessive risk to soldiers and innocent human lives.

Once an IED or hazardous object is detected, the robot will be sent to engage, controlled by the EOD expert from a safe distance. As it approaches the suspected target an arrow is pointed precisely at the target. Using a robotic remotely controlled launcher assembly and the weapon's laser pointer, the pyrophoric arrow is fired from a maximum distance of several tens of meters, hitting precisely the target in the desired location. The Pyrophoric arrow self-ignite on target penetration, causing a non violent, quiet consumption of the energetic material, without risking collateral damage or blast.Operating from a safe distance, the robot itself is maintained intact and continue its mission. The system can be integrated on a dedicated, miniature robotic platform or as an an add-on upgrade for existing EOD robots.



Above: a schematic description of the Pincher pyrophoric rocket. Below: an early kinematic test of a pyrophoric dart. Photo: Israel MOD Defense Research & Development Directorate - DRDD.



Rafael has already fielded another stand-off counter-IED system, utilizing a high power laser, to heat an IED and cause deflagration. The system, known as Thor, was covered by Defense-Update in a previous article.

Similar techniques are suggested for use as small sub-munitions or warheads substituting kinetic flechettes munitions, creating incendiary or explosive effect over a wide area. According to the combinations of material used, pyrophoric charges could be used on land or underwater. Unlike the kinetic flechettes arrows used in direct fire area weapons, Rafael's Pyrophoric arrows could also be used as precision weapons.

© Copyright 2010 - Defense Update, Lance & Shield Ltd.

[buglerbilly]

Department Employs Cameras in Counterinsurgency Fight

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued April 5, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- In the lead-up to the summer fighting season in Afghanistan, the Defense Department is focused on helping troops counter the threat of makeshift bombs, employing among other things, cameras to catch insurgents in the act of planting explosives, a senior department official said last week.

The military has been using elevated, line-of-sight cameras as part of its intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance counterinsurgency tactics, Ashton B. Carter, Undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said during an April 2 conference on defense logistics modernization at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here.

The cameras, which show an aerial view of a stretch of roadway, “are kind of what you see every morning when you turn on the television and look at the traffic report,” Carter said.

“We are going to be, this summer, increasing many-fold the number of aerostat-borne cameras,” he added. “They’re terrific.”

Carter noted he’d visited Kandahar, Afghanistan, a few weeks ago. Defense officials have identified the city and its surrounding area as a likely site for an upcoming NATO counterinsurgency campaign. A camera installed over the city shows a surrounding area of several blocks in each direction, he said.

“Every person of ill will in Kandahar thinks that camera is looking at them,” he said. “Every person of good will thinks that camera is protecting them.”

Carter said the cameras “provide for those people, under their own control, the same functionality that a fancy [unmanned aerial vehicle] would have,” but are substantially less expensive.

“I knew I couldn’t double the number of UAVs in Afghanistan this summer,” he said, “but I’m going to [increase] the number of these elevated, line-of-sight aerostats.” The number may increase as much as twentyfold, he added.

The department also is trying to counter improvised explosive devices with increased training of U.S. and other international troops on the distinctive nature of Afghan insurgency explosives, and also is providing more equipment such as mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles to U.S. troops and allies, Carter said.

The undersecretary called the IED threat a “triple problem,” that threatens not only the lives of international and Afghan forces, but also negatively impacts the mission by hindering the movement of troops.

“If people can get outside the wire, military and nonmilitary, then they can do the mission assigned, which is the [counterinsurgency] mission,” he said. “If they can’t get outside the wire, then they can’t.”

Speaking more broadly about how acquisition, technology and logistics aid the war effort, Carter noted the challenge of managing the high number of contractors -- 107,000, mostly Afghans -- in Afghanistan. That amounts to one contractor for every 0.7 servicemembers, he said, compared to one contractor for every 1.2 servicemembers in Iraq, one contractor for every five servicemembers in Vietnam, and one for one in World War II.

The department is working to improve oversight of contractors in Afghanistan, increasing the number of contracting officers. With 84 percent of posts filled so far, they’re providing better training and systems such as using electronic payments to replace the flow of cash to help reduce fraud, Carter said.

Also in the past year, he said, 10 general officer positions have been added to oversee contracting at the two- and three-star level, he said.

Carter said his office is trying to maintain a balance “to be excellent stewards of the taxpayers’ money on one hand, and be agile and do what is required in Afghanistan now on the other hand.”

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[buglerbilly]

Pentagon Contract Announcement

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued April 9, 2010)

Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Systems, Network Communication Systems, San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $28,391,903 cost-plus-incentive-fee, cost-plus-award-fee, cost only, and firm-fixed-price modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-09-C-6317) to exercise options for all material and services to support the system development and demonstration phase through critical design review for the three capabilities (dismounted, mounted, and fixed site) of the Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) 3.3 system of systems 71°C ambient temperature.

The JCREW system will provide combat troops protection for foot soldiers, vehicles, and permanent structures, against radio-controlled improvised explosive devices.

Traditionally, the Department of Defense has procured different individual systems to support each of these three capabilities with a focus on operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The JCREW 3.3 is the first generation system that will develop a common open architecture across all three capabilities and provide protection for worldwide military operations.

Work will be performed at various Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Systems locations, as follows: San Diego, Calif. (84 percent), Sierra Vista, Ariz. (14 percent), and Killeen, Texas (2 percent), and is expected to be complete by October 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

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[buglerbilly]

Northrop Grumman Launches Next Generation of Wheelbarrow Bomb Disposal Vehicle

(Source: Northrop Grumman; issued April 12, 2010)



LONDON --- Northrop Grumman Corporation has launched the latest enhanced version of its industry-leading Wheelbarrow unmanned ground vehicle for the remote handling and surveillance of hazardous threats. The Wheelbarrow Mk9 vehicle, designed, developed and manufactured by Northrop Grumman in the UK, includes significant advances in technology and performance and a range of new features that will improve its capabilities for both civil security and defence applications.

The Wheelbarrow Mk9 will be on display in Northrop Grumman's exhibit at Counter Terror Expo, the international exhibition and conference dedicated to addressing the continuing worldwide threat from terrorism. Counter Terror Expo takes place at the National Hall, Olympia, London from 14-15 April.

"We are continually developing and expanding our products and their capabilities to meet the evolving needs of our military and civil security customers in detecting and disposing of improvised explosive devices and handling hazardous threats," said Kevin Rooney, managing director Unmanned Ground Vehicles for Northrop Grumman's Information Systems sector in Europe. "This latest design of our well proven Wheelbarrow vehicle combines greater speed, mobility, exceptional payload and reach capabilities with the latest control, communications and camera specifications to offer unsurpassed performance."

Key features of the Wheelbarrow Mk9 include: digital communications for improved quality and greater security; enhanced user-friendly command console with touch-screen facility and joystick control; wireless hand controller for local remote control and; greater functionality including preset positions. The vehicle also has a dedicated separate data channel for additional sensor integration. Its performance characteristics rank it among the most capable vehicles available in its class: it can climb a 45-degree stairway; has a modular telescopic arm with 7-degrees of freedom and a maximum reach of more than 6m; a maximum speed of 5km/hour; and a lift capacity of 150kg.

Wheelbarrow is one of the most capable and reliable unmanned ground vehicles in its class available today and has a proven record of success. It is recognised as the benchmark vehicle for remote disposal of improvised explosive devices and is product of choice for users around the world. Wheelbarrow was first used by British Army bomb disposal teams in the 1970s and since then it has gone through a number of design upgrades to extend capabilities and meet changing needs.

Northrop Grumman is the sole supplier to the UK MoD for this size of vehicle and is a partner to Police and military user organisations world-wide. The company has more than 2,000 unmanned ground vehicles in operation around the world.

Northrop Grumman's unmanned ground vehicle business has been established in Coventry for more than 20-years. Today the company designs, develops and manufactures some of the most capable and reliable unmanned ground vehicles available, from the Wheelbarrow bomb disposal robot to CUTLASS, the latest vehicle for hazardous operations in development for the MoD. Its wide range of vehicles can be configured according to the operational requirements of the user including explosive ordnance disposal, ground surveillance, hazardous material and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) missions. The vehicles are capable of full integration with command control system applications.

Northrop Grumman in the UK operates from a number of locations providing avionics, communications, electronic warfare systems, marine navigation systems, robotics, C4ISR solutions and mission planning, airport security, aircraft whole life support, IT systems and software development.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

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[buglerbilly]

EDA Members To Buy Field Lab For IED Research

By JULIAN HALE

Published: 23 Apr 2010 09:16

BRUSSELS - European Defence Agency member countries are set to agree April 26 at a defense minister's meeting that they will jointly buy a deployable field laboratory for forensic research into improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

An EDA official explained that it was to make up for a "limited deployable capability in theater now." The money to purchase the lab, estimated to cost around 1 million euro, is due to come from the EDA's operational budget. The official described this as a "first," adding that it is an "ad hoc solution" and something that "all countries have a need for."

The IED lab would be put out to tender and bought off the shelf, the official said. A lead country would then test the lab, in mid 2011 at the earliest, and share the results with all EDA countries. The lead country and partner countries would pay for the operational costs such as transport to theater, personnel and maintenance.

"The most likely area [for testing] is Afghanistan, as this is where the biggest danger of roadside bombs is," the official said.

In addition, EDA countries are expected to launch research into chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) protection.

"It is not the next generation of CBRN protection but the second and third generations, and will not be in use before 2015," the EDA official said. It will look into new technologies for detection, identification, decontamination and medical countermeasures, so that troops could be given medical treatments before going into CBRN-affected areas.

An independent report about maritime surveillance, commissioned by the EDA, will also be published April 26.

"The core message is that there needs to be a federation of networks [military and civilian]," the EDA official said. "It is not about creating something from scratch or needing a lot of investment or new technologies. It is about slashing legal and cultural barriers rather than new technologies."

[buglerbilly]

US Military Boosts Counter-IED Measures in Afghanistan


Military leaders expect number of IED-related casualties to rise.

US Increases Efforts to Meet Constantly Expanding Threat by IEDs

06:55 GMT, April 26, 2010 The threat posed to Afghanistan forces by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is constantly expanding. According to US Department of Defense (DOD) statistics, the number of IED attacks on Afghanistan forces rose to more than 8,000 last year, from 2,677 in 2007. They are the biggest killer of US and NATO troops, accounting for 275 of the 449 coalition deaths in 2009.

Military leaders expect the number of IED-related casualties to rise in the coming months. Lieutenant General Michael Oates, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, also known as JIEDDO, said in a recent roundtable discussion with DoD bloggers that the IED threat was significantly increasing.

The type of explosive deployed in Afghanistan tends to be homemade and centred around two main types of fertilizer—potassium chlorate and ammonium nitrate, he explained. They have a “very rudimentary detonation capability, the majority of which is what we called victim-operated—that is pressure plate or trip wire—followed by some command wire-detonated and, a third, remote control.”

He said that the US military was struggling to get the additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) support to Afghanistan to meet this expanding threat. “Getting these persistent surveillance capabilities into Afghanistan is a transportation challenge,” he explained.

Logistical Problems

It is, to an extent, a logistical problem, as there are limitations to the amount of personnel and troops that can be transported into Afghanistan due to the country's lack of infrastructure. Third-country support is one of the problems facing Afghanistan forces when it comes to IEDs, with the US finding evidence to suggest groups in Pakistan are helping the Taliban.

“There’s been a concerted effort to working with the Pakistani government, to shut down the trans-shipment of precursors and specifically with these ammonium nitrate-based fertilizers,” Oates explained.

The development of technology plays a key role in counter-IED strategy, and JIEDDO has been calling on various parties to wrestle with the problem to support Afghanistan forces.

“We have enjoyed tremendous support from industry and academia. But we have not yet hit a knee in the curve, in terms of detection. And so I'm trying to inspire people to look for some new ways,” he said.

Training Afghanistan Forces

There have been mixed reviews of the technology that has so far been developed to support Afghanistan forces, Oates admitted. “But the technology is getting better,” he insisted. “And I believe that the change-detection technology that we're going to insert, in Afghanistan, will pay us some dividends.”

It is not only equipment that is being developed as part of counter-IED efforts to protect Afghanistan forces. The military is also working in the area of social science research to understand the context of the networks that sustain and support IED-making cells.

“Fighting IEDs is a very local challenge; knowing who all the players are is very integral to that,” Oates said. “And I'm very optimistic that we're going to get great return on investment on the social science tools, analytical tools that we continue to develop.”

Training of Afghanistan forces is also key to mitigating the IED threat. For example, the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit has made the IED Identification Lanes training—in which troops learn to help locate and neutralise explosives, a requirement before the conclusion of pre-deployment exercises.

The exercise offers service members the opportunity to identify different materials and tactics the enemy is using to attack Afghanistan forces.

[buglerbilly]

France To Lead IED Forensic Lab Project

By JULIAN HALE

Published: 26 Apr 2010 10:58

BRUSSELS - France will take the lead on a European Defence Agency project where member states will jointly buy a forensic laboratory to analyze improvised explosive device (IED) debris, the EDA's chief executive said April 26.

Alexander Weis did not provide a figure for the cost, because the project will be put out to tender, but an EDA official estimated its costs at about 1 million euros.

"Poland also wants to join France" on the project, Weis said, "while all the other member states were supportive but did not define a contribution."

In 2009, more than 8,000 IED incidents were recorded in Afghanistan, Weis said. In February 2010, 721 IEDs blew up or were defused in Afghanistan, with 28 Allied troops dying as a result.

Weis said IEDs are "the threat number one not only in Afghanistan but in principle in all kinds of operational scenarios."

He added that it "would make sense to deploy [the lab] in Afghanistan" but that it was subject to the agreement of the member states' that are taking part in the project. It is expected to be deployed in about 12 months.

The EDA also proposed that member states launch a joint investment program in new technologies for detection, identification, decontamination and medical countermeasures relating to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) protection.

[buglerbilly]

Enemy Adapts To Counter-IED Tactics

Apr 27, 2010

By Paul McLeary
Washington

It was another day on the job two years ago for soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Div. The troops uncovered a cache of homemade explosives, 155-mm. and 120-mm. projectiles, blasting caps and detonation-command wire that had been wrapped in plastic before being hidden along the irrigation canal in farmland north of Baghdad. The patrol had earlier spotted the command wires of another improvised explosive device (IED) that didn’t detonate, and would soon respond to a suicide car bomb that exploded in front of an Iraqi-manned checkpoint. Finding and defeating IEDs before they did harm was an important part of their mission.

Munitions, military as well as homemade, used to be everywhere in Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, tons of ordnance were stolen by insurgents and used to create the IED threat, with rockets, mortars and mines inflicting casualties on U.S. and coalition forces. While some crude fertilizer-based bombs existed, the real threat came from more professional explosives funded by Al Qaeda and Iran, including the explosively formed projectile, which tears through most tactical vehicles. But the U.S. military and its NATO allies didn’t fully confront the threat of fertilizer- and chemical-based bombs until relatively recently in Afghanistan, according to Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, head of the Army’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (Jieddo).

Speaking on a conference call in March, Oates confirmed that the IED threat in Afghanistan is expanding, nearly doubling over the last year. He said that compared to the artillery shells and more sophisticated detonation devices used in Iraq, in Afghanistan the threat is “largely homemade explosives centered around two types of fertilizer: potassium chloride and ammonium nitrate, with rudimentary detonation capability, the majority of which is victim-operated, pressure plate or trip wire, followed by some command-wire detonations and remote control.”

The use of sophisticated IEDs in Iraq didn’t entirely result from thefts at unguarded weapons depots. Iran played a big role in supplying radical Shiite groups with sophisticated detonation and explosive capabilities. While Afghanistan also shares a border with Iran, there is less credible evidence of Iranian support there, Oates said. Instead of receiving assistance from Iran, the Quetta Shura Taliban—named for Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban leadership set up shop after fleeing in 2001—receives support from sympathizers in Pakistan. But the Taliban are one part of the whole. The Haqqani network, which is allied with the Taliban but operates separately in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, has been especially deadly. It is blamed for the 2008 Indian Embassy bombing in Kabul and the February 2009 Kabul raids, as well as the December 2009 attack on Camp Chapman in Khost Province that killed seven CIA operatives.

Since its inception in 2006, the Pentagon is expected to have funneled $20 billion to Jieddo—a figure that includes $3.4 billion the Obama administration is asking Congress to approve in Fiscal 2011, up from $2.2 billion approved in Fiscal 2010. The organization expects to receive additional money this year to support the surge of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

One of the signatures of an IED attack orchestrated by Haqqani fighters is the use of ammonium nitrate. As a result, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the International Security Assistance Force commander in Afghanistan, banned the import of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to Afghanistan. “When General McChrystal identified the threat to troops from ammonium nitrate-based fertilizers, none of which is produced in Afghanistan,” Oates said, “he went to [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai and in quick order had a presidential ban issued on ammonium nitrate fertilizers, both in the country and for importation.”

But shutting down the importation of ammonium nitrate doesn’t negate the threat. As seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, insurgents learn and adapt, and react to any roadblock coalition forces throw in their way. Oates, however, stayed positive. “We’re already anticipating and preparing for those contingencies.”

According to information posted on the Jieddo web site, the group’s Fiscal 2011 plans involve more than 200 projects, including “counter-IED force protection, exploitation of device signatures, counter-IED persistent surveillance, sensor data fusion and network analysis.” The technologies Jieddo is throwing into the fight in Afghanistan run the gamut from the “Self-Protection Adaptive Roller Kit (Spark)”—i.e., a roller bolted on the front of a vehicle to detonate pressure-plate IEDs—to the Vader (Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar) program, which “can detect, track and characterize suspicious enemy actions—mounted and dismounted—in real-time and in high-resolution.” The system is described as a combination of “state-of-the-art hardware sensors and exploitation-focused software on Army and Air Force aerial platforms,” the web site says.

While bolting rollers on the front of vehicles might seem a step down from the radio-wave jammers and high-tech surveillance gear that helped reduce the IED menace in Iraq, the rudimentary nature of the threat in Afghanistan—fertilizer bombs and pressure-plate detonation—doesn’t allow for a simple transfer of counter-IED methods between theaters.

But where technologies and solutions can be moved from one war zone to the other, as is the case with up-armored ground vehicles and airborne assets like drones, the isolated nature of the Afghan theater complicates matters. Oates acknowledged that “we’re struggling to get additional ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets into theater,” although he added, “I can assure you we are in the urgent response mode, as often as we can push industry and training to make [quick response] happen. Our business is very serious; it’s a matter of life and death.”

Despite the regional nature of the insurgents’ funding and supply of bomb-making material, “the IED fight is very local,” according to Oates. By this he means that attacking the networks that plant the bombs and addressing gaps in the collection of human intelligence is as important as devising technical solutions to detect them after they’ve been planted. In a separate interview at the Association of the U.S. Army conference in February (see p. 16), Oates said “we get the biggest return on our investment when we put money into training soldiers” to spot the bombs once they’ve been planted, and more importantly to deal with the problems that lead locals to plant the bombs. Often ignored in counter-IED strategies is the primary reason Afghans or Iraqis plant the devices: the presence of American forces occupying their countries. “Technology has not yet made the same return on investment with regards to detection,” he continued, but “technology has returned a great investment in protecting our soldiers.”

Part of understanding the environment and attacking the network is the Army’s much-publicized embrace of the social sciences in recent years, in which civilian analysts and civilian/military provincial reconstruction teams have attempted to map social networks on the ground to better understand the human terrain of the battlefield. “We are not where I think we should be in that type of training,” Oates advised, adding that there is still a steep learning curve when it comes to sensor and ISR assets that are in theater helping in the counter-IED fight.

Those ISR assets include two projects that rely on airborne platforms that attempt to offer persistent stare over wide areas of desolate real estate: The U.S. Army’s Task Force ODIN (observe-detect-identify-neutralize), and the U.S. Air Force’s Task Force Liberty (DTI November 2009, p. 16). In the conference call and the interview in February, Oates was reluctant to discuss ODIN, but DTI’s embed with the ODIN team at Bagram AB, Afghanistan, last September highlighted a small team of soldiers more focused on supporting ground troops with movement and maneuver by flying RQ-4 Global Hawk drones, than one lasered in on the counter-IED fight. But that is where Liberty comes in. Made up of MC-12W ISR aircraft, as well as specially configured C-12 twin-engine aircraft based on the Beechcraft King Air 350ER, Liberty uses mostly manned air assets to maintain a persistent watch over dangerous stretches of road.

There is a lot going on in the counter-IED world, and a lot that is being done right. But there are still crucial gaps that have yet to be filled even seven years into trying to defeat the threat. One of the big ones, Oates says, lies in the area of forensics, biometrics and weapons technical intelligence, where the Army “really needs to take a fresh look. [These areas] allow us to target the network effectively and we’ve got to do better there—we’re not anywhere near where we need to be.”

Photo: US Army

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

EDA Versus IEDs

Posted by Nicholas Fiorenza at 4/27/2010 8:43 AM CDT

European defense ministers meeting in Luxembourg yesterday approved a cooperative effort to set up a deployable field laboratory for forensic research on improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Led by France, the mobile laboratory is scheduled to become operational by the middle of next year and will provide forensic analysis of incidents involving IEDs in order to develop methods to prevent further attacks. It will be tested in a real operational environment and the results will be shared among members of the European Defence Agency (EDA).


Photo of Weis (center) courtesy of EDA

Defense ministers also launched an EDA research and technology programme on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) protection. The programme will focus on second and third generation CBRN protection capabilities to be operational beyond 2015. It will cover areas such as detection and identification, decontamination and medical countermeasures.

Ministers were presented with a report by a “Wise Pen Team” of five retired admirals on maritime surveillance in support of the European Common Security and Defense Policy, which calls for the creation of a federated maritime surveillance network linking national and international military and civilian assets.

The EDA chief executive, Alexander Weis, briefed ministers on EDA cooperation with NATO, including informally with Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia. He identified five areas of common interest: countering IEDs; network-enabled capabilities; joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; medical; and CBRN protection. Meeting both defense and foreign ministers in Luxembourg, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen added a sixth area, police training in Afghanistan, calling for a greater EU contribution in this area.

[buglerbilly]

German Army Opens IED Research Center for Soldiers

(Source: Deutsche Welle German radio; issued April 29, 2010)

The German Armed Forces have inaugurated an information and research center aimed at protecting the country's troops in Afghanistan against so-called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

A new center was opened at the Boeselager German army base in the town of Grafschaft in western Germany on Wednesday, designed to help protect soldiers from home-made bombs planted by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

As German troops are increasingly fighting Afghan insurgents in rural areas, army leaders believe that better technical information on improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and that new anti-IED strategies can save lives.

According to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the number of Taliban attacks using IEDs has risen sharply in recent years - from about 2,600 in 2007 to more than 8,000 in 2009. Last year alone 322 soldiers died and more than 1,800 were wounded in IED attacks.

Lieutenant Colonel Helmut Beck of the German army says that this number is likely to rise even further. "We've observed a clear trend in which the Taliban are increasingly using homemade explosives rather than conventional devices such as mines," he told Deutsche Welle. "IED's are usually contained in infamous yellow canisters that every ISAF soldier fears, and they are made in backroom laboratories with ever bigger quantities of explosives."

Gaining an edge

Beck is the head of the new Bundeswehr research center, called Counter IED. It has been set up to investigate the technology behind such devices and to design new methods for detecting and defusing them.

If they come across an IED, German troops in Afghanistan can be put in direct contact with specialists at the center to get immediate advice. Beck hopes this will give the soldiers a technological and hopefully a military edge over the Taliban.

"The more our troops know about the dangers of IEDs, the better they are prepared when they face one," he said. "Good protection and effective counter measures are essential in preventing soldiers from getting killed."

Severe trauma

IEDs are also responsible for severe psychological problems among soldiers because of the persistent fear they induce. Latest figures show that the number of German soldiers returning traumatized from Afghanistan has more than doubled over the past two years.

Peter Zimmermann, a senior Bundeswehr trauma specialist, says that the armed forces should do everything they can to better prepare troops for their mission.

"The Bundeswehr has intensified its training efforts not only to protect soldiers against attacks but also to prepare them for the psychological stress that armed conflict creates," Zimmermann said. "For that we've stepped up research into ways to improve soldiers' mental fitness."

After more than half a century without being involved in combat, the German army has once again been forced to come to grips with the harsh realities of missions like the one in Afghanistan. In view of the rising death toll, the center could be a small step towards restoring belief among the German public that the Afghanistan mission can be brought to a successful conclusion.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

This Guy Has Found 177 Bombs in Afghanistan

By Noah Shachtman April 30, 2010 | 9:42 am



Some soldiers supposedly have a “sixth sense” when it comes to spotting bombs. According a NATO press release, that crew includes Ajab Han, an Afghan National Army sergeant working with British troops. He’s apparently “found 177 IEDs during his three years in Helmand.”

“I can just see them,” he says. “There might be a tell-tale trace, or something just not quite right, or a piece of wire or wood showing, and that is when I know I have found another one. IEDs often come in many parts so we have to find all the bits in the ground.”

Let’s hope, for his sake, that Ajab doesn’t ordinarily rely on the crawling-on-his-belly technique displayed in the picture, above.

And while Ajab’s track record is impressive, the fact that this sergeant has personally come across an average of a bomb a week for the past three years doesn’t exactly speak well for the security situation in Helmand.

[Photo: ISAF]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0mb86v4Tf

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0mb86xpc9

[buglerbilly]

Heres the full story without Shachtman's sometimes stupid comments above............

Afghan soldier working with 1 SCOTS finds 177 IEDs

A Military Operations news article

30 Apr 10

An Afghan National Army soldier working alongside British troops in Helmand province holds the record for finding the most improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan.


Sergeant Ajab Han, an improvised explosive device expert with the Afghan National Army, demonstrates how to locate an IED
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Ajab Han, a sergeant in the Afghan National Army (ANA) working with British troops from the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland at a patrol base in the Sangin valley, has found 177 IEDs during his three years in Helmand:

"I know where they put them now," said Sergeant Ajab.

"It helps to know the terrain. I can also think like the insurgents, stay one step ahead of them, and keep my soldiers, and ISAF soldiers safe. But we can make it better."

While detecting equipment is very useful he says just staying alert can be equally effective:

"I can just see them," he said.

"There might be a tell-tale trace, or something just not quite right, or a piece of wire or wood showing, and that is when I know I have found another one.

"IEDs often come in many parts so we have to find all the bits in the ground," he added.

His successes are etched on a beam on a watchtower next to the place where he sleeps, along with his army number and the description 'IED Team Sangin Special Force' written in English.

When asked if British soldiers were getting better at finding IEDs too, he smiled and nodded his head:


[I]Sergeant Ajab Han, an improvised explosive device expert with the Afghan National Army
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"Yes, they are very good. But they are still very happy that we are here to help them."

The allied forces have rewarded Sgt Ajab for his efforts with a certificate which he prizes:

"I always have it on me," he said.

"They know how much I am doing for them. And I am very pleased they are here, helping Afghanistan, too."

Captain Will Wright, the platoon commander from 1 SCOTS mentoring team working alongside Sgt Ajab and his soldiers, said:

"Patrolling with the ANA gives us such an advantage.

"They see things we sometimes don't, they are brave beyond words, and we learn so much from them every day.

"Sergeant Ajab's skills are definitely much valued within this patrol base."

Sgt Ajab is due to end his tour with the ANA in the next few months, but he says he is not ready to go home just yet:

"Now I have so much information about IEDs I want to be a teacher. I want to share my experience with the new soldiers joining the army.

"I want to teach them all they need to stay safe."

[buglerbilly]

General Seeks Better Ways for Defeating IEDs

(Source: U.S Army; issued April 29, 2010)

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. --- The three-star general directing the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization wants to listen to intermediate-level officers' ideas for pushing information and technology into Afghanistan.

Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates visited Fort Leavenworth April 27 to meet with Combined Arms Center directorates, network with visiting Secretary of the Army John McHugh and learn about the new Mission Command Center of Excellence.

The Joint IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, began in 2006 as an independent Department of Defense entity. Reporting directly to the deputy secretary of Defense, Oates said his organization has funding flexibility to help servicemembers survive and defeat IEDs.

Oates said JIEDDO's focus now is meeting the challenges in Afghanistan.

"The problem in Afghanistan is a little bit different than what we saw in Iraq," he said. "In Iraq, most of the IEDs were military-grade explosives and the detonation systems were fairly sophisticated and the volume was very high. In Afghanistan, the IEDs are largely homemade explosives around fertilizer and the detonation systems are very rudimentary."

Oates said Afghanistan IEDs are largely pressure plate, victim-operated and can be difficult to detect. He also said Afghanistan IEDs are fewer than Iraq, but their use has been increasing over the past year, particularly because of the coalition push into the Taliban center of gravity in the south.

"We are very aware of what the threat is in Afghanistan, and we've changed some of our training to enable Soldiers to survive," he said.

Defeating IEDs requires training and using new technology. Oates said getting new technology transported to Afghanistan has been an issue.

"There's a transportation problem of getting anything into Afghanistan," he said. "So where we had a much more robust infrastructure in Iraq supporting through Kuwait, there's a transportation challenge for moving people or equipment into Afghanistan. The good news is ... we've surged a significant amount of transportation assets to improve that in the last several months, so I don't think that's going to be a limiting factor."

The other challenge is getting information to Soldiers.

"The biggest challenge is being able to push the information all the way down to the lowest level, and that's difficult in Afghanistan because you need bandwidth," he said.

Oates said already, junior leaders are providing JIEDDO with suggestions on how to improve intelligence capabilities and get more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities at the lower levels. Oates said JIEDDO is working on getting more technology to the fight taking place at the company and institution levels.

"The majors and captains that are in ILE are probably the best-trained junior leaders we've had in the Army in decades," he said. "They actually understand the counter-IED fight better than the seniors do."

Oates said JIEDDO is also working with CAC elements to help the organization make best use of financial resources provided by Congress.

"Training Soldiers gives us the greatest return on investment, so whether it's training battle staff or training leaders or training individual Soldiers at combat training centers, we're going to get a great return on that investment of saving lives and in defeating these devices," he said.

Oates also said he was humbled by the service of intermediate level officers who joined the Army at a time of war, or who stayed with the Army shortly after the war began.

"I know the sacrifice that they've had to put up with," he said. "They're just phenomenal, great Americans, so I'm pretty motivated trying to help them."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Marines Wonder: Where Do You Shop for Bombs Online?

By Noah Shachtman May 4, 2010 | 3:36 pm



The wannabe Times Square terrorist found the car for his bomb online, and used simple alarm clocks and propane tanks to try to set off his fireball. It’s the latest in a decade-and-a-half-long list of militants getting tools of their trade through commercial websites. Now, the Marine Corps is finally trying to get a handle on the kind of arsenal that can be assembled through mouse clicks alone.

In 2008, the Naval Research Advisory Council found that “credible threats to Marine capabilities can be developed from imaginative combinations of commercial products that can be acquired via the Web,” a military request for proposals notes. ”They also determined that the Marine Corps has no effective methods for anticipating these unconventional threats nor access to a proactive and rapid response system for threat without identified solutions. The NRAC recommended that the Marine Corps form a ‘Commercial Hunter’ cell whose mission is: ‘to explore and anticipate the uses of readily available commercial technologies by irregular adversaries to attack key USMC capabilities or vulnerabilities.’”

It took two years. But the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory says it is now ready to launch its first study on how to handle these rapidly-moving adversaries. The Lab wants a five-man research team to spend 40 hours as “Commercial Hunters,” trying to find out just how much potentially-nefarious material can be ordered online. But, oddly, “the research teams are not supposed to actually buy anything,” the request for proposals notes. It’s an online shopping spree — without the shopping.

Here’s the explanation: “Because the mass of communications tht are present on the Internet, surfing the web to find ’stuff’ and using credit cards to pay for it would not normally raise the suspicions of intelligence activities if ‘bad guys’ were doing this and did not want to be discovered. Thus, to replicate what a clever enemy might do, part of he exercise parameters is to limit ’suspicious’ activity that could threaten the cell.” (No, I don’t exactly follow the logic, either.)

To me, the project feels a little half-baked, and several turns behind the curve; improvised bombs have been a staple of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, after all. But one university researcher is positively fuming over the proposal. He e-mails Danger Room:

The Marines, CIA, or whoever really need this study to demonstrate what is obvious and has been known for a long time? e.g. That if you, too, are a crackpot with an axe to grind, money to burn, and time to spend, you can use the internet to build a half-assed car bomb? If the powers that be aren’t already aware of this, we are well and truly screwed.

The fact they have to ask for this is more indicative of a vast generation gap at the top of our security bureaucracies than anything else. That you could get the information and much of the materials needed to build a decent car bomb online is probably obvious to anyone who has used the internet on a daily over the past fifteen years. A Marine general doesn’t understand THAT? Really? Now THAT’S frightening - far more frightening than contemplating all the horrible things that could kill you and which is available for purchase (via PayPal!) over the internet.

[Photo: via NYT]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/marines-ask-how-do-we-order-bombs-online/#more-24235#ixzz0n106NHnO

[buglerbilly]

IEDs Test Marine Tactics

May 5, 2010



By Kimberly Johnson
Darveshan, Afghanistan

A U.S. Marine Corps sergeant jumped from a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle last summer to inspect a suspicious clump in the dirt along the side of the highway linking his operating base and the combat outpost the convoy was headed to. He inched his way to the patch of ground with a metal detector. The marine had good reason for caution. Helmand Province is infested with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), found along roadways and footpaths that Marines and Afghan security forces use during dismounted patrols.

To understand how prevalent IEDs have become, one only needed to look at a watch. The 10-mi. drive between posts was taking more than 2 hr.

The sergeant’s countermeasure might not be as useful as expected—camp scuttlebutt after the death of a marine by an IED days earlier claimed the explosive was packed in a rubber cylinder so it could not be detected by metal detectors.

IEDs in Afghanistan have doubled in the last year, USMC Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, told Congress on March 17. According to a Defense Department tally, more than 8,000 IED incidents were reported in Afghanistan in 2009, compared with almost 4,000 in 2008.

Insurgents, moreover, are turning to “low- or non-metallic-content, fertilizer-based explosives, which frustrate detection,” Oates said (DTI April, p. 34).

The effects are potent. According to the Brookings Institution, IEDs were responsible for almost half of the 312 U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan in 2009. The average has stayed steady this year, with IEDs claiming 39 of the 79 U.S. troops killed as of late March.

“One of the striking things about Afghanistan is the IED threat is particularly brutal,” says Brookings military analyst Michael O’Hanlon. The labyrinth of dirt roads in southern Afghanistan makes planting bombs easy. The agrarian nature of much of Afghan society means ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which cranks up the potency of IEDs, is readily available despite a ban by the Afghan government.

Recent operations in southern Afghanistan have pushed troops into new territory, and insurgents fight back with IEDs, says Dakota Wood, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments of Washington. The use of plastics or fiberglass components “shows an advance in devices that are less detectable,” he adds, and indicates insurgents are learning and adapting.

There are often few clues to indicate non-metallic IEDs. “Pressure-plate [detonation] technologies are simple, and if it is not metallic, it makes it more difficult to find,” Wood says.

Not all non-metallic IEDs defeat countermeasures, according to a Marine intelligence officer who downplayed the effectiveness of the rubber cylinder found last August. “Rubber doesn’t do anything. If I took a big steel bar and wrapped it in rubber, a metal detector is still going to hit it,” says Capt. Trevor Hunt.

Meanwhile, sniper fire during the Marines’ February offensive near Marjah points to a shift in strategy incorporating technology relatively advanced for fighters in the hinterlands, according to Wood. Sniper fire requires an accurate weapon, optics for long-range shots and training. The fires upon Marines were accurate enough to cause concern, he adds. “If it had been just wild shots, it could have been an AK-47 spraying bullets.”

One battlefield staple seen in Iraq, however, is absent in Afghanistan. “I have been surprised we have not seen increased reports of [explosively formed penetrators]. The technology is known,” Wood says. “Once you get the idea of what they are and how they’re made—a big tube with a concave copper plug at the top and explosives at the bottom—how hard is it to replicate?”

Insurgents in Afghanistan are “slightly less sophisticated than in Iraq, but not to be taken lightly,” O’Hanlon says. “They’re pretty good at using IEDs; [and they are] ferocious fighters, good at recruiting to get more followers, which is a measure of sophistication.”

Coalition forces are in a technology game of shifting tactics, says one Marine officer. “Whatever we use to detect IEDs, they will try to counter. We have to almost retrain nonstop to make sure we get as good as possible in finding them,” says Maj. Thomas Garnett. “They’re doing everything to make it so we can’t find them.”

Photo: US Army

[buglerbilly]

Marines Axe Bomb-Shopping Plan After Danger Room Post

By Noah Shachtman May 6, 2010 | 5:09 pm



Remember the Marines’ buy-bomb-parts-on-the-Internet research proposal? Well, forget it. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory canceled the effort, after word of it leaked to Danger Room.

The “Commercial Hunter” project was supposed to help the Corps understand what kind of arsenal could be ordered online, by giving university researchers 40 hour to conduct an ersatz shopping spree. The program was unclassified. But the Warfighting Lab didn’t want the general public to find out about it, apparently.

“Please advise me on who provided the info on Commercial Hunter RFQ. My understanding is that the info was targeted specifically to colleges and universities. Also, who in the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory is the source that provided you this data. I ask because all interviews and info requests are to go through me and then vetted through command leadership prior to release,” Lab spokesman Victor Lopez e-mailed Danger Room on Wednesday.

Obviously, I turned down that request. So we got another e-mail this morning, from Teri Snyder, a contracting officer at the Warfighting Lab.

“Please be advised that due to the release of information not cleared by the Contracting Officer, the RFQ that you published on your blog has been cancelled,” she wrote. “If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

So I did.

“Just curious: Why was the release of information so damaging to the project? What about having Commercial Hunter public made it difficult to conduct?” I asked.

I’ll let you know if I hear back from her.

[Photo: U.S. Army]

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0nCQtzcpc

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/#ixzz0nCQu2Nf0

[buglerbilly]

Anti-IED Effort Needs Fewer Restrictions: Oates

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

Published: 11 May 2010 13:11

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Deployed commanders need greater flexibility and fewer restrictions in sharing tactical information about deadly enemy devices with allies, a key U.S. general said here May 11.

"We have got to knock down the barriers that deny the free flow of technology and information with our coalition partners," Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Organization, told a morning audience at joint warfighting conference.

"We disable ourselves by an inability to share information," Oates said. "At the tactical level it is absolutely essential."

The United States and its coalition allies face an enemy that can quickly adapt to counter-IED efforts and change its tactics and technology, Oates said. Speed of response is of the essence, he added.

"Information must be shared with the right people in a timely manner," he said, but "by law our commanders are inhibited from sharing information with our coalition partners.

"But they do it anyway," Oates noted. "The further from the battlefield we get the more we become risk-averse about sharing info. We have got to find a way to share info rapidly and thoroughly."

One way to do that, he said, is to review laws and regulations that prohibit the sharing of tactical information because of its classified nature.

"Make that available to our coalition partners," Oates urged. "Tactical-level information that, in my opinion, should not be classified."

Oates was the opening speaker at the three-day conference, sponsored by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute and supported by Joint Forces Command.

[buglerbilly]

More on this............

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Pentagon's IED Chief Comes Out Swinging

Posted by Paul McLeary at 5/12/2010 7:59 AM CDT

Joint Forces Command’s General James Mattis introduced him with the warning that “IEDs are coming to a city near you,” and Lt. Gen Michael Oates, head of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Organization followed up with a sharp-elbowed speech that called much of the coalition’s anti-IED effort into question.

Speaking before a packed house at the Joint Warfighting conference in Virginia Beach, Va. on Tuesday morning, Oates bemoaned problems with analyzing and sharing intelligence in a timely manner, both in the U.S. military, and among coalition allies in Afghanistan.

“We disable ourselves by an inability to share information,” he said, adding that “I absolutely believe that we’ve got to [find] a way ahead immediately to improve information fusion,” and to develop databases for tactical commanders. “There is no shortage of data, but there is a dearth of analysis…and it has got to be provided to our coalition partners freely so that they can enable their formations.” Oates said that crucial to this effort is the creation of “mobile databases [that] provide real-time effective information for tactical commanders.”

Given that the IED is here to stay, Oates also expressed frustration that effective training methods for the armed forces to operate in this environment is lacking. He warned that “we will see IEDs or their derivatives find their way into civilized society in greater numbers, in the future" and that “they'll be used by criminal enterprises. They'll be used by hybrid threats that seek to seek partners – either in the drug trafficking enterprise or other commercial business – to destabilize societies. We will certainly see them in the combat sphere for years to come, and we're going to see the technology of these devices become more difficult to defeat.”

That said, Oates is dissatisfied—to say the least—with the lack of simulation technologies to train troops to face this threat. “I am very underwhelmed by the level of effort in simulations for the current fight,” he said, calling the level of IED simulation “absolutely insignificant.” His goal is to “integrate the IED into everything we do in training” since the pervasiveness of the threat is unlikely to dissipate.

Oates also slammed information operations ongoing in combat zones as too restrictive to truly penetrate bombmaking cells. “It is amazing to me that tactical commanders overseas have the legal authority to shoot on sight an enemy who is declared hostile, but they’re not allowed to send them an email. Our ability to leverage information operations to influence these networks is severely curtailed at the tactical level,” he said, adding that non-lethal methods for defeating the networks are just as important as lethal methods.

[buglerbilly]

From The Times May 28, 2010

Bomb disposal expert killed after defusing 13 bombs in 36 hours

Tom Coghlan, Defence Correspondent



An inquest into the death of a bomb disposal expert decorated for his bravery in Afghanistan has heard that he defused 13 bombs under sporadic enemy fire during the 36 hours leading to his death.

Captain Daniel Shepherd’s inquest follows the broadcast of a BBC One Panorama documentary on Monday in which the Army’s senior bomb disposal officer questioned the numbers of personnel available for Afghanistan and the pressures they faced. Captain Shepherd, 28, from Lincoln, was awarded the George Medal posthumously. He died while defusing a bomb on July 20 last year. The “unbelievably courageous” soldier, from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, the Royal Logistic Corps, was killed as he tried to defuse a pressure-plated device, the inquest at the Cathedral Centre in Lincoln heard.

The temperature on the day he died was between 45C and 50C (113-122F), the coroner was told. This would have made it impossible for Captain Shepherd to wear a full protective suit and operate freely. Instead, he walked 40 metres to the device in standard body armour.

However, his colleagues told the inquest that a lack of protective clothing and specialist equipment did not contribute to his death and nor was Captain Shepherd unduly fatigued at the time.

Breaking down in tears, Corporal Matthew Ashley, who was metres away when the explosion happened, said: “We were like brothers when we were talking. After he had confirmed it was a device he laid down on his front. I asked, ‘What have you got?’ and he said it was a bog standard device.” Moments later there was an “almighty explosion”, which killed Captain Shepherd instantly.

In Monday’s Panorama programme Colonel Bob Seddon said there were concerns that a lack of qualified personnel had heaped additional pressure on bomb disposal teams. It was later announced that he had resigned from the Army and will leave in January.

The programme, made by Christina Schmid, whose husband Olaf was killed disposing of Taleban bombs last year in Helmand, revealed that in 2002 the Ministry of Defence suspended recruitment of bomb disposal personnel for 18 months.

Captain Shepherd’s inquest continues.

[buglerbilly]

From The Sunday Times May 30, 2010

Buffaloes, Desert Hawks and Reapers lead fight against the roadside killers

Michael Smith

BRITISH military commanders decided two years ago that the only way to defend against the Taliban bombing campaign was to go on the offensive.

So they persuaded ministers that improving protection against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) was vital — prompting them to approve new vehicles and equipment costing £700m in October 2008.

Some of that package has yet to arrive, most notably the Warthog armoured vehicles intended to replace the existing Viking tracked vehicles. The equipment that has arrived ranges from Osprey body armour, which is issued to every soldier serving on the front line, to the giant Buffalo mine-protected clearance vehicle.

The Buffalo, of which British troops have 14, has a 30ft robotic arm that can be deployed to render an IED safe. It is said to have been the model for the Decepticon Bonecrusher, a villainous machine character in the Transformer films that specialises in demolition.

The Buffaloes are used to travel ahead of supply convoys on routes where the Taliban are known to have sown IEDs. The vehicle’s operator detonates any bombs remotely from the safety of the cab.

The Osprey body armour has its critics, although it is better than anything issued to British troops in any previous conflict. Osprey is more flexible and easier to wear than earlier body armour designed to counter IEDs, which cramped movement to the point where it was almost impossible to fire a weapon.

The main vest covers the soldier’s front and back and consists of “soft armour” made of Kevlar webbing. This has pouches into which ceramic plates are inserted to provide the main protection.

The collar and arm protectors were designed to protect the face, neck and arms against IEDs following experience gained in Iraq, while remaining as flexible as possible. The key area that is not protected, unlike US body armour, is the groin; experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory are working hard to find a solution that does not hamper movement.

Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) “high-threat operators”, such as Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, who defuse bombs, have specialist protective body suits similar to those seen in the film The Hurt Locker. But the suits are far too hot to wear in Afghanistan. They weigh about 40lb and even at that weight one RLC officer said last week that they would not fully protect the operator against a Taliban IED.

They bring further complications as well, making bomb disposal experts easily recognisable targets for Taliban snipers. And the weight of the suits makes it almost impossible for the operator to escape if he or she comes under attack.

Other “offensive” equipment sought by commanders has included sensor systems designed to detect Taliban bombers laying IEDs. These range from tiny Desert Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which provide video to troops on the move, to the much larger Reaper MQ-9 UAV, which is armed with bombs and missiles.

The Reapers can use their infrared cameras to spot a Taliban bomb-layer from five miles away. They can then kill the bomber and destroy the IED using a Paveway II laser-guided bomb or a Hellfire anti-tank missile.

Taliban bombers can also be detected by the RAF’s Sentinel R1 aircraft, which uses a sideways-looking radar to provide a high definition picture day or night.

In addition, the RAF Tornado attack aircraft, which patrol the skies over Afghanistan, are not just used to provide close support for troops under fire from the Taliban. They are also fitted with Raptor pods containing infrared sensors which can detect Taliban bombers or even the changes in heat sometimes left by the disturbance of soil when a bomb is laid.

Bomb disposal teams are equipped with the latest Vallon metal detectors and tiny Dragonrunner robots, essentially video cameras on wheels, to search out the bombs. The most secret weapons are the electronic counter-measures which are designed to detect and jam the frequencies used by the Taliban to detonate devices.

A number of surveillance devices also remain secret to ensure the Taliban do not find a way to evade them.

Despite all the high-tech wizardry, the most effective means of finding and defusing IEDs remains experts using their hands. It is exceptionally hazardous work and Taliban IEDs are responsible for killing four out of every five British soldiers who die in Afghanistan.

[buglerbilly]

Lockheed Martin Wins JIEDDO Task Orders

22:38 GMT, June 1, 2010 ARLINGTON, Va. | Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has been awarded two separate task order contracts from the Department of Defense’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). The task orders have a combined value of nearly $460 million.

“Lockheed Martin is proud to perform mission-critical work for the safety and well-being of our troops,” said Bob Kramer, Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Services-Defense’s vice president for Operational Systems & Services. “We are dedicated to JIEDDO, its mission of defeating IEDs and ultimately, saving lives.”

Lockheed Martin is providing the JIEDDO Counter-IED Operations Integration Center analytical support teams with technical expertise in operational level military operations, intelligence operations research/systems analysis, and operations-intelligence fusion and analysis to support deployed U.S. and coalition forces in counter-IED operations.

The task orders have a one-year base period of performance with two one-year options, respectively. Work is underway in Northern Virginia and in the Central Command areas of operations and more than 500 employees will be required to support the mission. If you are an experienced intelligence analyst, visit http://www.lockheedmartinjobs.com/events_intelprof.asp for career information and to learn about a substantial sign-on bonus opportunity.

[buglerbilly]

China develops second generation explosive-removing robot



13:22 GMT, June 2, 2010 The reporters learned from China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) on June 1 that the second generation explosive-removing robot “Snow Leopard 10” independently developed by the CASIC with leading level technologies in some aspects in China had entered the testing and experimental stage and would appear at the Zhuhai Air Show 2010 in south China’s Guangdong Province.

The “Snow Leopard 10” robot has such prominent features as portability, flexibility and availability in a wide range of fields. It possesses certain self-action capability and running capability on bumpy surfaces, which can enable it to cross complex topography. It can operate not only on urban streets and in lanes and corridors, but on prairies and Gobi. It can also climb slopes and go upstairs and downstairs.

As most explosive-removing tasks are to grab, grasp and snatch up the heavy objects on the ground, the designers provided the mechanical hand of the second-generation explosive-removing robot with not only multiple flexibility degrees but enough clamping strength by adopting multi-functional mechanism to ensure the safety and reliability of the robot.

The mechanical hand of the “Snow Leopard 10” robot can also be replaced at any time according to actual needs. It can firmly snatch up all kinds of objects ranging from cell phone to 10-kilo iron block and then carry the objects to the designated positions according to orders.

----
Sun Jianping, Sun Yang / PLA Daily

[buglerbilly]

Army Fighting Vehicle Tests Compatibility

(Source: US Army; dated May 27, web-posted June 4, 2010)

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. --- Test officials on White Sands Missile Range have completed a series of tests on systems that could see use on an Army fighting vehicle.

The M1117 Armored Security Vehicle, an armored four-wheeled tactical vehicle used by military police and convoy protection units, underwent electronic and electromagnetic vulnerability and compatibility tests as part of the process of approving new systems to be mounted on the vehicle for full-scale production and use.

The testing, conducted by the Survivability and Vulnerability Assessment Directorate, saw the test vehicle, outfitted with several new systems, exposed to radio waves, bombarded by electromagnetic pulse simulators, and even hit with an electrical shock that simulates a nearby lightning strike. Additionally, temperature tests were conducted to evaluate the possibility of relocating some system components to different places on the vehicle in an attempt to free up room inside the vehicle.

The results gathered from the tests will be used to determine if the installed systems work properly under possible battlefield and environmental conditions, and help Army officials make a decision about the future of the new systems. Tests of this nature are conducted regularly on White Sands as the Army continues to make improvements to existing systems and integrate new systems with existing vehicles and equipment.

"We often see new equipment coming in (mounted on existing) vehicles or coming in for a retest," said Micaela Nevarez, a test officer with the Survivability and Vulnerability Assessment Directorate.

Testing systems for electronic compatibility and vulnerability is a critical part of the testing process with the increased use of advanced communications and electronic warfare-based systems.

"If you've got electromagnetic radiation floating around, it can make an electronically triggered weapon system fire, or make a powered turret spin around. If it can activate, or deactivate a weapon, it's critical (that we know because) it's about safety and functionally," said Eric Drouant, a field service representative from Textron Marine and Land Systems, the company that makes the ASV.

The systems mounted on the ASV for testing included the Driver Vision Enhancement system, a camera system mounted on the front of the vehicle that's designed to provide the driver with night vision capabilities so the vehicle can operate at night without the use of lights or stand alone night vision devices.

Also on board the ASV were upgraded versions of the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below system, a navigation and force tracking system; as well as an upgraded version of the Counter Remote Control Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare system, a counter-IED system better known as the CREW Duke.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Military’s Mystery Ray Gun to Zap Bombs, ‘Change the Face of This War’

By Noah Shachtman June 7, 2010 | 10:12 am



The U.S. military is building an energy weapon that can blow up improvised bombs before militants do. But it may be some time before the device is used in Afghanistan. Not only is the weapon too bulky for the rugged terrain there, but “civilians could be killed if the weapon is activated over widespread areas,” USA Today reports.

Since the Iraq insurgency began in earnest, the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars on ways to harness the electromagnetic spectrum to beat improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Nearly every vehicle now deployed by the military has a radio frequency jammer that cuts off explosives’ remote triggers. Electronic warfare aircraft spoof some of those signals, and set off the IEDs from on high. Everything from Humvee-mounted lasers to man-made lightning guns have been tried out as bomb-zappers.

USA Today doesn’t provide many details about this particular “highly classified technology,” other than saying it “bypasses the triggering device of an IED and detonates its explosive.” But the article does note that the ray gun was used at checkpoints in Iraq in 2005 and 2008 and “requires a tractor-trailer-size vehicle” to move it around.

That’s too large for Afghanistan — something the military is trying to fix. Improvised bombs are, by far, the number one killer of troops in the conflict there. General James Mattis, head of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, would even like to see the weapon mounted on an aircraft. “This is an offensive capability that will change the face of this war,” he tells the paper. (Of course, if civilians happen to be in the way when bombs are detonated by the zapper, that could be a major problem.)

Research on the weapon is being conducted by the Navy, which has a long-standing interest in bomb-blasters. By 2005, researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Dahlgren Laboratory were already deep into a project called NIRF (short for Neutralizing Improvised Explosive Devices with Radio Frequency). The device produced a very high-frequency field, in the microwave range, to take out an IED’s electronics. During a test early that year, the “generator that creates the radio frequencies damaged a counter-IED component … in effect, frying itself,” Aviation Week reported at the time. But by fiscal year 2008, the Navy was asking for $11 million extra for the system.

In June of last year, the Office of Naval Research launched an effort to destabilize explosives “at the molecular level.” In September, the Dahlgren lab opened a “Directed Energy Warfare Office” that evaluates real-life ray guns ability to take out improvised bombs.

Photo: XADS

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/militarys-mystery-ray-gun-to-zap-bombs-change-the-face-of-this-war/#more-25709#ixzz0qCmRkDwR

[buglerbilly]

Rheinmetall Unveils KARS Ordnance Detection and Clearing System

(Source: Rheinmetall Defence; issued June 8, 2010)

The successful detection and disposal of explosive devices (IEDs or mines) and unexploded ordnance is one of the greatest challenges facing today's armed forces.

Rheinmetall Defence of Germany has developed a highly effective solution to this perennial problem. One of the most trusted names in defence technology, Rheinmetall Defence supplies a full array of equipment for enhancing the mobility, reconnaissance capabilities, lethality and survivability of troops deployed in hazardous areas of operation. Particularly in the field of force protection, the company has made huge strides in recent years, systematically expanding its range of products.

Incorporating state-of-the-art technology from multiple disciplines, Rheinmetall's innovative KARS ordnance detection and clearing system (the German acronym stands for "Kampfmittelaufklärungs- und Räumsystem") provides troops with a highly reliable means of detecting and neutralizing explosive devices and unexploded ordnance, assuring optimum results in combat situations and post-conflict environments.

Mounted on a GTK Boxer chassis, the KARS mission module enables the crew to detect optically suspicious objects at distances of up to 300 m. When stationary, it can search for explosive devices within a radius of 10 m; moreover, its advanced sensor technology enables it to scan for objects buried up to 50 cm below the surface. KARS has several means at its disposal for neutralizing detected explosive devices, including explosive demolition and mechanical activation of detonators; it is also able to extract objects from the ground, etc. Crucially, the operator is extremely well protected throughout the entire process.

KARS is equipped with a robot arm. Extendable to 14 m, the arm is fitted with a basic tool capable of performing the following functions: a water and air spade for exposing suspicious objects by means of water and air pressure; and a fork for tearing up various surfaces, as well as digging operations and sensitive manipulation of objects. Here, a special camera provides the user with a stereoscopic spatial perspective, enabling swift identification of buried objects.

Owing to its 450 kg carrying capacity, the KARS arm makes it possible to recover and evacuate endangered or wounded personnel in open terrain, vehicles or buildings without placing the rescue team in jeopardy (e.g. in minefields).

For self-defence, KARS has a retractable, remote control weapon station. KARS thus combines the very latest in demining and UXO disposal technology with superb crew protection features. Worldwide, no other system offers the same level and scope of performance.

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[buglerbilly]

Elisra to Present New Generation EJAB Counter IED Solutions at Eurosatory 2010


Elisra's Counter IED Solution - EJAB Man Packed version.

The company’s advanced new man-packed Counter IED solution brims with features and boasts operational success in hot spots worldwide

13:06 GMT, June 9, 2010 Israel | Elisra, an EW, intelligence, and communications solutions leader, will present its new generation EJAB (Electronic Jammer Against Bombs) Counter IED(Improvised Explosive Devices) family at this year’s Paris Eurosatory 2010 show, Elbit Systems' booth # C-670, Israel pavilion, June 14-18. The company will spotlight its man-packed EJAB option designed to protect ground troops and bomb disposal units against the ever present threat of remotely activated improvised explosive devices. This EJAB configuration will be demonstrated as part of Elbit Systems’ presentation as well.

Simple to operate, easily programmable and customizable, EJAB’s Man-Packed version boasts a multi-band jammer capability built into a sturdy backpack with the ability to block two separate frequencies with virtually any type of radio cellular bands simultaneously using a single lightweight antenna. This lightweight system (approx. 15Kg) utilizes a four hour “hot-swap” capable battery powered operation, as it shares all the performance parameters of the entire EJAB family including the use of sophisticated algorithms and emergency memory erase for information security.

“We’ve developed our EJAB family of counter IED products in response to a growing threat from IEDs in a variety of environments worldwide”, says Itzchak Gat, Elisra’s CEO. “Elisra’s 30 year experience in providing proven, pioneering solutions against increasingly sophisticated IED threats, are underscored with our new EJAB family of solutions successfully deployed with the IDF, NATO, and other military forces around the world.”

The other members of this battle proven electronic jamming IED protection family include a vehicle mounted version, a portable rolling case version for security forces operating in dense environments, and a vehicle mounted VIP/ civil protection light mobile communication jamming system.

[buglerbilly]

Countering IEDs a High Priority for NATO: Gates

By JULIAN HALE

Published: 11 Jun 2010 13:34

BRUSSELS - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said June 11 that countering improvised explosive devices has become a high priority for NATO and that the United States has already begun to put training for IED detection high on its list.

Gates' remarks came at a news conference after a NATO defense ministers meeting, and he said the United States would soon move accelerate its anti-IED training from seven to 11 countries.

Gates said that the U.S. Congress had approved the purchase of 100 MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) "vehicles that we can share with allies" and that arrangements were being made for NATO countries to buy them if they wanted. He also said the United States was providing access to computer databases with lessons learned from IED incidents, and was putting in place aerostats and other equipment to better spot them being planted by insurgents and to track the networks planting them.

Discussing organization finances, Gates said "NATO has outdated structures that bear little relevance for our needs today" and that "we must have a lean but flexible organization." The defense secretary called for 14 NATO agencies that cost $5 billion to be cut to three and for staff reductions at NATO headquarters.

"We can't expect sign changes in the military structure and the agencies without reductions at NATO HQ itself," he said.

On June 10, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO "has already found 1.5 billion euros [$1.8 billion] in savings, over the next four years, from our military budget" and that it "will cut the number of committees in this building [NATO headquarters in Brussels] by three-quarters, to less than 100, which means fewer meetings and more efficiency."

On the threat from Iran, Gates said intelligence officials estimate that production of a sufficient quantity of bomb-quality uranium will occur within one to three years, not including weaponization and delivery systems.

Discussing Afghanistan, Rasmussen described the 130,000 Afghan soldiers and 100,000 Afghan police in Afghanistan as "a real success" and that, "as they get ever better at defending their country, we will be able to take on a supporting role." He said that about 450 trainers were still needed for NATO's training mission there.

[buglerbilly]

Thinking Like an Insurgent

U.S. Army Training System Focuses on Bomb Makers' Tactics

By MICHAEL PECK

Published: 21 June 2010

Eighteen soldiers dead, 68 wounded, and Hideshi Sasaki was frustrated. He was command sergeant major of the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Stationed in the center of Iraq's Sunni Triangle in 2004 and 2005, the 1-506th was battered by improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The casualties were bad enough, but Sasaki was also troubled by the Army's approach to counter-IED training. There was the usual emphasis on the devices - how bombs were made, how to spot the telltale signs of an IED planted in concrete or sand, he said - "but most of the time that you see those things, it was too late."

Sasaki realized that IEDs weren't just bombs, but mechanical ambushes - as in infantry tactics, the kind he learned about in Ranger school. "The insurgents give great thought to detailed terrain analysis," he said. "The locations are always, always well-thought-out."

If U.S. soldiers could analyze the terrain as the insurgents did and identify a likely IED because that's where the Americans themselves would site an ambush, then the newest IED countermeasure would be the human mind, superior to any radio jammer or minesweeping vehicle. After Sasaki taught this method to his unit, there were no more deaths from IEDs and the number of wounded plunged by half.

When Sasaki became a contractor at the Center of Excellence at the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), he brought his idea of focusing on the insurgents, not the bombs. And in partnership with some Hollywood special-effects wizards, he has developed a multimedia counter-IED trainer that may be the only one of its kind.

The Mobile Counter-IED Interactive Trainer (MCIT) was developed - based on Sasaki's concept - by the Institute for Creative Technology (ICT) at the University of Southern California, which taps Hollywood expertise for Pentagon projects. MCIT demonstration systems have been set up at Fort Campbell, Ky.; Camp Pendleton, Calif.; and Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center, Miss. Each costs about $1.8 million.

Todd Richmond, ICT's project manager for the training system, said MCIT is designed to be a cognitive trainer.

"It's anti-PowerPoint," he said. "We're giving them a framework for understanding ambush and IED attacks."

MCIT consists of four 40-foot-long Conex boxes. Groups of up to 10 soldiers work their way from trailer to trailer. "It's self-paced," Richmond said. "For the entire system, you only need one field service representative, and all he does is start and stop the game simulation."

It takes about 90 minutes to pass through all four trailers, with MCIT able to train about 100 soldiers a day.

■ The odyssey begins in Trailer 1, where trainees are introduced to an insurgent character who explains "he wants to blow them up and how he's going to do it," Richmond said.

Then comes a video of a soldier or Marine who describes his experiences encountering IEDs on patrol. "His demeanor changes as he goes from video to video," Richmond said. "He gets more experienced. He gets more competent."

Trailer 1 ends with a three-minute group quiz on a touch screen, Richmond said: "What was the color of the insurgents' clothing? How many propane tanks were in the environment? We're not giving them a laundry list of TTPs [tactics, techniques and procedures], like telling them that the insurgents are putting bombs in dogs."

■ Trailer 2 is outfitted to resemble a bomb maker's residence, complete with dark curtains on the windows, rubber gloves and a work table with IED components. And there are more videos.

"They're from the insurgent who thinks you're his nephew, and these are the videos he's left to teach you to be the next-generation bomb maker," Richmond said.

The insurgent tells his nephew the tricks of an IED ambush, such as the need to record the attack on video and note the behavior of troops.

"We're not showing them how to make an IED," Richmond said. "But if they're walking through a residence and they see a washing machine timer sitting on a table, and there's no washing machine around, we want them to note that."

■ Trailer 3 focuses on teaching when to use Counter Radio-controlled IED Electronic Warfare signal-jamming devices.

"We just want them to know that you have to turn it on when you transit outside the wire and turn it off when you come back inside," Richmond said. Soldiers are also given a mission brief for Trailer 4.

■ Trailer 4 is where they put what they have learned into practice. Inside are two mock Humvees, each with a driver, commander and a gunner with a .50-caliber machine gun. It sounds almost like other convoy trainers, but MCIT has a twist: The soldiers don't fight against scripted computer-generated forces, they fight each other.

Players split into two groups in each 15-minute scenario. One group mans the Humvees, and the other acts as insurgents. Each soldier plays with the Blue Force twice and the Red Force insurgents once.

"They think they are training," said Sasaki, senior TTP training manager at JIEDDO's Center of Excellence. "Actually, they're a training aid."

A four-man Red Cell will have an IED triggerman, spotter and cameraman, plus a security member armed with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. When the cell plans its ambush, it uses a touch screen with a map of the terrain marked with potential attack points. When cell members touch a point, the screen zooms down to ground level and the insurgents can scroll around for different views.

"The teaching point here is that we're trying to get them to understand that terrain is a weapon," Richmond said. "So they're looking for military crests, culverts, blind rises, blind turns to plant the device."

Playing the insurgent side is the most instructive. It's also the most immersive "because it is an engaging game," Richmond said. "They want to beat their buddies. They take it really seriously. They set up pretty diabolical ambushes."

MCIT offers a smorgasbord of options for the discriminating insurgent. IEDs come in four varieties: homemade explosive, 152mm artillery round, triple-stacked mines and explosively formed penetrator. There are also four command detonators to choose from: command wire, radio control, passive infrared or victim-activated.

"They carry out a complex attack and think like the bad guys," Richmond said. "What are the terrain features for placing our device? Where do we put our guys? My spotter needs a line of sight and he needs markers. The triggerman has to be able to see when to trigger. My security guy has to be in a position so when the bomb goes off, he can provide secondary fire. Or they can do an RPG attack first and the IED second. The beauty of this not being computer-based is that these 18-year-old kids are all gamers. They understand pretty well how to conduct an ambush."

MCIT gets a thumbs-up from Marines who have used it at Camp Pendleton. "Our Marines get wrapped around the axle looking for the IED," said Sgt. Alexander Wilterdink. "This helps break us out of the box, looking for the different components of the terrorist cell, like the triggerman or the camera guy, that we usually forget about."

[buglerbilly]

First Deliveries of the Counter-Mining System SOUVIM 2

(Source: MBDA; issued June 24, 2010)



Development of SOUVIM 2, a mine path clearing system designed and manufactured by MBDA since 2008, has just been completed. Two units of this land vehicle set will be delivered very shortly to the DGA, the French armament procurement agency and will undergo final qualification testing before delivery to the French Army. In line with the DGA's aim, the French Army will be ready to deploy this system on foreign theatres in 2010.

SOUVIM 2 was designed for use in mobility support missions, allowing quick clearing of mined paths over long distances behind the lines: over 100 km of track cleared daily, with extensive counter-mining capabilities. The SOUVIM 2's performance is currently unequalled.

The system relies on the combined action of two vehicles towing mine-activation trailers. The first vehicle is designed to roll over a pressure mine without activating it. It tows a first "mine-triggering trailer" (RDM) whose weight will trigger pressure-sensitive mines and thereby secure the second vehicle's progress. This latter vehicle tows two further RDMs whose different wheel bases help cover the whole width of the track to be cleared.

With industrial facilities in four European countries and within the USA, MBDA has an annual turnover of EUR 2.6 billion and an order book of €12 billion. With more than 90 armed forces customers in the world, MBDA is a world leader in missiles and missile systems.

MBDA is the only group capable of designing and producing missiles and missile systems that correspond to the full range of current and future operational needs of the three armed forces (land, sea and air). In total, the group offers a range of 45 missile systems and countermeasures products already in operational service and more than 15 others currently in development.

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[buglerbilly]

Latest counter-IED equipment showcased

An Equipment and Logistics news article

25 Jun 10

Tackling the threat from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) was top of the agenda at the MOD's Defence Equipment and Support showcase event, Defence Vehicle Dynamics (DVD), this year. Report by Sharon Kean.


A Buffalo mine protection vehicle with a rummaging arm
[Picture: Andrew Linnett, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

New Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, Peter Luff, formally opened this year's show at the Millbrook vehicle testing ground in Bedfordshire.

Mr Luff was then given a demonstration of some of the latest counter-IED (C-IED) equipment being used by British troops and met soldiers who had survived IED blasts thanks to the heavily armoured vehicles in which they were travelling.

Speaking at the event he said:

"Tackling the IED threat is vital for us to make military progress. C-IED is not just about the bomb disposal expert defusing a bomb, vital and dangerous though that role is. It is about making sure that our soldiers have a range of tools, tactics and techniques available to them."

Mr Luff was given a guided tour of the five pieces of equipment that make up Talisman, the newest military solution to the IED problem.

The five elements consist of two enormous armoured vehicles, a JCB digger, a bomb disposal robot and a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle).

The Talisman system is currently being used by Royal Engineers to clear and build safe routes around Helmand province in Afghanistan.

A Mastiff armoured vehicle and its crew act as Talisman's eyes, with video screens inside the rear compartment of the truck displaying aerial video footage gathered by a Honeywell T-Hawk UAV.


The Talon remote-controlled robot forms part of the latest counter-IED technology
[Picture: Andrew Linnett, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Another armoured vehicle known as Buffalo has a remote-controlled, extendable, pronged arm attached to the front, which is used to comb or 'rummage' the ground, detecting signs of IEDs.

The JCB digger is used to fill in ditches or potholes that might prevent soldiers or vehicles from moving forward and the Talon remote-controlled robot gives troops the safer option of remaining out of harm's way when trying to deal with any devices they find.

Group Captain Paul Ridge, the head of the Military Manouevre Support Team that spent around 18 months developing the Talisman system, said the aim was to enable soldiers to move around the battlefield more easily:

"It's a range of equipment that has been brought together to make a system which allows early detection and the choice of either avoiding or destroying the IED.

"It can be used on its own or in support of other vehicles. And the whole system can be operated from under armour. It's just one part of the contribution towards counter-IED."

Soldiers from 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh who survived two IED blasts in two days while in Afghanistan met the minister and described how the heavily armoured vehicles in which they were travelling probably saved their lives.

Fusilier Danny Hughes, who was travelling in one vehicle when it hit a roadside bomb, said:


Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technolgy, Peter Luff, tries out a hand-held metal detector
[Picture: Andrew Linnett, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"The Mastiff is worth its weight in gold. The second time it happened there weren't any injuries either, it was almost a case of 'here we go again', that's another few hours until we can have a cup of tea."

The battle to beat the IEDs is the driving force behind an MOD contract for a tranche of 200 new Light Protected Patrol Vehicles.

Two companies, SupaCat and Force Protection Europe, are competing for the contract and displayed prototype models of what they hope will be the next generation of Light Protected Patrol Vehicles (LPPVs).

The vehicles will be used for a variety of patrols and so must be tough enough to cope with cross-country terrain, but also enable the troops inside to engage with the local people they encounter in more urban areas.

General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue, Chief of Defence Materiel and the Head of Defence Equipment and Support, said:

"As well as its protection against blasts, the LPPV must be able to operate in the harsh conditions of the desert and tight urban environments."

Mr Luff added:

"We will agree a contract for an initial tranche of 200 vehicles under an Urgent Operational Requirement funded from the Treasury Reserve later this year."


An armoured vehicle tackles the rumble strips at the Millbrook vehicle testing ground in Bedfordshire
[Picture: Andrew Linnett, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

That vehicle looks distinctly like a M-ATV not in current UK service.............

The first batch of vehicles is required for training by the end of 2011.

At the DVD event Mr Luff also announced a contract for more than 140 extra Jackal 2A weapons-mounted patrol vehicles in a deal worth about £45m, bringing the number of Jackal vehicles for Defence to over 500, and an extra 28 Wolfhound heavy tactical support vehicles under a £20m deal.

Meanwhile, the MOD is reducing the weight troops on the front line carry with improvements to current and future infantry combat and support kit.

Currently, the average weight of equipment carried by an infantryman is around 66kg, but innovative weight-saving schemes have shaved more than 4.5kg from this. New kit being delivered in October could reduce this by a further 8kg. Measures implemented include:

trials of new lightweight patrol rations for troops in the field that weigh less than 1kg, compared with a 24-hour ration pack that weighs around 3kg;
new longer-life batteries to power radios and other equipment; and
a new battery recharging system which reduces the number of spare batteries required.

After inspecting some of the equipment at the annual DVD event and talking to soldiers and suppliers, Minister for International Security Strategy, Gerald Howarth, said:

"While the modern combat soldier is better equipped than ever before, this has brought about its own challenges - mainly an increase in the weight being carried.


The new ration pack for troops will be 2kg lighter than the current 24-hour pack (pictured)
[Picture: Andrew Linnett, Crown Copyright/MOD 2009]

"The welfare of our troops is paramount and so the work being carried out here to reduce this burden is essential to both the physical and mental well-being of our troops fighting on the front line in what can be 50-degree temperatures. The other improvements announced today are a further demonstration of our determination to equip our forces on the front line with the kit they need."

A newly-formed project team, - the Integrated Soldier System Executive, based at Defence Equipment and Support in Bristol, has been leading on the work to reduce the weight carried on the front line.

Along with lightening a soldier's load, the welfare of personnel operating in remote locations is being improved through increasing the number of e-bluey computer terminals to enable them to communicate with loved ones and installing more showers, sinks and toilets in forward operating bases. The new ablutions facilities will be sent to Afghanistan later this year.

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Army Orders More IED Detection Systems

By DAVID LARTER

Published: 26 Jun 2010 08:31



The U.S. Army is turning to an old friend in the growing fight against improvised explosive devices.

IEDs remain the primary threat to soldiers in Afghanistan and are responsible for roughly 57 percent of coalition combat deaths in Afghanistan this year, according to iCasualties.org.

To counter the threat, the Army is nearly doubling the number of NIITEK-produced Husky Mounted Detection Systems in theater.

The main component of the Husky is ground-penetrating radar called the VISOR 2500. One of the enduring frustrations with IEDs in Afghanistan is that often components are nonmetallic and nonmagnetic, making them difficult to detect using conventional methods. NIITEK says the radar system allows soldiers to detect threats through the ground that metal detectors wouldn't pick up.

The most recent contract, awarded June 2, cost the Army $106.5 million for the 76 systems to be installed on Husky tactical support vehicles, as well as for spare parts, maintenance support and training for soldiers.

Many of the details of the HMDS are classified, but NIITEK provides training at installations around the U.S. and in Afghanistan, said company spokesman Terrance Marsh.

The Husky-linked system primarily is used to clear main supply roads. But the Army Engineer School performed preliminary tests late last year on NIITEK's new miniaturized, remote-controlled version of the system that the company is shopping to the military.

When the U.S. began to field the technology, officials described it as a "game changer" in the fight against Afghan IEDs.

The Joint IED Defeat Organization said on its website that during testing in Afghanistan beginning in 2008, the system successfully detected pressure-plate IEDs before they detonated.

While the details of device's success are scant, other NATO countries are examining the system. Canadian forces have 21 systems in Afghanistan. The Army and Marine Corps have 80 systems in theater.

NIITEK would not comment on when the new additions to the HMDS inventory would be in Afghanistan, but the June 8 contract announcement said the systems are intended to be immediately shipped to the war zone.

[buglerbilly]

Countering Taliban IEDs with Intelligence, Training and Equipment

(Source: U.K Ministry of Defence; issued July 2, 2010)

The International Security Assistance Force's strategy for defeating the improvised explosive device threat in Afghanistan can be characterised by three main elements - attacking the system, defeating the device and preparing the force - senior British officers said yesterday.

Major General Gordon Messenger, the Chief of the Defence Staff's Strategic Communications Officer, and Colonel Peter Smith, Assistant Director of Counter-IED at Land Forces Headquarters, reiterated that the IED menace is being countered through intelligence, training and equipment at a briefing to the media in MOD's Main Building yesterday, Thursday 1 July 2010.

Reminding the audience that while improvised explosive devices are far from a new phenomenon and that around 300 are found every month outside Iraq and Afghanistan, Major General Messenger said that it was in Afghanistan that their use had become 'unprecedented'.

Major General Messenger said that the fight against the IED threat was far more than the lone bomb disposal expert on the ground and the 'long walk' to disarming the device. He said it was a pan-defence and pan-government effort taking in expertise and resources not only from the military but from the Foreign Office, Home Office and police, as well as many others in the UK and abroad.

It is these other departments and agencies that, along with Defence, are working on the first pillar of the strategy - 'attacking the system'.

Major General Messenger explained:

"Whilst we are absolutely continuing to pay utmost attention to 'defeat the device' and continue to plough enormous amounts of energy, investment and technology into improving that, it will never be the sole card that plays the trick and we are putting a lot more into 'attacking the system'.

"This is about preventing the IED being laid in the first place and here it is about understanding the organisations and the networks that are responsible for placing these in the ground.

"Here we have to view the people that do this as nothing more than criminals, part of criminal networks, and therefore tackled in the same way that anyone would tackle a criminal network.

"That requires us to understand that network and it requires an enormous intelligence-gathering effort, the span of which would be difficult to describe."

He went on to say that at the low-tech end of the market UK forces in Afghanistan are increasingly understanding this network for themselves and providing essential information:

"The guys on the ground are learning more and more about the threat that they face and therefore developing their means of tackling it," Major General Messenger said.

He added that there is also a very substantial high-tech approach to the problem, not only in deployment of cross-government agencies from this country and from other nations, but also through things like airborne surveillance and other means of collecting intelligence which require a very high level of technology:

"We are improving all the time our ability in what we call 'permanent wide area surveillance' so that we can identify nefarious activity as it is being conducted and work it back to attacking the network.

"That is not a panacea and never will be a panacea - it has to be seen as an overall approach. But the bottom line is every single member of the task force is part of that intelligence-gathering effort.

"Part of that is gathering forensics, analysing the forensics and knowing what constitutes something of intelligence value and what doesn't. That is something that is much more instinctive in the minds of every soldier."

Major General Messenger stressed that there is an international dimension to this intelligence-gathering effort, and it's not simply the Brits doing it alone:

"We are also looking beyond Afghanistan in terms of the provision of some of the more sophisticated components and in the provision of finance that supports these networks.

"We are also working hard with the Afghan Government in this regard and there have been a number of legislative changes which support this.

"An example would be the recent banning of ammonium nitrate by the Afghan Government, ammonium nitrate being a fertiliser that can be very quickly used to generate homemade explosives.

"But at the heart of attacking the system is good, honest counter-insurgency. It is about separating the population from the insurgent so that insurgents cannot feel comfortable and cannot operate with impunity.

"We are quite often seeing villages with a lot of IEDs in their area coming to us and saying we can't go about our business, and clearance operations are being targeted to clear these areas to allow entire villages to go about their business with a degree of normality."

Moving to the second pillar of the strategy, Major General Messenger explained that 'defeating the device' is about finding these devices once they have been placed and neutralising and destroying them once they have been found:

"In terms of our ability to find and detect the devices we are at the cutting-edge of science in providing technology to people on the ground to find these devices before they go off," Major General Messenger said.

"There is much more sharing of information internationally on the technology but the UK capability is as good and if not better than anything else that is out there, and is recognised as such by those in the field in Afghanistan.

"But it isn't just about technology, it is about understanding the terrain that you are operating in and it is about fairly low level ability to detect change and detect ground signs. It is here that we find that operating alongside the Afghans in a partnering approach is paying real dividends.

"We are also seeing much more in hand-ins and indications from the local population which is a sign that a) they feel highly threatened by this threat but also b) that they feel sufficiently comfortable to do so.

"What we are therefore achieving is a significantly higher rate of find, and the ratio of find to explode is good and getting better.

"On protected mobility, the level of protection that is afforded our people, both individual protection and when in-vehicle, is as good if not better than anyone else. And again this is at the very cutting-edge of technology.

"But the problem is in a population-focused campaign you have to get out of those vehicles and the bottom line is you can't out-armour your way out of this problem."

Finally, Major General Messenger explained that the third element of the strategy was about 'preparing the force' and that this issue is now in the 'bloodstream' of everyone in uniform, and the counter-IED awareness goes right back to basic training:

"This is not simply about pre-deployment training, this is something that everyone is acutely aware of.

"We are not simply training the UK troops, we are also training the Afghan security forces in this regard, and we are also improving the awareness of the Afghan population through a series of shuras and meetings to make sure they understand what they can do about it.

"We are training people not just to be defensive, we are training people to attack the system, and that involves the instinct for intelligence-gathering and an instinct for forensic awareness."

He said that there has been heavy investment in the training estate in this country and many bases now have training lanes to allow troops to develop not only the technical skills to find and neutralise devices but also the situational awareness to spot the tell-tale signs.

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[buglerbilly]

Talisman helps British forces counter the IED threat

An Equipment and Logistics news article

8 Jul 10

The arrival of the new Talisman counter-IED system in Afghanistan is helping 15 Field Support Squadron, 38 Engineer Regiment, deal with the menace in less time and more safely.


A soldier from 15 Field Support Squadron operates a Talon remote-controlled robot which forms part of the latest counter-IED technology
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

The improvised explosive device is the biggest threat to life for troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

Scattered throughout Helmand province, these indiscriminate weapons kill and maim both ISAF and Afghan forces as well as innocent Afghan civilians.

However, the British Armed Forces now have a revolutionary new capability called Talisman which is being used to counter the threat.

15 Field Support Squadron, who are based in Ripon, North Yorkshire, are the first troops to use the new system on the ground in Afghanistan.

Talisman is comprised of armoured vehicles, optical cameras and remote-controlled vehicles.

This life-saving equipment is being used to support combat logistic patrols which can be up to several hundred vehicles in total and trek through the country delivering vital supplies to bases for the troops on the front line.

Talisman is also starting to be used in combat infantry roles, such as for deliberate route clearances.


The JCB high mobility engineer excavator forms part of the Talisman system
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Major Thomas Donohoe, Officer Commanding 15 Field Support Squadron, explained:

"What Talisman brings is a remote capability. It keeps soldiers out of the contact zone of the IED, massively reducing the danger.

"The optics and the unmanned aerial vehicle lower the threat to the team on the ground. It will save lives."

The vehicles and equipment used by the Talisman Troop include a specially equipped Mastiff vehicle, known as 'Protected Eyes', and a Buffalo - the most highly protected vehicle on operations.

Both vehicles have V-shaped hulls fitted with ballistic armour which deflect blasts.

There is also a small robot on caterpillar tracks known as a Talon. It is armed with high tech optical equipment which can be operated from the safety of the armoured vehicles. Talon is used to detect and defeat the IED on the ground.

Once the IED threat has been dealt with, the high mobility engineer excavator (HMEE) is brought into play.


The JCB high mobility engineer excavator at work in Afghanistan
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

The HMEE is an armoured JCB with incredible manoeuvrability which is used to repair any damage caused by IED blasts. It can smash through wadis (rivers), fill holes and move debris to allow combat logistic patrols to pass through.

Not only vital for patrols, this technology has had a positive impact on the local people. Major Donohoe explained:

"If we cause damage to the routes through removing these deadly devices, it's important we rebuild them.

"We can show the local people that we've made the route safe and then if a device is planted after we've moved through them they know it has been laid by the insurgents.

"This shows the Afghan people how little regard the insurgents have for their safety."

Major Donohoe is proud of what 15 Field Support Squadron has achieved in a short space of time. He said:

"We have trained hard for our role out here. With the new kit we can search for, clear and destroy IEDs much more safely than before.

"On clearance operations in the last couple of weeks, the Talisman Troop has led the way, detecting and destroying IEDs and ultimately saving lives."

[buglerbilly]

More on TALISMAN..............

QinetiQ's TALON robots now in use in Afghanistan under a UOR


QinetiQ's Talon robot in action.

19:15 GMT, July 12, 2010 QinetiQ is supplying its battle proven Talon robots to the UK Ministry of Defence for route proving and clearance, under the British Army's Talisman programme.

Deployed since April 2010 in Afghanistan, but only just announced, Talisman is the Army’s latest weapon to help counter the threat posed by Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) and mines. Delivered as an Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) collectively worth more than £180 million, Talisman is a suite of vehicles that provide an integrated route proving and clearance capability that is operated by the Royal Engineers. Much of the work on the Thales led Talisman project has been done and delivered by UK companies. Each Talisman system, in addition to having Talon units, comprises a variety of other vehicles including the Mastiff Protected Patrol Vehicle; a Buffalo Mine Protected Vehicle with a manipulator arm; a JCB High Mobility Engineer Excavator; and a T-Hawk Micro Air Vehicle.

This is the first order the MOD has placed for QinetiQ’s larger battle proven Talon robots and they now join the 100 Dragon Runners robots announced and delivered into theatre last year by QinetiQ for Counter-Improvised Explosive Device (C-IED) and ordnance disposal operations. The order for Talons also includes training, spares and a support package.

“We are delighted that our Talon robots are now in use with the MOD and helping to save lives,” stated Neville Salkeld, MD for QinetiQ’s UK Technology Solutions Group. “Talon robots already have an excellent and proven record with US forces with over 3000 units having been supplied. Many are in constant use in-theatre and are supported by a rapid in theatre repair service which because of the systems’ robust modular design means a damaged unit can often be returned to operational status within just a few hours.”

“Talisman will improve our ability to manage the IED and mine threat with the system’s primary mission being to protect vehicle convoys delivering supplies to Forward Operating Bases,” added Patrick Beazley, Head of Combat Wheels Group at Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S). “It has been designed as a flexible manoeuvre support capability that can be quickly re-tasked and rearranged to meet different missions, operating independently or alongside other bomb disposal systems dependent on the threat. Talisman is now part of a wide range of tools, techniques and tactics we have to help mitigate the risk to our forces from the threat of IEDs.”

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

DARPA's BLADE to Sharpen IED Jammers

Posted by Graham Warwick at 7/15/2010 1:37 PM CDT

Jamming is a major weapon in the war against insurgents in Afghanistan, used to disrupt communications and prevent triggering of IEDs. But technology marches on and wireless devices like cellphones will get cleverer and harder to jam. An example is dynamic spectrum allocation, which enables devices to change frequencies when they sense interference, which would negate jamming.


Photo: US Army

Today, new electronic attack techniques specific to each new threat must be developed and tested in the laboratory, a laborious process DARPA says will not keep pace with adaptive wireless. So the agency is launching the Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare (BLADE) program to develop software algorithms that will allow EW systems to "learn" automatically how to jam new threats in the field.

BLADE will include a module that detects a new threat and learns its characteristics, operating over a very wide frequency range and in a highly cluttered RF environment. DARPA wants this module to be able to find out as much as it can about the threat, including its transmission techniques and network protocols, so that other BLADE modules can automatically synthesize countermeasures then monitor the threat radio to assess the effectiveness of the jamming.

BLADE could jam automatically or provide the threat and countermeasure information to an electronic warfare officer who would decide if and when to apply jamming. BLADE is aimed at use with vehicle-mounted jammers, such as the CREW (Counter Radio-Controlled IED Electronic Warfare) systems now in use in Afghanistan. But the demonstration program could include an airborne jamming node, possibly an unmanned aircraft.

[buglerbilly]

T-Rays: The Future of Airport Security, the End of Suicide Bombers?

Scientists Say Terahertz Waves May Detect Chemicals, Explosives, Weapons Long-Distance

By NED POTTER

July 21, 2010

It's the price we pay for living in a post-9/11 world -- waiting on endless lines at airport security, worried about missing a flight, and wondering if all those metal detectors and pat-downs will make us any safer anyhow.

Flyers conderned about radiation from full body scan machines.Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., have now made an advance that could substantially change that scenario. Instead of X-rays, try T-rays.

T-rays? Sounds like a dinosaur or something from a high-school cafeteria, but it's really slang for terahertz -- part of the electromagnetic spectrum, like visible light, infrared or ultraviolet -- that could be tremendously useful in remote sensing involved in everything from homeland security to defense to medicine.

The scientists at RPI have now used terahertz sensing to determine the chemical makeup of samples in the lab from up to 67 feet away -- the size of the lab in which they were working -- and say their technology may be effective at considerably greater distances.

Imagine, scientists say, being able to:

Pick out a suicide bomber from a distance -- before he or she can set off any explosives.

Scan the road ahead of a military convoy for hidden explosives.

Shoot images of an enemy satellite 22,000 miles out in orbit, and figure out exactly what it is before it does anything.

"A lot of chemical compounds have chemical signatures in the terahertz range," said Jingle Liu, one of the members of the Rensselaer team, who published their results in the journal Nature Photonics. "We tested hundreds of compounds."

Straight From a Novel

For years, T-rays were the stuff of spy thrillers -- witness this 1996 excerpt from Tom Clancy's "Games of State:"

"He pressed a square, red button on the back of the power pack. 'What you get are terahertz oscillations that wriggle around between the infrared and radio wave area of the spectrum. What that gives you is the ability to tell what's inside or behind something thin -- paper, wood, plastic, almost anything.'"


Researchers Jingle Liu, left, and Jianming Dai focus a laser beam in their laboratory at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. They are using the laser to perfect terahertz sensing, said to be promising for medical imaging and the detection of weapons or explosives.
(Courtesy Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Terahertz Could Transform Security Scanning

Security agencies are intrigued. Terahertz research is being backed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Missile Defense Agency, the Office of Naval Research, and the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security.

"There is stuff you can do with terahertz that you simply can't do with microwaves or optically," said Bruce Carlsten of Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Already, many of the so-called full-body scanners being tried at some airports make use of terahertz, though there are major privacy issues raised by sensors that can see through people's clothes. Many people are concerned about the safety of terahertz radiation, though studies so far seem to suggest that low-level exposure is not harmful.

One good thing about T-rays, scientists say, is that unlike X-rays, they are not ionizing radiation. They do not strip atoms of their electrons, causing the damage that other radiation does.

One bad thing is that while they can detect all sorts of hazards, they also detect almost anything else -- including the water vapor that hangs in the air. It looks like an opaque fog in a terahertz image. The RPI team figured out a way to "see" through vapor, using a low-powered laser.

Engineers elsewhere are experimenting with using them for voice and data transmissions. They can be sent much like a radio transmission, but they can be aimed with precision, and they are very hard for others to intercept.

"[T]here are a great many applications that this type of research could potentially support and are still being investigated," said Michael Robinson of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in an e-mail to ABC News. "This includes many in the realm of remotely sensing materials of interest. However, one of the great things about research is it often leads to breakthroughs in areas that one could not imagine at the outset of the research."

One researcher, who asked not to be quoted by name, said he thought terahertz signals may be most useful over long distances. The airport lines of the future --as well as the battlefield and the laboratory-- could be very different if T-rays work.

"This stuff is here to stay," said Carlsten at Los Alamos. "This is very powerful."

[buglerbilly]

Pentagon Report Shows Huge Jump in IED Attacks in Afghanistan



The chart above shows monthly IED “incidents,” defined as IEDs placed by insurgents and either found or detonated, in Afghanistan from January 2004 to April this year. It comes from an alarming report from the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) that was provided to CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman.

The JIEDDO data shows an astounding jump in IED incidents occurred beginning summer 2009 — coinciding with the Marine offensive in the Helmand River Valley — and IED attacks have steadily mounted. There were more than 1,000 IED incidents during March, April and May of this year; nearly half of total incidents involved IEDs detonating. As the JIEDDO brief notes, a “significant number” of IEDs may have been emplaced but were never found or detonated.

The JIEDDO data shows “that IEDs have become the equivalent of the Stinger in allowing irregular forces to pose a major threat even to the most advanced military forces in the world,” Cordesman writes. While the jump in insurgent IED attacks is indeed alarming, the data does show some good news: “the counter-IED effort has kept successful attacks far below the rate of increase in total attacks.”

As can be seen from the chart labeled “Lethality of IEDs Over Time,” the number of deaths per IED attack has “stabilized” at below 20 percent since April 2009. In March of this year, 434 IEDs detonated, resulting in 22 coalition troops killed and 252 wounded. In April, 475 IEDs detonated, resulting in 17 killed and 230 wounded. In May, 544 IEDs detonated, killing 34 coalition troops and wounding 250.

Coalition troops casualty rates from IED attacks approaching 300 per month is a grim statistic. Yet, it is a marked improvement over casualty rates per incident from summer 2009. During July 2009, 450 IEDs detonated, killing 49 and wounding 237 coalition troops. The next month, 554 IEDs detonated, killing 55 troops and wounding 333.

The lower casualty rate is likely due to the fact that the military has rushed large numbers of IED resistant vehicles to Afghanistan; another reason might be due to an increase in available medevac flights for wounded troops.

One bit of data that is not so good: the percentage of IEDs turned in by local Afghans has actually declined over time and is running at below five percent of total incidents. A 2009 report from the Center for New American Security (CNAS) identified the number of IEDs reported by local Afghans as an important metric of success:

“[A] a rise in the proportion of IEDs being found and defused (especially when discovered thanks to tips from the local population) indicates that locals have a good working relationship with local military units—a sign of progress. Conversely, a drop in the proportion of IEDs found and cleared indicates the population is not passing on information to security forces, and is standing by while they are attacked—a sign of deteriorating security.”

– Greg Grant

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/07/26/pentagon-report-on-afghan-war-shows-huge-jump-in-ied-attacks/#more-8388#ixzz0uqVCKVE7
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

Canadian cowboy trains British soldiers to spot IEDs

A Training and Adventure news article

29 Jul 10

The British Army has recruited a Canadian cowboy to teach soldiers how to look for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) hidden in the ground when deployed in Afghanistan.


Professional tracker Terry Grant with soldiers of 7th Armoured Brigade on the Canadian prairie
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

The cowboy is professional tracker Terry Grant, aged 52, who is famed for his hit reality television show 'Mantracker' in which he tracks contestants over vast swathes of the Canadian wilderness.

He has now been employed to pass on his unique ground sign awareness skills to the soldiers of 7th Armoured Brigade (the Desert Rats) who are set to deploy to Afghanistan next year.

The Desert Rats are currently training on Exercise Prairie Thunder 1 at the British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) located in the heart of the vast plains of Alberta in the west of Canada.

When an IED is laid, the ground is disturbed either by physically digging the device in or by the insurgent leaving tracks as he moves around. Ground sign awareness is about recognising these clues and therefore identifying a potential IED location and reducing the risk.

Terry's show, Mantracker, sees two contestants take off into the bush with a map, a compass and a head start. They have 36 hours to reach a finish line some 40km away without getting caught - how they escape is up to them.

Terry, who is on horseback without any navigational aids, doesn't know their exact start or finish points. His job is to track them searching the ground for clues before they reach the finish line.

Terry, who has spent over 25 years as a cowboy working ranches across Alberta, is also a search and rescue volunteer and has spent a lifetime honing his skills on hunting trips. He jumped at the opportunity to work with British forces and trial a new training idea.

He said:


"I was asked if I could provide some basic ground and track awareness training. It has been good fun to work with the soldiers; at first they didn't really get it, but as soon as they realised what I was trying to teach, they all picked it up and hopefully learnt something that can help them.

"If only one of these guys takes away what he has been shown today and recognises something out of the ordinary that saves his life, then I have done my job. If he remembers that 'tracker guy stuff' then it has been worthwhile."

Private Rikkie Jennings, aged 23, from Lichfield in Staffordshire, who serves with 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Staffords), said:


"I've never done anything like this before and I am sure it will be useful in Afghanistan. It was difficult to see at first but we soon got the hang of it."

While in previous years British military exercises in Canada have been conducted with a cold war mentality, dealing mainly in conventional heavy artillery warfare, Exercise Prairie Thunder has evolved training to focus on hybrid warfare, covering everything from the conventional enemy to counter-insurgency and peace support operations.

The Desert Rats' Chief of Staff, Major Richard Bell, came up with the idea to introduce ground awareness searching techniques into soldiers' training after watching Mantracker on Canadian television. The idea is now being reviewed to decide whether it should be developed further.

[buglerbilly]

Second NATO Ally Will Use Dragon Runner Robots to Disarm Roadside Bombs in Afghanistan

(Source: QinetiQ North America; issued July 28, 2010)



MCLEAN, VA --- Canada has become the second NATO ally to deploy Dragon Runner robots in Afghanistan. The deployment was announced at a spring symposium at the Canadian Embassy devoted to conquering IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Afghanistan. The symposium brought together a group of largely Canadian-based companies working on anti-IED technologies, but also included QinetiQ North America's Dragon Runner SUGV (small, unmanned ground vehicle).

The June edition of Diplomatic Connections magazine featured detailed coverage of the symposium. "As the assembled audience settled into place," the magazine reported, "Dragon Runner made its entrance by climbing the front stairs of the embassy, maneuvering through a series of doorways, traveling down the theater aisle, and up the stage steps where it jauntily greeted Canadian Ambassador Gary Dower by waving a Canadian maple leaf flag. In a remarkable demonstration of its dexterity, Dragon Runner used its manipulator arm with a rotating shoulder and wrist as well as opposable grippers to drop a ceremonial hockey puck into the Ambassador’s hand."

"Dismounted operations prevail in Afghanistan because of the rugged terrain and lack of paved roads," noted Dr. J.D. Crouch, President of the Technology Solutions Group of QinetiQ North America which develops and manufactures the Dragon Runner. "That means our soldiers and marines need equipment they can carry, and Dragon Runner is ideally suited to these missions."

Canada is the second NATO country to use Dragon Runner robots to help disarm IEDs in Afghanistan. QinetiQ announced last November that the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), responding to an "urgent operational requirement," was purchasing almost 100 Dragon Runner robots for use in Afghanistan. They have since been successfully deployed as the UK Ministry of Defence reported last month. It said in a statement: "Countering the threat from IEDs is the top priority in making military progress in the Afghanistan campaign. Dragon Runner, the best remote-controlled bomb disposal robot currently on the market, has been operating in Afghanistan for over a year, adding to the range of other Counter-IED capability."

QinetiQ North America is an independent, innovative technology provider that earns over a billion dollars in revenue operating with small company speed and agility while leveraging significant global resources. QinetiQ North America is part of QinetiQ Group PLC, one of the world's leading defense and security technology companies.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Beating the IED Threat in Helmand

(Source: UK Ministry of Defence; issued July 28, 2010)

Men, machines, and most recently, animals, are working together to beat the biggest threat to troops in Afghanistan - improvised explosive devices (IEDs) laid by insurgents.

A combination of search teams and bomb disposal experts (Advanced Defence Explosive Ordnance Disposal) from across the forces form Counter-IED (C-IED) teams. These work alongside the infantry battalions fighting on the front line in Helmand province, and can be called upon to deal with any IEDs soldiers find.

Lieutenant Paul Lucy, a Royal Engineers officer leading a search team that spent a six-month winter deployment in Helmand, said: "Searchers have hand-held detectors but their main tools are their eyes. The hand-held detector is a great piece of kit, but the key thing is to keep your eyes and ears open as well."

Lieutenant Lucy is a Royal Engineer Search Advisor heading a team which includes a commander, a second-in-command and a number of sappers who carry out the searches:

"My role is to assess the threat, which can change minute-by-minute," he said. "Searches are usually at a slow and safe pace, but it depends what's going on around the soldiers."

When IEDs are found, the team's explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) operatives are called out to dispose of them. That two such men were awarded George Crosses earlier this year speaks volumes about the importance of their role:

"A search team wouldn't go anywhere without EOD operatives, because there's no point in finding something if it can't be dealt with," said Lieutenant Lucy.

His team was deployed with Royal Welsh infantry during Operation MOSHTARAK, a combined effort with the Afghan National Army to break into the Babaji area of Helmand early this year:

"We found two or three bomb factories and at least ten devices," he said.

Counter-IED teams are likely to become familiar with every corner of Helmand over the course of a six-month tour. Some missions will be more stressful than others.

Captain Gareth Bateman, Second-in-Command of the Joint Force EOD Group, said:
"You might find a team in Sangin is going on planned operations every day, while others are not so busy.

"We rotate teams to maintain momentum among the battle groups and to keep the teams fresh as well. As you can imagine, the concentration levels these guys require is very high."

Now the bomb squads are benefiting from new colleagues - Belgian Shepherds. Sleek and powerfully built, the dogs have a proven ability to cope with the heat and a good nose for sniffing out IEDs.

In the training area, the dogs work closely with their handlers. Staff Sergeant Malcolm Quigley, the dogs' chief trainer, said:

"If a dog finds something, it indicates this, and the search team takes over. The dogs provide the early warning protection."

Chocolat is a dog who has already seen front line action, including an unplanned ride in a Chinook helicopter when he was evacuated as a medical emergency.

But it wasn't an IED that saw the dog land in Bastion's field hospital for treatment, rather it was an unfortunate encounter with some barbed wire:

"Team medics are trained to resuscitate dogs and to put intravenous lines into them," said Captain Bateman.

Chocolat has since recovered and is running rings around his handler who takes him out for physical training (PT):

"They're very fit animals indeed," says Staff Sergeant Quigley. "After a PT session they'll have a drink then look at us as if to say 'let's do it again'."

An alternative to man or beast is a machine that simply blasts through belts of IEDs. One example is the Royal Engineers' awesome Trojan. The tracked monster is equipped with a mine destruction system which was fired in anger during Operation MOSHTARAK.

The weapon blasted all IEDs in its path, clearing a safe route for convoys of vehicles carrying stores and equipment to front line bases:

"We led an armoured convoy of around 50 vehicles," said Lieutenant Jim Viney, who commanded a Trojan. "We had our hatches closed down and, when the rocket went off, we could feel the pressure as it left. The main feeling was of relief - that it had gone off and done its job."

While Trojan was ideal during the fast-paced advance of Operation MOSHTARAK, it could never replace the need for troops and dogs on the ground, who work near to and even in towns and villages:

"You can't reassure the local people if you go smashing through with a tank," said Captain Bateman.

The benefits of maintaining neighbourly relations became clear during Op MOSHTARAK: "Rather than having to search for IEDs, locals started to tell us where they were."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

One soldier and his dog in Afghanistan

A Military Operations news article

30 Jul 10

GREAT dogs Malinois.........tough, clever and loyal as................

Two-year-old Belgian Shepherd Espen and his handler Sergeant Tom Moir are currently deployed to Helmand for six months searching for improvised explosive devices and saving the lives of countless soldiers.


Espen, a two-year-old Belgian Shepherd, with his handler Sergeant Tom Moir
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Espen, who is a Malinois breed, is on his first deployment and he is helping safeguard soldiers' lives at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shawqat in Nad 'Ali.

With his sense of smell being approximately 43 times stronger than a human's, he is ideal for searching for IEDs and was specially procured for the operation.

When Espen is out on the ground working with the troops, his daily work routine is dependent upon the tasks being undertaken and what the troops have found on patrol, but he is typically involved in providing invaluable assistance by clearing routes so troops can pass safely.

When not on patrol, Espen doesn't have it easy; his daily routine whilst in the FOB starts at 0530hrs when he wakes up and goes for a walk and has his breakfast.

Following a short break he is then happy to go on his daily physical training to maintain his fitness levels and ability to work in the conditions out in Nad 'Ali.

He runs approximately two miles (three kilometres) each day, whilst it is still cool enough in the morning, and in the early evening he hones his senses and smells so he is able to do his job well.


Sergeant Tom Moir with Espen
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Espen and Sergeant Moir have formed an extremely close bond and even sleep next to each other under a mosquito net.

Sergeant Moir said:

"I am pleased with the way his training is progressing up to the operational standards and I feel safe with him in front of me searching."

After spending eight years in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Sergeant Moir transferred to the Royal Army Veterinary Corps and now works with Espen in 102 Squadron, part of the 1st Military Working Dog Regiment based in Sennelager, Germany.

As this is Sergeant Moir's second deployment to Afghanistan, he is fully aware of how the heat can affect Espen's performance:

"This is different from the last time I was in Afghanistan, since the heat is very oppressive," he said. "However, with careful management Espen can work to his peak performance during the day."

Nad 'Ali, where Espen and Sergeant Moir are based, was one of the areas included in Operation MOSHTARAK, the first phase of which began in February this year.

The operation was carried out to extend the authority of the Afghan Government in central Helmand, removing the largest remaining safe havens in the area for the Taliban.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Meet the IDF's New Anti-mine Tactic

Posted by Paul McLeary at 8/2/2010 12:21 PM CDT


(Pic: IDF)

The Israeli Defense Forces are beginning to test a new method for clearing minefields by using what it calls “flammable materials,” instead of explosives. The “special material,” the IDF homepage says, “will burn away the explosive powder of the landmine and enable the army to declare certain areas free of landmines in an easier way that does not endanger the soldiers’ lives. The Army is first looking at trying the method in the Qasr Al-Yahud in the Jordan Valley, since the valley has over 25,000 anti-tank landmines and an estimated half million antipersonnel landmines.

[buglerbilly]

iRobot Receives $20.3 Million Order from NAVSEA for 125 PackBot MRTS Robots



08:32 GMT, August 6, 2010 BEDFORD, Mass. | iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT), a leader in delivering robotic technology-based solutions, today announced that it has received a $20.3 million order from the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).

The order has been issued as a standalone contract. It calls for the delivery of 125 PackBot Man Transportable Robotic System (MTRS) robots, spare parts and repairs. The PackBot MTRS is modeled after the iRobot 510 PackBot.

The iRobot 510 PackBot is one of the most successful battle-tested robots in the world. The robots are currently being used by warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan to conduct dangerous missions from safe distances. The 510 PackBot can be used to identify and neutralize roadside bombs, car bombs and other improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It is also ideal for other missions, including reconnaissance and route clearance.

“Robots have consistently proven their worth on the battlefield,” said Joe Dyer, president of iRobot’s Government and Industrial Robots division. “As roadside bombs and similar devices remain a constant threat in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is crucial that we continue outfitting our troops with tools to ensure they stay as safe as possible. The iRobot PackBot is saving lives, and we are honored to be providing this technology to the military.”

iRobot has delivered more than 3,500 unmanned ground vehicles to the military and public safety organizations worldwide.

[buglerbilly]

Afghanistan: 'Don't get too close - if he goes up you'll go with him

'It is one of the army's most dangerous jobs – finding and diffusing IEDs, the homemade bombs that have been used to deadly effect by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Stuart Webb talks to and photographs the men on the frontline

Stuart Webb

The Guardian, Saturday 7 August 2010


Staff Sergeant Gareth 'Woody' Wood does the lonely walk - he alone has to approach the IED, leaving his support crew a safe distance behind. Photograph: Stuart Webb

Guardsman James Stephenson is just 20 years old, but when the soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the Coldstream Guards leave their base in the Babaji area of Helmand, he leads the patrol. Stephenson's nickname is "Steveo", but on duty in Afghanistan, everyone calls him "Vallon Man". The Vallon is the metal detector used to sweep for bombs – and being a Vallon Man is one of the army's most dangerous jobs.

The last five years have seen a sharp increase in the use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Afghanistan. According to figures leaked last month, the number of IEDs increased from 308 in 2004 to 7,155 last year; a total of 16,000 were planted in those five years, killing at least 7,000 Afghan civilians. These devices have also caused the vast majority of all British and American deaths during the conflict, and are seriously hampering Nato's operations in the country. Of the IEDs recorded in last month's figures, 8,582 were found and cleared, but 7,553 exploded. The threat is so high that every patrol must be led by a soldier sweeping with a metal detector. However, the insurgents have started cutting down on the metal they use in the devices, making them harder to detect and more likely to have their desired effect.

In February, Stephenson's friend Lance Corporal Darren Hicks, from the same battalion, stepped on an IED and was killed while patrolling as a Vallon Man. Five of the battalion's soldiers have died during this tour and a further six have lost their legs – all victims of IEDs. Stephenson admits to feeling terrified each time he leaves the gates of the patrol base.

The patrol is on the move. An Afghan interpreter with the Coldstreams monitors the Taliban's radio transmissions and relays what they say to the company commander – everyone can hear. The soldiers pause at a farm compound and, over the radio, the insurgents say they have laid IEDs to the south of the patrol and prepared an ambush to the west. Stephenson looks nervous. With a pistol in one hand and a metal detector in the other, he steps out of the compound to face whatever is waiting.

His instinct must be to move quickly, but Stephenson can go only at walking pace, otherwise he risks missing the metal signal for a bomb. Everyone must follow him – at a distance. A shouted warning from the sergeant major leaves no room for doubt: "Don't get too close to Vallon Man – if he goes up you'll go with him."

The patrol reaches a stream and clambers down into the water. Any hope that the steep banks can offer protection is quickly dispelled by the shrill noise of incoming fire. Soldiers dive for cover, but it's over in moments. The Coldstreams call them "shoot and scoots". Outgunned by Nato's superior firepower, the Taliban have changed tactics. Now they are fighting the war with IEDs and hit-and-run attacks. During their three-day patrol, the Coldstreams are ambushed around 20 times.

Moving off, I look at Vallon Man just ahead of me. Standing bolt upright he sets off again – out front and alone.

Once an IED is found, the task of dealing with it is handed over to a bomb disposal expert like Staff Sergeant Gareth Wood. It takes eight to 10 years to train a bomb disposal specialist to the standard required to work in Helmand – longer than a doctor or a barrister – and among candidates there's only a 14% pass rate. The work in Afghanistan is considered so dangerous and stressful that bomb disposal operators will be asked to do only one six-month deployment to the region. Their first tour will also be their last.

"Woody" finished the final part of his advanced training in 2008. In September of that year, Warrant Officer Gary O'Donnell became the first British bomb disposal operator to be killed in Afghanistan. For Woody, the news was a stark reality check: "The first killed was a real shock, because up to then we had always beaten the bomb. No one had been killed [by an IED] since the 80s."

A further three bomb disposal specialists have since died, along with five Royal Engineers searchers. Usually, when soldiers call in an IED find, the exact location is unclear, and there may be other IEDs in the immediate area. A Royal Engineer search team goes in first, to identify and confirm the location of the IED, and to find a safe path for the bomb disposal specialist to reach it. Sergeant Kevin O'Dwyer heads the search team: "It's not been a good tour for us – terrible. The losses among the counter-IED force are phenomenal." O'Dwyer's best friend was one of those killed. He helped carry the coffin at his funeral.

The bomb disposal teams are very small and close-knit – all the specialists know each other and many spend years training and working together. Any loss or injury is a terrible blow to such a small community. In October last year, Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid was killed on the final day of his tour, while diffusing his 65th bomb. Woody and Olaf had trained together and been close friends for 10 years. Woody, who is married with three-year-old twin daughters, was at Olaf's funeral and was given the cigars from Olaf's kit. He smoked one after diffusing the first bomb on his tour. He's keeping another for his return to Britain: he wants to share it with Olaf's widow, Christina.

While in Afghanistan, Woody is in constant demand. In the evenings, the British commanders hold a conference call rounding up the day's events. It is usually a catalogue of IED finds and explosions: foot patrols and vehicles are frequently hit – many soldiers owe their survival to a new generation of mine-resistant vehicles. "In Northern Ireland during the Troubles, you might do five or six in a whole six-month tour. You can do that in a day in Helmand," Woody says. He doesn't keep a tally of the number of bombs he has diffused – he says it's bad luck. "Some of the guys who kept tallies aren't with us now."

The bombs are generally low-tech: simple, easy to make and deadly. The insurgents use whatever is to hand. The most common IEDs use what is called a "pressure plate": an explosive, often farming fertiliser, is housed in a yellow cooking oil container; the trigger is two strips of metal that are then attached to electrical wires and batteries. When the two pieces of metal are pressed together – by a soldier's foot or vehicle wheel – an electrical circuit is formed, causing the bomb to explode.

Once an IED is found, Woody gears up to move in. Despite having an 11-strong search team and a column of armoured vehicles and soldiers to protect him, he makes the final approach on foot and alone. The soldiers call it "the lonely walk".

"It's quite surreal really, you're just on your own in your own little world. It's pretty normal to us – it's not abnormal, although to most people it would be." Woody doesn't wear a huge bomb suit like those depicted in Hollywood movie The Hurt Locker – in the real world of bomb disposal in Helmand, they are too hot and cumbersome. Instead, he wears the same body armour as any other British soldier. Using little more than a paintbrush and his bare hands, he gently reveals the device. It's a kind of deadly archaeology – his head just inches from the bomb.

Woody is remarkably calm, thoughtful and level-headed. But every now and then he reveals an insight into the tremendous stress and danger he faces. Before he sets off in the morning, to clear IEDs from a section of road near Nad-e-Ali in Helmand, he confesses to me a real apprehension about the day ahead. "I've got an odd feeling today, and not a good odd feeling. There's new devices going in the ground which are potentially targeting specific people. So we'll just have to keep our wits about us."

When he says "targeting specific people", Woody means himself. He knows bomb disposal experts are a prime target for the Taliban; the bomb-makers are constantly devising new methods to catch them out. The second IED of the day, for example, has a normal pressure-plate mechanism – but hidden under a stone nearby is also a pressure release trigger, working in completely the opposite way. If Woody had lifted the stone to clear it while working on the IED, the release of pressure would have detonated the bomb.

By late afternoon Woody is on bomb number three. He's been working for seven hours without a break. Through the zoom lens of my camera I can see he is struggling with the hard earth around the IED, which has set like concrete in the baking sun. He looks hot, tired and frustrated. Woody takes off his helmet. It's a shocking sight to see his bare head right next to the bomb. He's dealing with the biggest IED of the day. It's big enough to blow up any military vehicle. Being that close, no amount of body armour would save him.

There are so many IEDs that the team unwittingly drove past four on their way to deal with the first reported bomb. The others were found later by passing patrols. Two are at the side of the road and will be marked and dealt with the next day. But the others are in the middle of the road and block their route back. The team was lucky not to have triggered the bombs on their way out. Woody looks exhausted, but he wearily clambers back out of the armoured vehicle so the soldier who found this latest bomb can tell him where it is. "I hear you've found me another fucking bomb," he says.

It's dark before Woody detonates the last of these IEDs. In over 11 hours of nonstop work, he's dealt with five bombs. He already has four lined up for tomorrow – and all this on a stretch of road measuring just a few hundred metres. A pinprick on the map of Helmand. Besides, as Woody knows, as quickly as he can take the bombs out of the ground by day, the insurgents will return by night and lay new ones.

Woody, however, remains philosophical. "Soldiers often say, 'You must be mad. Why do it?' But I'd rather do this than be some 18-year-old soldier patrolling around and stepping on one and losing my legs. When I find one, I'm OK – I know it's there and I know what I'm doing. It's the ones you don't find that worry me."

[I]• Stuart Webb is a journalist with Channel 4 News.


The last five years have seen a sharp increase in the use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Afghanistan. According to figures leaked last month, the number of IEDs increased from 308 in 2004 to 7,155 last year; a total of 16,000 were planted in those five years, killing at least 7,000 Afghan civilians. Guards*man James 'Steveo' *Stephenson (pictured) is “Vallon Man”. The Vallon is the metal *detector used to sweep for bombs.


Staff Sergeant Gareth ‘Woody’ Wood inches from a bomb. It takes eight to 10 years to train a bomb disposal specialist to the standard required to work in Helmand – longer than a doctor or a barrister – and among candidates there’s only a 14% pass rate.


Lance Corporal Tom McGuffie, 20, who was shot in the helmet during an ambush. He is lucky to be alive. Outgunned by Nato’s superior firepower, the Taliban have changed tactics. They are fighting the war with IEDs and hit-and-run attacks.


Detonating the last IED of the day – the team had been working nonstop for 12 hours. Usually, when soldiers call in an IED find, the *exact location is unclear, and there may be other IEDs in the area. A Royal *Engineers search team goes in first, to identify and confirm the location of the IED, and to find a safe path for the bomb disposal specialist to reach it.


Soldiers sleeping rough in *between ambushes. 'In Northern Ireland during the Troubles, you might do five or six [IEDs] in a whole six-month tour,' Staff Sergeant Gareth Wood says. 'You can do that in a day in Helmand.'


Detonating the biggest IED of the day. The bomb disposal teams are very small and close-knit. Any loss or injury is a terrible blow to such a small community.


Coldstream Guards use rivers and ditches as cover from ambushes. In one three-day patrol they are ambushed 20 times.


A member of the Royal Engineers search team looks for an IED. Bomb disposal experts are a prime target for the Taliban; the bomb-makers are constantly devising new *methods to catch them out. In October last year, Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid was killed on the final day of his tour, while diffusing his 65th bomb.

Stuart Webb is a journalist with Channel 4 News.

[buglerbilly]

U.K. Eyes Improved Counter-IED Capabilities

Aug 10, 2010

By Robert Wall
London

The U.K.’s effort to upgrade the Astor ground-surveillance aircraft to enhance detection of improvised explosive devices (IED) is one in a series of equipment upgrades European militaries plan to bolster their military presence in Afghanistan.

The effort comes as the debate over the course ahead in Afghanistan continues in many European countries, signaled most starkly by the formal end of the Dutch participation in the operation on Aug. 1.

The U.K. has been operating the R1 Sentinel Airborne Standoff Radar (Astor) and supporting ground forces by monitoring routes that logistics convoys have to pass through, in some cases augmenting their own sensors with unmanned aircraft. U.K. military officials note that includes forensic analysis to determine where insurgents have come from or headed after an attack.

The ground moving target indicator capability also has been used to help alert ground personnel to the potential presence of IEDs. So far, however, that has concentrated on monitoring ground movements and, when locals notably avoid an area, alert troops on the ground about a potential threat at that location.

But further, more sophisticated technical steps are in the works, including using the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to conduct change detection analysis on the fly. Under such a system, Astor would be used to detect small changes in the ground to alert troops about the potential emplacement of an IED. The Royal Air Force recently conducted trials of this capability at the Salisbury Training Area. The initial SAR system could not perform that function, but with software advances, change detection “is developing,” says a ground operations officer who had deployed with the R1 Sentinel in support of Afghanistan operations.

The U.K. also has been flying unmanned aircraft in the hunt for IEDs, with indications that advanced payloads are being quietly operated in the theater.

On a visit last week to RAF Waddington, where the R1 Sentinels are based, U.K. Defense Minister Liam Fox noted that “highly detailed imagery provides our ground forces with the incredibly accurate information they need to detect insurgent activity and spot potential IEDs.”

Providing ground forces improved airborne intelligence collection also is on the agenda in Germany, where there has been controversy much of the year over concerns that deployed forces are under-equipped. The German parliament’s military ombudsman, Hellmut Konigshaus, has repeatedly urged that known shortcomings be rectified. Most of those concerns have focused on ground equipment, which Berlin is trying to take great strides to improve, benefiting other materiel along the way.

For instance, the German air force this month expects to field a third Heron-1 unmanned aircraft in Mazar-e-Sharif. The Heron-1s are providing direct tactical support to ground forces, while the reconnaissance Tornados, now equipped with a real-time imaging pod, support headquarters functions. Germany acquired four real-time digital RecceLite reconnaissance pods for the Tornados, and in 2012 expects to field four more. The imagery from those sensors is also helping detect IEDs using change detection algorithms.

The German mission to Afghanistan will require parliamentary renewal in the coming months. The current mandate expires Dec. 13, but equipment planners are betting that troops will remain in country in 2011, when a raft of upgrades to ground equipment are due to hit the field.

Meanwhile, the Afghan National Army Air Force has begun live-fire training launching rockets from its Mi-17 helicopters for ground attack. The helos, used for troop transport, eventually also are to supplant the Mi-35s in a ground support capacity.

Credit: High G Technologies

[buglerbilly]

'Flying Robot' pilot helps find IEDs in Helmand

An Equipment and Logistics news article

11 Aug 10

Lance Corporal Rob McInerney is currently working at the forefront of counter-IED operations in Afghanistan piloting the 'Flying Robot', which is part of the Talisman counter-IED system.


Lance Corporal Rob McInerney stands in front of a Buffalo mine protected vehicle, part of the Talisman suite
[Picture: Captain Leanne Christmas, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Talisman has been designed to provide an increased level of assurance along routes throughout the region. It consists of a suite of cutting-edge equipment, including armoured vehicles, optical cameras and remote-controlled vehicles.

This life-saving equipment is being used to support combat logistic patrols, which can comprise several hundred vehicles and trek through the country delivering vital supplies to bases for the troops on the front line.

Lance Corporal Rob McInerney, aged 26, serves with 15 Field Support Squadron, part of 38 Engineer Regiment - the first troops to use the new system on the ground in Afghanistan. See Related News.

His role is to pilot the MAV (Micro Air Vehicle), otherwise known as the 'Flying Robot' or 'T-Hawk':

"The MAV is a great piece of kit and complements the rest of the equipment," he said. "The MAV has two cameras which feed information back to a laptop so that the commander is then better placed to make decisions.


Talisman's 'Flying Robot' component, the Micro Air Vehicle
[Picture: Andrew Linnett, Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

"We have been involved in a few contacts on a couple of the operations that we have been on, which made the day interesting! The most satisfying part of the tour for me is when we get the guys to their destination safely; after all, that is the aim of our job!"

Lance Corporal McInerney has been with 15 Field Support Squadron, based in Ripon, North Yorkshire, since they re-roled from a Field Support Squadron in which he was a plant operator:

"It has been good to learn something new but I am looking forward to getting back to plant," he said.

He is also looking forward to getting back to the UK to see his fiancée, Laura, and his daughter, Anna, who is only five months old:

"She was born two weeks before I came out here so it will be amazing to see the difference in her now," he added.


The Talisman-fitted Mastiff 2 - known as 'Protected Eyes' - sports an unmanned auxiliary vehicle which leads the way along unproven routes
[Picture: Crown Copyright/MOD 2010]

Lance Corporal McInerney has two other brothers serving in the Army. One is serving with the Royal Signals and the other is due to deploy on operations quite soon. He said:

"My brother Dave, who is in 9 Para[chute] Squadron, Royal Engineers, is due to deploy to Afghanistan on the next tour and I wish him good luck."

Talisman

Talisman is a suite of vehicles, operated by the Royal Engineers, that clears routes of IEDs and mines. It was bought as an Urgent Operational Requirement worth more than £180m.

Each Talisman system consists of:

a Mastiff 2 protected patrol vehicle
a Buffalo mine protected vehicle, with a rummaging arm
a JCB high mobility engineer excavator
a Micro Air Vehicle
a Talon tracked, remote-controlled robot.

[buglerbilly]

Top Bomb Disposal Specialists Convene For Counter IED Conference



Improvised Explosive Device experts examine the latest developments in IED experiences and training

08:13 GMT, August 11, 2010 The UN recently reported an 'alarming' 94 percent increase in IED incidents in the first four months of 2010, compared to 2009, and with June being named as the deadliest month in the Afghanistan war, with at least 100 coalition troops being killed, SMi’s Counter IED and Force Protection conference is well timed to address this pressing issue.

This conference brings together the highest calibre experts in the field to examine and analyse the challenges we face with IEDs. Potential solutions to the threat will be presented and assessed by a range of international defence specialists, who are keen not only to take lessons from operations, but also ensure the most vital issue raised by Bob Sneddon’s recent resignation is addressed: training for IED preparedness.

SMi’s Counter IED and Force Protection Conference is chaired by Maj (Ret’d) Chris Hunter, prominant counter-terrorist bomb disposal specialist, who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland between 1997 and 2007. He is joined by Robert Berish, Commander, EOD Flight, Eglin Air Force Base, Geof McCarthy, Section Head, Canadian Forces, Jim Blackburn, Assistant Capability Director, European Defence Agency and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret’d) Mike O’Bea, Capability Manager, Virtual Training Combined Arms Centre, TRADOC, US Army in addressing the issues of IEDs.

An Internationally-focused event, Counter IED and Force Protection has gathered serious interest from many agencies around the world, such as TRADOC, CALL, Netherlands CIED Joint Task Force, US Air Force, Bundeswehr Technology and Procurement Office and Canadian Forces Land Requirements.

Full speaker line-up available online: http://www.smi-online.co.uk/counter-ied.asp

[buglerbilly]

High-Tech Army Team Turns From Killers to Airborne Spies

By Spencer Ackerman August 16, 2010 | 9:26 am



BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AFGHANISTAN — In 2006, the U.S. Army unleashed a lethal machine on Iraq’s insurgent bombers. Relying on a mixture of attack helicopters, unmanned drones, piloted planes and a massive amount of high-tech intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting gear, Task Force ODIN decimated the builders and planters of improvised explosive devices, helping take out hundreds of militants in a single year.

Today, ODIN is in Afghanistan. But it doesn’t do much killing anymore. Its armed drones have opened fire exactly three times since coming here in December 2008. Its commanders shy away from ticking off body counts and measure success by how relevant their information is to ground commanders. It doesn’t even have helicopters these days, relying on partner units when the mission calls for using rotary-wing aircraft. Instead, the task force’s spy planes, drones and analysts quietly track the bombers’ networks instead of targeting individual insurgents. ODIN — short for Observe, Detect, Identify and Neutralize and recalling the All-Father of Norse mythology — takes a broader view of the battlefield now, its All-Seeing Eye trained on giving soldiers a real-time aerial view from above.

Consider ODIN-A, as the task force is known here, another example of the U.S. military’s gamble in Afghanistan: That it can wage a successful counterinsurgency while deemphasizing the killing of insurgents. “’Kill’ isn’t the only answer here. This is a counterinsurgency fight,” Lt. Col. Kevin Diermeier, a 42-year old Green Bay native who took command of ODIN-A on July 12, tells Danger Room. Adds Maj. Jason Periatt, his executive officer, “You can’t just say, ‘I captured this dude, I killed this dude, I’m making a difference.’ I go back to the ’80s. We started rolling up drug dealers. That doesn’t mean you’re necessarily [succeeding], you’ve got to take the whole concept.”

But some people don’t like their classic myths revamped. For the first time, the heralded program faces angry congressional criticism. But Diermeier has a new, experimental program underway, known as Project Ursus, that brings the task force back to its IED-fighting roots.



It’s one thing to go after the guy who gets paid $50 to plant an IED in the path of a Humvee. There’s an obvious value in doing that, and it’s a component of the task force’s mission. But it’s too narrow a focus, according to Diermeier. “I want the guy who paid him $50,” he says.

Among the 750 soldiers, airmen and contractors working for Diermeier is Morris Lowery, the first sergeant of the Archers — Alpha Company, which flies the Warrior-A, the Army’s version of the Predator drone. The Warrior, like its CIA and Air Force counterparts, is armed with Hellfire missiles. But here, the full-motion video that it records and beams to ground troops’ laptops in real time is its most often-used weapon. The unit estimates that 80 percent of its daily intelligence output includes the footage. Lowery can see the difference clearly: Like at least three other enlisted men and two warrant officers in Alpha Company, he served in Iraq in 2007, operating the same drones for ODIN.

In Iraq, Lowery recalls, he and his men were “very much counter-IED focused,” looking for bomb placers — or the weapons themselves. But now Alpha Company does “a lot more reconnaissance and target development,” helping ground troops understand the terrain around them.

To be clear: This is a matter of emphasis. ODIN shot full-motion video in Iraq. And when I showed up to check on Alpha Company, they were involved in a counter-IED mission. General Atomics contractor Steve Coombs and Specialist Michael Gransky sat in a tiny metal box called a ground control station, hands on joysticks. IRC-looking instant message windows competed for space on monitors that showed imagery from a Warrior they controlled. It was in the air over Wardak Province, looking for clues in the aftermath of an bomb attack.

But that emphasis, as the first sergeant judges, has clearly shifted from what it was in Iraq. “We’re about defeating the network here,” Lowery says. “It’s a different war, a different focus, a different terrain.”

That doesn’t sit well with members of Congress, for the understandable reason that right now it doesn’t look like the United States is winning the fight against either IEDs or their networks. Recently disclosed Pentagon data shows that successful IED attacks more than tripled from May 2009 to May 2010.

On July 1, sixteen U.S. Senators and Congressmen wrote to Gen. David Petraeus, the incoming commander of the war, to complain about what they saw as a kinder, gentler ODIN at work in Afghanistan. The task force, they charged, was “only a fixed-wing management organization” — with none of the attack helicopters that provided so much of the original ODIN’s lethal power. The task force didn’t have enough planes, intel equipment and other gear, they added, and it didn’t sensibly use the assets it had. “Simply put, ‘Task Force ODIN’ currently in place in Afghanistan is not the Task Force ODIN that was extremely successful in Iraq,” they concluded.

It’s not hard to see why those legislators miss old-school ODIN. In Iraq, its combination of technology and lethality were striking. But in Afghanistan, units like Task Force Paladin are focused on stopping the IEDs and the $50-a-bomb emplacers. ODIN works with those units on a daily basis. To help Paladin counter those IEDs, Diermeier reveals a brand new effort under his command: Project Ursus, designed to track fertilizer bombs.

It’s one of an array of surveillance systems ODIN employs. A program called Constant Hawk provides what former commander Army Col. A.T. Ball called “forensic backtracking” to locate the culprits of attacks, as well as provide long-term views of a given area. There’s a menu of communications tools that do everything from providing ground and other air elements access to remote databases containing ODIN’s still imagery and video products — some of which ODIN’s analysts cut on the spot for ground units — to spotting targets for soldiers and airmen to attack. The Army buys some of this technology especially for ODIN, but according to Ball’s essay, the team likes to use “commercial off-the-shelf avionics and radios” when possible, in order to work around the Army’s glacial process for buying gear.

ODIN-A can also listen in on insurgent chatter. One of its intelligence programs is called the Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System, or MARSS. Operated from a manned King Air plane, MARSS scoops up a variety of communications intelligence and produces full-motion video of its targets. But soon — possibly as early as late next year –- MARSS will link into the Army’s Distributed Common Ground Station, the Army’s intelligence integration program for ground forces, transforming it into eMARSS. That’ll allow it to become what Diermeier calls “an airborne fusion center” for every type of intelligence the Army collects.

Upgrades like that might explain why, contrary to lawmakers’ assertion that ODIN-A is under-resourced, Diermeier and Periatt don’t have a long wish list. Even bandwidth — which vexed Ball in Iraq — isn’t an issue. Although they could always use more, “If we tell them we need more, they find it for us – Big Army, DoD, Centcom,” Diermeier’s biggest desire, he says, are “more folks that I could send directly and embed” with ground forces.

Similarly, even though ODIN-A rarely pulls its triggers, the procedure for launching its Hellfires is no longer as cumbersome and bureaucratic as Paul McLeary of Aviation Week found last November in the first in-depth piece on ODIN’s Afghanistan operations. According to Diermeier, it takes “ten minutes or less from positive identification” to fire a missile at the ground commander’s behest. Of course, ODIN-A hasn’t actually fired a missile since Diermeier’s rotation arrived last month.

So don’t expect Diermeier to promote the kinds of kill totals that ODIN boasted about in Iraq. In keeping with ODIN’s transition from countering IEDs to a broader intelligence mission, he and Periatt judge their performance by how frequently their intelligence products are demanded by soldiers and marines on the ground; and how they neutralize insurgent IED networks, judged by a decrease in attacks, rise in arrests, stopping the flow of money and material and so on.

That may not sit well with legislators, especially if IED attacks continue to rise. Diermeier isn’t focused on the criticism, though. “How we’re judged outside the organization,” he says, “isn’t relevant to me as a commander.”

Photos: Spencer Ackerman

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/high-tech-army-task-force-turns-from-killers-to-airborne-spies/#more-29415#ixzz0wnA4Ghip

[buglerbilly]

Secret New Sensors Sniff For Afghanistan’s Fertilizer Bombs

By Spencer Ackerman August 16, 2010 | 9:23 am



BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — Improvised explosive devices, the signature enemy weapon of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, aren’t just a lethal threat here. They’re also near-impossible to spot with traditional means. The U.S. military is launching a new experimental program, known as Project Ursus, to sniff them out.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon’s top anti-IED organization, known as JIEDDO, acknowledged that insurgents in Afghanistan weren’t using the same kinds of materials to make bombs as insurgents did in Iraq. Specifically, they’re using fertilizers to concoct an explosive charge, to concoct an explosive charge, much like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh did. JIEDDO’s leader, Lieutenant General Michael Oates, told bloggers on a March conference call that the Afghan IED threat “centered around two types of fertilizer: potassium chloride and ammonium nitrate.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai banned the substances in February. But the fertilizer bombs have continued. And the metal-detection efforts the military employed to find bombs built around old ordnance shells and other metals in Iraq wouldn’t work. “We still have a technological challenge for detection [for] these low-metallic/non-metallic bombs,” Oates admitted.

Project Ursus is an answer to Oates’ challenge.

In a kind of ironic symmetry, Project Ursus is operated by Task Force ODIN, the secretive bomber-targeting team that became famous for fighting IED networks in Iraq. But much as the IED threat has evolved — from Iraq to Afghanistan; from metals to fertilizers — so has ODIN. The task force is now geared around getting ground commanders robust tactical intelligence and going after insurgent IED networks, typically leaving the hunt for the bombs themselves to a different Afghanistan-based task force, known as Paladin. But ODIN’s leaders, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Diermeier and his executive officer, Major Jason Periatt, are making an exception.

Diermeier and Periatt would only discuss Project Ursus in the vaguest of terms. But Ursus is aimed at finding what Diermeier and Periatt were allowed to call “generic homemade explosive observables.” To cut through the bureaucratese, Ursus is a surveillance program housed in a pod on the bottom of a piloted commercial King Air twin-engine turboprop plane (the MC-12 is one such modified aircraft) that hunts down the chemical signatures of fertilizers used in Afghanistan’s IEDs.

It’s an experimental program, barely out of the first month of a six-month trial run, so ODIN-Afghanistan’s leaders says it’s too soon to tell how successful it is. But so far, Ursus hasn’t accidentally confused any latrines or farms with bomb factories.

“Project Ursus is one of my few platforms specifically tied into Task Force Paladin’s mission set,” Diermeier says. “Initial indications are that it’s proving its value on the battlefield.” He all but apologizes for not being able to say more, promising that the Ursus is powered by “cool stuff I’d love to tell you about.”

It’s unfortunate — if not unexpected — that operational security restrictions prevent Diermeier from discussing how Ursus works. But ultimately, he won’t need to talk about Ursus. He’ll need to show how it can curb the escalating pace of IED assaults in Afghanistan — a threat that’s risen from 300 incidents a month in December 2008, when ODIN arrived in Afghanistan, to 1128 in May 2010 (although most of those incidents didn’t kill anyone). Ursus could be a tool to get homemade bombs under control.

Photo: USAF

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/armys-secret-new-sensors-sniffing-out-afghanistans-fertilzer-bombs/#more-29422#ixzz0wnAtvjca

[buglerbilly]

CSI Afghanistan: It’s Not About Fingering the Bad Guys Anymore

By Spencer Ackerman August 16, 2010 | 8:00 pm



BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – The technician squeezes four plastic water bottles in one beefy paw and flips his hand over. He spills the liquid in a circular motion, like he was stirring a cauldron. The solution in the vat in front of him turns purple. To his left, stacked haphazardly on a wooden shelf in Ziploc bags, are the swimmers for his chemical bath: pieces of improvised bombs.

When he dips the bomb shards into his purple stuff, the solution will show the proteins left on the improved explosive devices. Some of those proteins are going to be latent fingerprints. If he runs the fingerprints through an extensive biometric database kept in this office, hidden in a series of nondescript connexes and concrete structures on the U.S.’ huge airbase in Afghanistan, he’ll stand a decent chance of figuring out who planted the bomb.

In the past, this sort of CSI-style information would’ve been given to to hit teams, who’d take down the militants creating the bombs. Now, Task Force Paladin, the American military’s IED-fighting team in Afghanistan, is battling the bombs in a different way: by teaching Afghan cops about forensics, building evidence kits about individual suspects for the Afghans, and passing on analysis about the changing IED threat to ground commanders.

“You could smelt the emplacer. That seems like retribution,” says Army Maj. Paul J. Sechler. “But he could be the sole income provider for his family, so [killing him] could send them on the next cycles of violence. These ripples can be counterproductive.”

Nearby, there’s a locker filled with fingerprint-stained swabs drying on hangers, more bomb evidence. “It’s standard police procedure,” says Sechler, the 39-year-old Charlottesville, Virginia, native who heads up one of Paladin’s forensics teams, known as Combined Explosives Exploitation Cells, or CEXCs. (Yes, it’s pronounced “Sexy.”)

Sechler is saying something profoundly revealing about Paladin, and about the war itself. From launching air strikes to hunting insurgents to stopping bombs, many of the violent programs that helped win the Iraq war have been retooled for Afghanistan, minus much of the violence. So now the question is: Can you fight a counterinsurgency, without killing many insurgents?



Sechler, an Iraq veteran twice over, is coming on the end of his year-long tour. He can track precisely the moment when Paladin began to shift its mindset: when Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the recently-cashiered war commander, took charge a year ago. McChrystal entrenched and expanded his predecessor’s commitment to counterinsurgency, stressing that Afghan perceptions would be “strategically decisive” in the conflict and ordering his troops to limit civilian casualties.

McChrystal’s order didn’t just impact infantry and artillery troops. Paladin applied it to its own operations. “I watched the mission statement change from ‘Look at the insurgent networks, take ‘em down, take ‘em apart,’ to ‘Enable [the Afghan government], work with them,’” Sechler recalls. “It’s all because of the doctrine Petraeus wrote, back through to McChrystal and then back again to Petraeus. It all fits.”

That means Paladin is taking a surprisingly long view in the fight against homemade explosives. Want to stop IEDs? Get information on the bombs, give that information to the ground units responsible for providing security, so they can convene the local elders. “Have a shura. Say, ‘What’s going on?’” Sechler continues. That way, those with the most insight into violent activity in the area can take care of matters themselves — and forge greater ties with the locals. “There’s much more to the model than just capturing and killing.” It’s a counterinsurgency virtuous circle.

Unless it isn’t. Some of those units have been consistently frustrated by how little intelligence they get from locals about insurgent activity, no matter how often they meet with local big shots and how many development projects they launch. According to recent Pentagon data on IEDs, Afghans report a tiny fraction of roadside bombs in their area, and even that slim number has dwindled in recent months. In any event, forging trust between Afghan communities and U.S. forces is a time-intensive approach. And IEDs are on the rise in Afghanistan right now.

So how do you stop the bomb increase in the immediate term? Good question. “Every day you try to learn a little bit more. The threat evolves, and you evolve with it. What will make a difference is a momentum shift because of people on the ground. I don’t see a technical silver bullet.” Bomb makers won’t stop until you “erode their will,” Sechler contends. He further argues eroding insurgent will is an ineradicably complex process of providing security, governance and development – the counterinsurgency catechism for long-term peace. Emphasis on the “long term.”

But that’s not to say that Paladin is passively waiting for the rest of Afghanistan to stabilize before tackling the IED problem. In the back room of the CEXC office, teams of analysts compile evidence packets in English, Pashto and Dari for their Afghan counterparts. The packets are heavy on pictures, detailing each step in the evidentiary chain, from the particular bomb to the latent fingerprints discovered on it to the matches that the CEXC’s biometric database contains, complete with head shot of the perp. That’s one way to take down a bomb-planter.

Of course, Paladin doesn’t take anyone down itself. Paladin passes on its information to both U.S. troops and Afghan security forces, and it’s up to them to work out plans for busting up bomb networks. Similarly, Sechler explains, the forensic work his CEXCs produce (there are three CEXCs in Afghanistan now, on their way up to five in the coming months) weaves together patterns of bomb activity. Types of explosives, patterns of implantation, the materials used to put together the bomb’s pressure plates — it’s all examined. Those clues about the bomb networks can be passed on to the insurgent-trackers at Task Force ODIN, another once-lethal team retooled for less-fiery Afghan strategy. With its various intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools, ODIN can scope out the networks’ area of activity from above. All that contributes to the overall goal of taking down the networks.

But Sechler isn’t so hot on technical fixes for the IED threat. For him, the networks that matter are human. Want to get more people to turn in bomb locations? “Convince the locals, ‘I’m staying, and I’ll protect your people,’” he says. “At some point, those IEDs will not be there.” That’s the gamble – a microcosm of the broader gamble that counterinsurgency in Year Nine of the Afghanistan war represents.

Photos: Spencer Ackerman

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/armys-forensic-bomb-squad-turns-away-from-blasting-bombers/#more-29490#ixzz0wpE0722D

[buglerbilly]

DID » Industry » Contracts - Awards » JCREW 3: Next-Generation Land Mine Jammers Use Power of Network

19-Aug-2010 18:50 EDT


IEDs: The Aftermath

The US military is working on the next-generation of jammers to defeat improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that pose such a grave threat to US forces deployed overseas. The jammers are called Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device (RCIED) Electronic Warfare (JCREW) devices. They are high-power, modular, programmable, multiband radio frequency jammers designed to deny enemy use of selected portions of the radio frequency spectrum. They come in 3 varieties – fixed, mounted, and dismounted.

The first generations of JCREW devices were developed and deployed quickly to meet an urgent need in the field. The next generation of JCREW devices, known as 3.x, are being developed to increase capabilities and tap into the power of the network to enhance their effectiveness. The JCREW 3.1 version is a dismounted device, the 3.2 version is a mounted device, and the 3.3 version is being developed to work in mounted, dismounted, and fixed-installation roles, using a common open architecture of electronics…

Contracts and Events


Mounted JCREW System

Unless otherwise noted, the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, DC awards JCREW 3.x contracts.

Aug 19/10: ITT Advanced Engineering & Sciences in Annapolis Junction, MD receives a $455 million firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-only indefinite-delivery/ indefinite quantity contract for up to 5,000 JCREW 3.2 mounted systems and associated support, to be used by all US military services on CENTCOM’s front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Work will be performed in Thousand Oaks, CA (95.35%); Annapolis Junction, MD (3%); Charleston, SC (1.09%); and Clifton, NJ (0.56%). Work is expected to be complete by September 2014. This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with 2 offers received (N00024-10-D-6300).

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Eaten Not Burned

Posted by Christina Mackenzie at 8/30/2010 10:34 AM CDT

Very interesting, I've put this announcement here for want of a better thread BUT I do wonder if there is any potential for IED's? Probably not but who knows............

The propellant used to fuel France's submarine-borne M45 nuclear missiles -- which are being withdrawn and replaced by the M51 -- will be destroyed by bacteria: eaten not burned. The meal will be relatively pricey: €20 million ($25.3 million) is being spent by propellant-manufacturer SNPE to build the “dining-room” on its site at Saint-Médard-en-Jalles in the south-west of France where the bacteria will digest up to 500 tons of propellant a year.

The essential component of the propellant is perchlorate ammonium, which mixed with aluminum and other substances is poured into the missiles' reservoirs where it takes on the consistency of hard toffee. Like in any recipe, there are left-overs which so far have been burned, an operation harmless for the environment according to Jean-Claude Labourroire, SNPE's industrial manager, Yves Traissace, marketing and programs manager and Laurent Vallet, the engineer who played a key role in the new procedure which has been tested in two small “dining-rooms” in Kourou (French Guyana) and in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles.

The success of these tests means that the bigger installation can start-up in 2011. The missiles' reservoirs will first be emptied and the residues mashed up before being macerated to separate the aluminum from the perchlorate ammonium, which is water soluble. It is this water which will then be fed to the bacteria.

SNPE says it is the perchlorate which caused them most difficulties and they have been working on a solution since the 1990s, looking for bacteria which could digest the perchlorate... and quickly. Once the bacteria have finished their job, a slightly salty water is left which is so clean it can be pumped into the nearby river.

[buglerbilly]

'Herd' of Buffalo Protect Soldiers

(Source: US Army; issued Aug. 30, 2010)

Each day across vast stretches of Iraq and Afghanistan, convoys leave the wire with a vital mission: route clearance. Soldiers assigned to this mission work to assure the mobility and resupply of forces. Riding in highly sophisticated and ultra-protected vehicles, route clearance teams go where others fear to tread, deliberately hunting for landmines and improvised explosive devices.

To protect route clearance specialists, the Army fielded the Buffalo Mine Protected Clearance Vehicle, a 13-foot-high, 26-plus-ton monster. This highly specialized, armored, wheeled vehicle's signature feature is a remote-controlled, 30-foot hydraulic arm used to handle suspected explosive devices and execute the delicate work of clearing routes of explosive hazards.

The Army's Product Manager Assured Mobility Systems, or PM AMS, oversees the development and acquisition of the Buffalo and its companion route clearance vehicles. While Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles and RCVs may look similar and share similar design concepts, the vehicles performing route clearance missions are outfitted very differently to support specific requirements.

By the time MRAPs hit the scene, the Buffalo had been operating in the field for more than three years. In 2002, four Buffalos were deployed to clear Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. Not long after, the Army was working to find solutions to operational requirements arising from two theaters, while simultaneously managing the ongoing, more deliberate program of acquisition requirements.

The Buffalo program at the Army's Product Manager Assured Mobility Systems (which overseas development and acquisition of both the Buffalo and RCVs) has been very stable, with the same team directing both operational development and integration efforts since June 2005, and acquisition efforts since October 2006, when the Army formally approved the MPCV requirement. Testing for the Buffalo A2 began in September 2008.

The Buffalo's roots are found in the 1966-1989 South African Border War in Namibia. In that conflict, Soviet and Cuban landmines posed a lethal threat to South African troops along the Angolan border. Because of its policy of racial apartheid, the world had isolated the South African government, requiring it to develop its own solutions to military problems.

To combat the landmine threat, South African engineers looked at lessons learned by the Rhodesian military and designed armored vehicles with V-shaped hulls to deflect the force of an explosion around the crew compartment. Some of these vehicles, such as South Africa's Nyala, are the forerunners to the RG-31, a 4x4 multi-purpose mine-protected armored personnel carrier. The South African Casspir was used for mine detection during peacekeeping missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the late 1990s.

By 1999, under the auspices of the Ground Standoff Mine Detection System program, the Army began foreign comparative testing of two South African vehicles-the Casspir and the Lion II-to determine which would serve as the basis for the GSTAMIDS vehicle. In early 2001, the Army selected the Lion II, which, with further engineering development and design modifications, became the Buffalo A0.

The Buffalo's early success in Afghanistan in 2002 made it the logical choice when IEDs became a threat in Iraq. The GSTAMIDS program team was "on to something," said former PM AMS Deputy Dennis Haag. "If it could find mines, it could find an IED." As a result, the Army rushed its sparse route clearance equipment into Iraq and began procuring more early in the war.

With a small, handpicked team, PM AMS set to work designing vehicles that met battlefield requirements. Developing a new vehicle is a daunting task in peacetime, but the added pressure of war on two fronts motivated the team to often work 16 hours a day, six or seven days a week. Soldiers were in harm's way, and the team needed to deliver.

The PM AMS team repeatedly traveled to Iraq during December 2005 to observe the vehicles in operation. While there, Haag spoke with Soldiers to see how they used the Buffalos during route clearance operations. The Soldiers quickly realized the PM AMS team had the ability to deliver a vehicle tailored to their requirements. They began feeding the team a stream of useful suggestions as route clearance methods had to continually evolve to defeat an ever-changing threat.

A former member of the GSTAMIDS team explained that more than 25 add-on capabilities have been integrated into the Buffalo, including fire suppression, additional armor, an air digger and other survivability capabilities.

"When this effort was initiated, we hadn't been in touch with the user," Haag said. "No one had really sat down with the Soldiers on the ground."

Spending time with the end-users in real-world conditions changed that. Haag's copious notes, based on Soldier input, influenced the evolving design of the Buffalo and other RCVs and served as a baseline for production requirements.

The Buffalo program has led the way in developing solutions that apply to a wide range of vehicles. In 2004, the Buffalo was the first vehicle outfitted with bar armor, an upgrade to slat armor, which helps protect against rocket-propelled grenades. When explosively formed penetrators emerged as a threat, the Buffalo EFP kit was the starting point for EFP protection kits designed and installed on a range of MRAP vehicles.

Soldiers on the ground understand and appreciate the numerous cutting-edge protective capabilities of the Buffalo. Staff Sgt. Ryan Grandstaff, who performed route-clearance missions with the Ohio National Guard's 612th Engineer Battalion, told CBS News in 2005 that the Buffalo made him feel "100 percent safe," adding, "I've been through countless explosions, and I'm still here to tell about it."

So far, the Army has fielded 215 Buffalo MPCVs in three configurations (models A0, A1 and A2) in support of operational requirements, and continues to execute the acquisition of the Buffalo A2 vehicle, which will become a permanent part of route-clearance companies in the future. The Buffalo A2 features a host of add-on and field-identified improvements incorporated by the program management team. The goal is to complete all requirements to earn full materiel release by the end of 2010. Once testing is complete, PM AMS will begin the process of bringing all the vehicles in the field up to the final A2 configuration.

As a nonstandard vehicle, the Buffalo requires the use of contractor logistics support to keep it running. When the Buffalo A2 earns its full materiel release, it will be supported by the Army's own logistics systems. Army mechanics will learn how to maintain and repair the new vehicle, moving the maintenance mission in-house.

The Army hopes to procure 372 Buffalo A2s for use in engineer route clearance companies, brigade route clearance platoons, and maneuver training centers such as the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Why Bomb-Proofing Robots Might Be a Bad Idea

By Noah Shachtman September 2, 2010 | 4:09 pm



This goes along with the comments about UUV's, you must NOT complicate what already works and make it grossly expensive and/or put at risk fundamental technology.........

Five years ago, troops in Iraq were lucky if they had a bomb-stopping jammer in their Humvee. Now, one company wants to outfit robots with the electronic countermeasures, to keep the machines safe from remotely-detonated explosives. But you’ve got to wonder whether outfitting the ‘bots with another $100,000 in classified tech kind of undermines the purpose of having a disposable army of machines to handle irregular war’s most dangerous work.

Qinetiq North America, makers of the Talon bomb-disposal robot, floated the concept at conference in Denver, Danger Room co-founder Sharon Weinberger reports. The idea would be to strap a Thor portable jammer (.pdf) onto the 125-pound, three-foot tall robot.

Over 2,800 of the remote-controlled machines have been deployed to warzones around the world, picking up (and blowing up) improvised explosives, so the flesh-and-blood bomb squad can stay safely far away. In the process, thousands of Qinetiq’s and rival iRobot’s machines have been wounded in action — or destroyed entirely. In Iraq, the robots’ sacrifices became so well-known that the insurgents started target the machines, in order to draw out their human operators. (In Baghdad, for instance, I saw one ‘bot narrowly escape a pair of rocket-propelled grenades.)

So there’s a logic to protecting these robots, by giving them the safety of a radio-frequency jammer. The $108,000 devices interrupt the signals that insurgents use to set off the bombs from afar.

But one of the major reasons robots are used to handle this kind of hazardous work is because they are relatively inexpensive at $100,000 or so and relatively easy to repair. Plus, they don’t carry all kinds of classified technologies that could help out an enemy. So commanders are more or less free to unleash them at will. Start loading a Talon or a Packbot with such equipment, and that equation could change.

You already see the shift with military robots in the sky. Last year, I was with a marine patrol that spent a couple of hours hunting for a missing drone in Helmand Province. The troops exposed themselves to fire in order to find their robot. Which sort of defeats the purpose of having a robot, in the first place.

But the chances of the jammers-on-bots is fairly low, at least in the short term. Qinetiq has tried to trick its Talons out before — with everything from machine guns to grenade launchers. None of those models ever made it into battle.

Photo: DoD

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/why-bomb-proofing-robots-might-be-a-bad-idea/#more-30222#ixzz0yQmzPPsf

[buglerbilly]

Vehicles Roll Over, Destroy IEDs

September 06, 2010

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services



KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Spc. Joshua Joe drives a "Husky," a giant vehicle built to find and withstand the blast of a roadside bomb, putting him in the front line of the U.S.-led coalition's battle against the Taliban's most effective weapon in Afghanistan.

Seventeen U.S. troops fell to improvised explosive devices in a five-day period that began Aug. 27, and the weapons accounted for about 60 percent of the 485 International Security Assistance Force deaths this year through August, according to iCasualties.org, which tracks casualties in the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts. IED's also are a prime cause of casualties among Afghan civilians.

The threat requires specialist IED hunters and specially designed vehicles. The Husky is the lead vehicle in an IED clearance convoy of hulking, bizarre-looking vehicles -- with such names as the Buffalo -- that seem like creations for a sci-fi movie.

The Husky carries just one person, who's the driver and operator, perched on top of the vehicle in a tiny cab, basically just waiting to drive over any bomb the equipment doesn't detect, and hoping that the machine is strong enough to avert serious injury.

At the 174th Mobility Augmentation Company, a counter-IED unit stationed at Kandahar Airfield in the insurgency hot spot of southern Afghanistan, Joe, a broad-built 22-year-old from Sumter, S.C., with the Lord's Prayer tattooed on his bulging forearm, is one of the Husky drivers.

"I like being by myself. The first time, I was scared. Got used to it now. It don't bother me no more," said Joe, a reservist with the South Carolina Army National Guard who's on his second tour in Afghanistan.

"My main goal is to find IEDs before they find us. If I get hit, that's part of the job," said Joe, who prays before the mission, during the mission and after the mission. "The vehicle is made to get blown up. The convoy's first defense is my Husky."

The Husky is built to withstand a 2,000-pound explosion, which would be more than enough to take out a medium-sized building. Two of Joe's friends and fellow Husky operators hit IEDs, and both walked away intact.

Joe's platoon, which is part of Task Force Thor, prays together in a huddle before beginning a mission. A typical operation lasts eight hours, but some run to 24 hours of slow, tense driving. Thor is responsible for clearing IEDs from the main routes in the south, primarily in Kandahar province, including Highway One, the arterial road that circles Afghanistan.

"It's like a suspense movie that lasts eight hours," said 2nd Lt. Joseph Powell, of Murrells Inlet, the 23-year-old leader of the South Carolina National Guard platoon. "It's kinda like being on edge all that time, but it lasts so long it's like a boring on edge."

Some of the task force vehicles are fitted with arms to dig up the IEDs, while others have video cameras that can be maneuvered to look over walls and under culverts, and some, like the Husky, have ground-penetrating radar that can detect a bomb buried under the road.

Because the route-clearance convoys move so slowly, they'd usually be a tempting target for ambushes, but the Taliban have learned that the vehicle's thick armor means it's usually not worth the effort. A 300-pound IED can level a building, but an 800-pound blast under one of these machines probably wouldn't cause serious injury to anyone inside.

The platoon has taken four IED strikes since it was first deployed in January, but no fatalities or even serious injuries. Powell likened the work of the Husky operator to the scouts of the Civil War era.

"It takes a special person. You're out there by yourself, flapping in the wind," he said.

Coalition forces are pitted in a constant contest of technology against the IED. The Taliban use increasingly sophisticated tricks, which coalition forces counter, forcing the insurgents to come up with something fresh. Some are remote-controlled -- which coalition forces can jam -- while others are victim-triggered or set off by an insurgent several hundred yards away on the end of a wire hooked up to the device. New tools can detect those wires, but the Taliban lay hoax IEDs and watch to see how the coalition tackles them.

The equipment that Thor has didn't exist three years ago, said the task force operations officer, Maj. Robert Moore of the 105th Engineer Battalion.

Task Force Thor -- an acronym for "Target Hazards, Open Roadways" -- has found and cleared 175 fully armed IEDs since it's been deployed, and hit another 75.

"These guys are the bravest of the brave," said Moore, who's from Charlotte, N.C. "They put themselves between the enemy's most effective weapon and the population of Afghanistan.

"There is a laser focus on this weapon the enemy has," Moore said, referring to IEDs. "Yes, there are a lot of casualties, but we find and clear two-thirds of them."

While losses in Afghanistan are running at record levels, Moore pointed out that the Afghan conflict has seen on average 300 "explosive hazards" per month, compared with 3,000 a month at the height of the insurgency in Iraq.

Those who lay the IEDs are often part-time insurgents, men looking to earn some extra cash by doing jobs for the Taliban. A skilled IED layer can place one in 30 minutes, Moore said.

In one incident in the south, a surveillance aircraft spotted four men getting out of a station wagon to lay an IED in the road, according to a coalition official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue with journalists.

An airstrike was called in, taking out the men and their vehicle. It later was discovered that there were eight people still in the station wagon, women and children. The men had taken their families with them, laying the bombs on their way to somewhere else.

"We need to get the guy paying the $10 Taliban. It's easy to kill the one laying the device, but it's pointless," said the coalition official, who didn't specify a date for the incident.

© Copyright 2010 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

[buglerbilly]

Water Disruptors were pioneered by the magnificent Sydney Alford.......this one reminds me of the Car Bomb disruptor he displayed a few years ago............

New Way to Stop Roadside Bombs: Super-Soak ‘Em

By Spencer Ackerman September 13, 2010 | 7:00 am



Want to destroy a roadside bomb? Think like a fourth grader and reach for your water gun.

The Stingray, a device developed by Sandia National Laboratories and an Albuquerque-based company called TEAM Technologies, shoots a “blade of water” at improvised explosive devices. According to its inventors, the Stingray’s water jet is powerful enough to penetrate steel. It’s the Super-Soaker you dreamed your parents would buy you.

Here’s how it works. An explosive charge creates a shock wave in the Stingray’s water reservoir, propelling the water outward at a rate of speed high enough to slice through a roadside bomb. In other words, it’s not a matter of water fizzling a bomb into futility. The Stingray destroys the bomb through the force the water carries. No pump-action necessary.

“The fluid blade disablement tool will be extremely useful to defeat IEDs because it penetrates the IED extremely effectively,” a Sandia project manager boasted on Friday. “It’s like having a much stronger and much sharper knife.” Thousands of Stingrays have already arrived in Afghanistan. where IED attacks have risen substantially in the past year.
Over the last decade, the rise of the improvised explosive device — the cheaply-made insurgent weapon of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan — has yielded a correlative rise in unconventional tools to disable it. One proposal called for electrocuting the bombs. The Pentagon’s lavishly-funded anti-IED task force urged the military to place radio jammers in troops’ backpacks to block the bombs’ remote detonation frequencies; outfit their trucks with devices to activate the bombs’ tripwires from a distance; and make plentiful use of bomb-disposing robots.

But as bizarre as the Stingray might seem, its bomb-soaking principle recalls a tactic the British used against Irish Republican Army explosives, according to the Associated Press. And it’s also been put to use in Iraq, where “Big Mikes” — water jugs packed with C-4 to shoot aqua at 26,400 feet per second at an explosive — were part of the ordnance-disposal toolkit. Sandia has spent two years souping up the 70s-era technology for today’s IED threat.

In Afghanistan, the effort to combat roadside bombs has focused more on finding and fighting the networks that build the bombs and less on taking out individual bomb-planters or zapping the devices outright. Two anti-IED task forces in Afghanistan, known as ODIN and Paladin, recently shifted their operations toward aerial surveillance and forensic bomb-detection as part of the military’s broader shift away from simply killing insurgents. The Stingrays might help fill the gap between attacking IED networks and disabling the bombs they plant.

One reason why the Stingrays could be a promising anti-IED tool: the materials insurgents use to construct roadside bombs in Afghanistan are a lot less durable than steel. According to a top officer in Task Force Paladin, Army Maj. Paul J. Sechler, the bombs that troops most often encounter steer clear of metal as much as possible, in order to evade the metal detectors that began streaming into Afghanistan in 2008. The pressure plates that tell the bomb when its target is right on top of it are often made of materials as flimsy as plywood. Sometimes the only metal the bombs use to carry an explosive charge is a layer of aluminum foil from cigarette packets. If a hydro-blade can slice, dice and chiffonade steel, it should be able to make short work of wood.



Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/new-way-to-stop-roadside-bombs-super-soak-em/#more-30635#ixzz0zPltswHC

[buglerbilly]

Pentagon Bomb Squad Backs Super Snipers, Mini-Bots, Secret Spy Tech

By Noah Shachtman September 21, 2010 | 5:00 pm



“Devil Pup” robots. Super sniper scopes. Secret signals intelligence sensors. Flying spies to find buried threats. Campaigns to influence the media behind the scenes. Those are just a few of the tools the Pentagon has turned to, as part of its $17 billion, five-year effort to stop makeshift bombs.

Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, remain the deadliest threat to American and allied forces. In Afghanistan, 36 NATO troops have been killed by the bombs in just the last 30 days.

The American effort to fight the bombs remains largely secret. But every year, the military’s Joint IED Defeat Organization releases an annual report, detailing its progress in the battle against the jury-rigged explosives, and how it spends its billions. The latest of those reports was just released. And it discusses several counter-IED projects that have not previously been disclosed.

Last year, according to the report, JIEDDO spent $138 million on airborne detector to hunt for bombs from the sky. That includes $22 million on VADER (“Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar”). It spots the tracks of moving targets — like insurgents and their trucks — from above. “Two VADER prototype systems have flown more than 127 flight tests,” according to the report. JIEDDO also backed aerial sensors that might spot disturbances in the ground — an indication of command wires.

JIEDDO poured another $51 million into the Vehicle Optics Sensor System, a bomb-spotting, day-and-night camera, mounted on a 25-foot mast. 538 of the systems were sent to the Army last fiscal year. The organization spent $17 million on 20 radar and video arrays, meant to stop suicide bombers before they hit U.S. checkpoints.

An undisclosed amount went to Keyhole, an “enhanced optics system” for “snipers and unit-designated marksmen,” the report notes. “Keyhole delivers an all-weather, day-or-night targeting capability to defeat and deter IED emplacers.” (Shoot bomb-planters, in other words.) 158 of the sniper enhancers were sent to the warzone last year.

Last year, JIEDDO spent nearly $15 million on Wolfhound, a first-of-its kind “direction-finding system” that infantrymen can use to locate insurgents’ “personal communications devices in Afghanistan.” 69 of the systems were sent into the field for evaluation. Nearly $5 million went towards 55 “Devil Pups,” small bomb-handling robots. Another $16 million was spent on upgraded, hand-held metal detectors.

JIEDDO also decided to end a number of programs. Those included a remote-control Humvee project, a plane-mount UHF radar, and an “x-ray apparatus” called “Snarf.”

Several more programs have been handed off to other arms of the military, including some of JIEDDO’s most intriguingly secretive operations. A gamma ray truck-screener is now with the Air Force. A “highly-classified” signals intelligence effort called “Tangletamer” today belongs to the super-secret NSA. Special Operations Command is in charge of “Native Echo,” a “non-attributable multi-media influence effort.” (Last year, the Senate Armed Services Committee recommended cutting $34 million for the project.)

The biggest line item in JIEDDO’s budget, however, was a $367 million “Counter-IED Operations Integration Center.” The Center includes computer modellers who help tactical units prep for the battlefield by buillding simulated warzones. Also working there are social scientists, who try to decode the “cultural context” of the warzones, “to understand insurgent behaviors, and to target enemy networks.” It’s one project in a huge, multi-billion array of efforts to stop the simplest, deadliest weapons today.

But despite billions of dollars spent — and counter-IED technology issued to every unit in the field — the bomb attacks are only increasing. Every time the U.S. builds a better jammer that prevents IEDs from being remotely-triggered, the insurgents switch up, and turn to bombs detonated by command wires. Every time the U.S. fields a better metal detector, the insurgents start making their IEDs from fertilzer and wood. The cat-and-mouse game between bombers and bomb-stoppers continues. Not even the wind-down of the Afghanistan war (whenever that happens) will mean an end the fight. JIEDDO estimates there are 250 improvised bomb incidents a month — outside Iraq and Afghanistan.

Photo: Flickr / Rodneykeene

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/pentagon-bomb-squad-backs-super-snipers-mini-bots-secret-spy-tech/#more-31471#ixzz10DDRAgay

[buglerbilly]

4 Years Later, Pentagon Lets Allies Onto Anti-Bomb Website

By Spencer Ackerman September 24, 2010 | 12:48 pm



It’s been nearly nine years since NATO entered Afghanistan. But it’s only been a few months since the U.S.’ allies in Afghanistan got to log on to a secret website run by the Pentagon’s anti-roadside bomb team to pool information on the war’s signature weapon.

Run by the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, a classified site called JKnIFE has been, since its inception in 2006, the military’s premiere storehouse of tactical information on the deadly homemade bombs. Primarily focused on the rise of the bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq, JKnIFE — or the JIEDDO Knowledge and Information Fusion Exchange — presents data on how insurgents use the improvised explosive devices; military techniques to defeat the bombs; and how both threats and responses change.

If you don’t have a Defense Department-issued Common Access Card, attempts to browse the super-secret JKnIFE don’t work. In March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates realized that meant NATO partner troops in Afghanistan couldn’t learn the latest about the IED threat they faced, so he ordered that NATO partners gain access to “critical [counter-IED] databases.” In June, JKnIFE became the first.

“The stronger our coalition is in [using] a global tactical network, says Gary Carlberg, a top JIEDDO official, “the quicker we can stop a global strategic weapon.”

Carlberg and JKnIFE’s manager, Mike McLean, provide a glimpse into how the secret website works. JIEDDO uploads reports about bomb attacks and responses and tag it by metadata like attack location and bomb material. The idea is to filter material so troops can find just what’s most relevant to where they operate. But JKnIFE is a one-way system. A platoon sergeant can’t upload info on the bomb he found in the district center.

“Wikis are great, but when you’re talking about explosives, you need to make sure [information comes] from a trusted source,” McLean says.

That pool of trusted sources isn’t deep. NATO militaries can access JKnIFE in their home countries or during deployment, and as with U.S. troops, JIEDDO restricts them from uploading their own data. Unlike American forces, though, they can’t view information on the homemade-bomb threat from beyond Afghanistan.

Some expanded access is on the way. In December, British troops at their home bases will be able to upload their own bomb data, a first for JKnIFE. And in the coming months, NATO will get to view another secret JIEDDO website: the Counter-IED Operations Integration Center Portal, which profiles insurgent bomb networks.

But there’s a long way to go before JIEDDO goes global, even as it tallies an average of 273 monthly IED attacks outside Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no plans for non-NATO countries to see JKnIFE — which also means Afghan forces can’t read the site. “IEDs are the weapon of choice now, they’re growing all over the world,” McLean says. The response is much slower.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/4-years-later-pentagon-lets-allies-onto-anti-bomb-website/#more-31707#ixzz10Vxmn7a0

[buglerbilly]

$19 Billion Later, Pentagon’s Best Bomb-Detector Is a Dog

By Spencer Ackerman October 21, 2010 | 3:46 pm



Drones, metal detectors, chemical sniffers, and super spycams — forget ‘em. The leader of the Pentagon’s multibillion military task force to stop improvised bombs says there’s nothing in the U.S. arsenal for bomb detection more powerful than a dog’s nose.

Despite a slew of bomb-finding gagdets, the American military only locates about 50 percent of the improvised explosives planted in Afghanistan and Iraq. But that number jumps to 80 percent when U.S. and Afghan patrols take dogs along for a sniff-heavy walk. “Dogs are the best detectors,” Lieutenant General Michael Oates, the commander of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, told a conference yesterday, National Defense reports. That’s not the greatest admission for a well-funded organization — nearly $19 billion since 2004, according to a congressional committee — tasked with solving one of the military’s wickedest problems.

Improvised explosive devices continue to rise in Afghanistan. There were 1,062 successful bomb attacks in the first eight months of 2010 there, compared to 820 during the previous period in 2009. Making matters worse in Afghanistan is the fact that most homemade bombs there are powered by fertilizers and chemicals, rendering metal detectors useless.

Picking up the chemical signature of those bombs should be relatively straightforward — just a matter of picking up the stray molecules that float away from unstable explosive material. In practice, it hasn’t been so easy. In 1997, a young program manager at Darpa launched the “Dog’s Nose” progam, to develop a bomb-sniffer as good as a canine’s. Today, that program manager, Regina Dugan, runs the entire agency. And Darpa is still has a project on the books to “leverag[e] the components of the canine olfactory system to create a breakthrough detection system.”

Detection is a “significant challenge,” Oates tells National Defense.

So rather than continuing a potentially futile search for a silver bullet, JIEDDO is now recommending other, non-technological, ways to combat IEDs, such as improved training and deeper understanding of the local sociopolitical landscape where IED planters are created much faster than U.S. forces can find them.

And JIEDDO is still spending big money on gadgets to spy on and disrupt every part of the IED network. Drones in the skies over Afghanistan hunt teams of bomb-planting insurgents. Forensics teams match latent fingerprints on bombs with Afghan bad guys whose thumb-scans and eye-prints are stored in biometric databases. JIEDDO pays for radio jammers to stop the frequencies insurgents might use to detonate the bombs.

The Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar is a $138 million aircraft-mounted sensor that tracks moving targets like scampering insurgents from the skies. JIEDDO has also outfitted over 500 vehicles with special sensors to spot bombs at night (cost: $51 million); sponsored a “Wolfhound” sensor for dismounted infantrymen to detect insurgents’ personal communication devices (cost: $15 million); and an “enhanced optics system” called Keyhole that helps marksmen hit their bombmaker targets (cost: undisclosed). At yesterday’s conference, Oates said aerial sensors, particularly those creating full-motion video of bomb-heavy areas, were “enormously useful” in the fight against IEDs.

Congress, however, isn’t pleased. In March, the House Armed Services Committee questioned how well JIEDDO spent the $18.77 billion it’s received since its 2004 inception. “It is still difficult to associate funds spent with positive effects,” the committee wrote in a memo critical of the organization’s “inability to clearly articulate what it has been able to accomplish.” Last month, the Senate Appropriations Committee, while supportive of JIEDDO overall, cut nearly $442 million out of the Pentagon’s requested budget for the organization next year, finding that “certain programs” it operates “fall outside [an] IED-specific focus.” That’s in line with years of Hill disillusionment about the organization over its bureaucracy and dependence on contractors.

The core problem: the bombs are still proliferating — and not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, but globally. According to statistics Darpa provided Danger Room last month, for the last six months, there have been an average of 273 monthly IED incidents around the world excluding Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s hard to believe anyone would have such a problem with JIEDDO’s budget if the threat from the cheap, easy-to-rig bombs were receding.

Photo: USAF

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/19-billion-later-pentagon-best-bomb-detector-is-a-dog/#more-33687#ixzz132hh3xCB

[buglerbilly]

General Sees Progress in Counter-IED Fight

(Source: US Department of Defense; issued Oct. 21, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- More sensors, analysts and specially trained dogs -- combined with stronger ties with local civilians and those who govern them -- have fueled progress in the battle against roadside bombs in Afghanistan, the director of an agency devoted to that effort said yesterday.

During a briefing at his organization’s headquarters in Arlington, Va., Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, said technology can help to mitigate the deadly threat to coalition forces only if it’s integrated with an effort to prevent people from planting them in the first place.

Despite an increase in incidents that tracks with the build-up of forces in Afghanistan, Oates said, “my assessment is we’re making progress” in the fight against IEDs. The growing number of forces in the country and increased fighting caused the number of roadside-bomb incidents in Afghanistan to spike to 8,994 in 2009 -– from 2,677 in 2007 -- and to nearly 10,500 so far this year.

Officials hope to model their strategy to counter the deadly devices in Afghanistan on successes in Iraq, where the downward trend of incidents illustrates the success of the strategy there, Oates said. In 2007, Iraq reported nearly 24,000 incidents; so far in 2010, the number is just over 1,100.

Oates said to be successful in Afghanistan, the strategy must combine counterinsurgency efforts that include trained counter-IED forces, an effective Afghan security force and political reconciliation of enemy fighters. Those who continue to target coalition forces must be killed or captured, but that alone is not the solution, he said.

“If you don’t work to mitigate the recruitment and the enticement for emplacement of IEDs, you will spend an enormous amount of blood and treasure dealing with each individual IED that is put against you,” the general said.

In its approach to countering roadside bombs, JIEDDO attacks the enabling network, searches out and destroys the bombs and trains forces to identify and clear them. From fiscal 2006 to 2010, $5.4 billion has gone into efforts to attack the bomb-making networks, according to a JIEDDO report.

“IEDs don’t come up out of the ground like mushrooms,” Oates said. Networks fund and supply explosive materials to those they can convince to build and plant the bombs.

Understanding the enemy networks holds huge potential, Oates said. “We’ve only begun to scratch the surface there,” he noted, “but the effort we’ve put into understanding them and how they operate has produced very serious, tangible results.”

Detecting bombs is a complex challenge, Oates said. Since fiscal 2006, nearly $9.5 billion has gone into this effort.

“Since 2004 in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the detect rate has hung at about 50 percent -- we find 50 percent of the IEDs that are used against us,” Oates said.

Troops patrolling on foot with a host-nation partner and a bomb-sniffing dog have the best detection rate for roadside bombs -– sometimes as high as 80 percent, Oates said. But such a team also faces the greatest risk, because by necessity it works close to the bombs, he added.

JIEDDO uses a range of technology to remotely detect explosive devices, including unmanned aerial vehicles, ground-penetrating radar for low-metallic explosive devices, robots and roller systems. But that technology also poses challenges, the general said. Data pouring in from sensors must be analyzed, integrated and turned into useful intelligence that troops on the ground can use. The job requires analysts, as well as computer software and hardware.

“We have met the challenge to date,” Oates said. “Turnaround on the data to an analysis product is pretty decent, but we anticipate more of a challenge here in the future.”

Over the next year, he said, about 800 analysts will deploy to the combat theater to help commanders understand the enemy network and provide analytical products.

Training is a critical aspect of the strategy, and $2 billion has gone into that part of the effort since 2006, Oates said.

“Probably the greatest return on investment dollar for dollar is to help train our soldiers about the network that is fighting them and the IED as a device,” Oates said. “So we put a great deal of effort into that as well.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Army building smarter robots


The Mini-EOD robots here are lightweight, man-portable systems supporting ops in urban terrain, tunnels and caves.

09:44 GMT, November 1, 2010 WASHINGTON

The U.S. Army is exploring ways to upgrade its fleet of roughly 3,000 small tactical robots in Iraq and Afghanistan designed to safeguard Soldiers by clearing buildings and caves and using sensors to sweep areas for Improvised Explosive Devices, service officials said.

New technologies bring the promise of deploying small robots which can search for bombs, map areas and detect hazardous materials -- all with little or no tele-operation or human intervention.

"We are moving along that spectrum from tele-operating to semi-autonomy where you can send a robot from point A to point B without any intervention. If it has a problem, it will pop up and indicate it has found an obstacle," said U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Thompson, project manager with the Robotic Systems Joint Program Office.

The Army and Marine Corps are working with industry and academic partners to look at ways to add new software to existing robots -- such as iRobot's PackBot and Qinetic North America's TALON -- enabling them to perform more functions and navigate uncertain terrain without needing their every move to be controlled or tele-operated by a human.

"We are looking at ways to make the systems that we already have out there better. We are working with infantry and the (Military Police) to look at how we can enhance the capabilities of our current robots to meet their needs," said Thompson.

Some of the newer robotic capabilities, such as automatic self-righting and retro-traversing, enable robots to correct course, change direction or turn right-side up -- by themselves.

"We're looking for modularity and interoperability. It will take the burden off the user. I want a robot to go from point A to point B by itself, and tell me when it gets there," Thompson said. "We're going to get better interface with the cameras and the grippers -- and a lot more understanding of where the robot sits in space."

A more autonomous robot allows the user to free up energy which would otherwise be focused purely on navigating the robot. This will allow the user to attend to additional concerns, robotic functions or threats.

"We want to be able to allow Soldiers to interact with the robots at a high level of supervisory input to the robots. To do that, the robot has to start understanding where it is, start understanding about what is in the way, and how to get around obstacles," said Colin Angle, chairman and chief executive officer, iRobot.

For instance, iRobot's AwareHead supervisory control system software enables semi-autonomous navigation; the robot uses infrared sensors to map an area by itself, allowing a human controller to point-and-click on a touch-screen to send the robot to a given destination.

"When we started, we had one robot and one controller, now you have much more operational and logistical flexibility. The exciting part is we're right at the cusp of much, much smarter robots. Yesterday's robots were head down, one guy controlling the robot every step of the way. Now, we are talking about robots that can do much more for themselves," said Joseph Dyer, chief operating officer, iRobot.

QinetiQ North America is also working with the Army and Marine Corps to advance robotics technology; at Fort Benning, Ga., their TALON Explosive Ordnance Disposal robot recently demonstrated an ability to navigate and map a room without human intervention, company officials said.

"We demonstrated a completely autonomous TALON robot with chemical, biological and radiological detection abilities. A map was created about 1,000 meters away from the building showing what was inside a building and where the hazards were -- the robot was able to do that without any tele-operation," said Robert Quinn, vice president, TALON Operations, QinetiQ North America.

"In Afghanistan, 80 percent of the IEDs are homemade explosives, so having the ability in 30 minutes or less to do a complete investigation of buildings and check for homemade explosives -- without Soldiers ever entering the building -- is awfully important," Quinn said.

In order to maximize the occasion to learn from Soldiers in combat and harness their critical feedback, the Robotic Systems Joint Program Office has several facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, Thompson said.

"Feedback that we need from the warfighters is critical," he said.

"You can send it out there where a man should not go in order to counter a threat and do the dull, dirty, or dangerous jobs," said Thompson. "I would rather have a robot blown up than a Soldier or Marine."

----
Kris Osborn / Army News Service

[buglerbilly]

Army Tells Biz: We Need Better Bomb-Finding Bots

By Spencer Ackerman November 8, 2010 | 7:00 am



The U.S. amassed an army of bomb-handling robots to spot explosives on the roads of Iraq. In the farms and culverts of Afghanistan, those machines have had trouble finding reaching the weapons. The robots weren’t built for off-roading. And soldiers are dying as a result — eight in the last two weeks alone. No wonder the Army is now scrambling for a new crop of machines: things that can take Afghanistan’s rugged terrain, and find bombs that rely on soldiers’ errant footsteps to explode, not devices like cellphones that give off detectable signals.

The Army’s recent request to companies is basically a wishlist. It needs a bomb-finding, “tele-operated” robot that’s navigable through “rough terrain, 45 degree hills, rocks, holes, culverts and other obstacles” — read: Afghanistan — and can withstand the dust, trash and gunk that war zones force into the guts of machines. It’s got to be able to talk to troops’ radio frequencies for alert and mesh with existing bomb-signal jammers. It needs to be to be light enough to carry and stuff in a truck; good for at least six hours without needing its battery recharged; and able to keep up with soldiers on a dismounted patrol on uneven terrain. It needs to work within 30 seconds of powering on and impervious to conditions as cold as 22 below zero or warm as 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

And you can bet that if the Army had this stuff already, it wouldn’t need to put out the request. What’s up with the military’s expensive, bomb-spotting robots?

The Defense Department has spent about $19 billion since 2004 trying to beat back the scourge of the improvised explosive device, the signature weapon of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But while the bombs in Iraq are way different than the bombs in Afghanistan, the detection techniques in Afghanistan are often carried over from Iraq.

Afghanistan’s bombs typically rely on fertilizers for their boom, with few metal and electronic parts, unlike the rejiggered, remotely-detonated ordnance of Iraq’s bombs. And with pressure plates, a favorite technique of Afghan insurgents, a bomb explodes when someone’s body weight presses two metal-lined plates together to complete a circuit, sending a charge to the bomb’s explosive source. Sometimes that metal is as thin as two sheets of cigarette foil lining the underside of wooden planks. Yet troops in Afghanistan are issued metal detectors to use for weapons hunts.

Making matters worse, the robotic bomb detectors the military has work better on paved roads — like in the urban areas of Iraq — and not the unpaved wilderness of Afghanistan, where bombs lie in drainage ditches, craggy farmland and culverts. Some robots just can’t handle the terrain. The treaded Talon ordnance-disposal ‘bot weighs 125 pounds — not the sort of thing you’d want to tip over on jagged sun-baked clay or grassy dirt during a bomb hunt. The 32-pound, iRobot-modeled Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle can climb a few feet by “standing” on its front treads, but the Army is still testing it.

And the Army needs durable bomb-finders now. Its request talks about acquiring the machines on “a significantly reduced timeline compared to traditional Department of Defense acquisition procedures.” As one study concluded, bureaucracy can be a homemade bomb’s best friend.

It’s not that the military doesn’t already use lots of Afghanistan-specific methods of attacking homemade bombs and the networks that build them. It equips planes with sensors that hunt the chemical signatures of the Taliban’s fertilizer-based bombs and conducts forensics tests to determine who built what lethal device. But there were 2,677 roadside-bomb incidents in 2007, and with two months to go until 2010 is over, there’ve been 10,500 this year.

Turning the tide’s going to require, among other things, a few good robots. The chief operating officer of iRobot — a veteran military bot-maker that’s received $286 million so far for “xBot” bomb-hunters — has some ideas for where military robotics goes next. “Little by little,” retired Vice Admiral Joseph Dyer told Scientific American this week, “robots will be able to autonomously complete more and more complex assignments to the point where you can program them with actual missions.” For now, let’s see if they can perform the easier tasks of route clearance — in places where the routes are as improvised as the bombs they’re trying to stop.

Photo: Spencer Ackerman

[buglerbilly]

Pentagon’s Bomb Squad Gets A New Director

By Spencer Ackerman November 10, 2010 | 9:15 pm



The Pentagon’s troubled anti-homemade bomb task force is about to get a new leader. Army Lieutenant General Michael Barbero is coming in, and Army Lieutenant General Michael Oates is heading out, the Pentagon announced Wednesday evening.

Oates took over the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, known as JIEDDO, last December. Since then, he’s tried to reorient the organization to combating the homemade bomb scourge in Afghanistan, where bombs rely on fertilizers rather than metals, making them harder to detect. But in just the first eight months of 2010, there were 1,063 successful bomb attacks on U.S. and allied troops, up from 820 during the first eight months of 2009.

In the comment thread of a recent Danger Room post, Oates — a social-media enthusiast — attributed that spike to more aggressive NATO fighting. “The resulting downturn in IED incidents I believe is a trend we will now sustain,” he predicted last month.

Still, Congress hasn’t been so pleased. A Senate panel cut $442 million out of JIEDDO’s budget in September and questioned how wisely the organization spends its cash. That was the latest move in a years-long trend of legislators’ impatience with stopping deadly homemade bombs.

Neither JIEDDO nor Pentagon spokespeople returned repeated messages about the circumstances behind the leadership change. Oates has been JIEDDO director for just under a year, while his predecessor, Army Lieutenant General Thomas Metz had the job for twice as long. We’ll update when we hear more.

As for Barbero, he’s coming off his own yearlong stint as the number-two officer in charge of training and equipping Iraqi troops. We’ll see how well his experience in a country that became the crucible of the modern improvised explosive device serves him at the big bomb squad.

Photo: U.S. Army

[buglerbilly]

Army’s Newest Bomb-Stopping Idea: ‘Intelligent’ Robo-Cart (with Arms)

By Spencer Ackerman November 16, 2010 | 10:57 am



The Army’s remote-controlled, bomb-finding robots aren’t finding enough bombs in Afghanistan. So the military is toying with a new notion: Let the robot drive itself; and make it bigger, like the size of a golf cart.

In a recent solicitation for small businesses, the Army expresses interest in a remote-controlled vehicle that’s bigger than most robots but (way) smaller than its fleet of tactical vehicles. Really, it’s a software system outfitted with sensors for detecting a variety of bombs — “pressure activated devices and command detonated explosive devices” alike — that can turn an existing “mid-sized” vehicle into a self-driving or remotely-controlled car. The so-called “Intelligent Behavior Engine” has to support “skid steer hydraulic arm attachments” — Doctor Octopus-like robot arms, to defuse the bombs it finds. And it’s got to weigh between 500 and 3000 pounds (the size of a golf cart, Smart car, or John Deere Gator), making it hypothetically “capable of traversing long distances on narrow, rugged paths.”

It was just two months ago that the Army announced it would buy dozens of radar add-ones for armored Husky vehicles to spot and stop improvised explosive devices, a $106.5 million push. But the solicitation says the bulky Husky isn’t right for Afghanistan, since it “cannot traverse the rugged terrain and narrow paths” that pass for the country’s bomb-infested roads.
That exact same concern led the Army to put out a call last month for new bomb-detecting robots that can traverse “rough terrain, 45 degree hills, rocks, holes, culverts and other obstacles.” Only there, the Army wanted to move in the opposite direction, shrinking robots down from several hundred pounds, not bulking them up to car-like sizes and marching them for up to 30 miles at a time. Still, in a vote of no-confidence in the robot fleet, the solicitation laments that “currently fielded technologies have limited utility for defeat of IEDs on narrow unimproved routes during deep insertions into rugged terrain.”

Ideally, the Intelligent Behavior Engine will have “off-board, ‘back-seat driving’ capabilities” — controls that let troops on patrol operate the car remotely, using it for “scanning, digging and emplacing explosive charges” when it senses a bomb nearby. The Army doesn’t have either a software or a vehicle design in mind, but it says that it’ll favor “intelligent, adaptive software behaviors that provide standoff operation in terms of navigation, detection and neutralization.” In other words, when the car finds an improvised explosive device, it should know how to safely avoid, defuse or detonate it.

Much like the earlier robot solicitation, the bomb-stopping robot car is a dream for now. The Army isn’t releasing money for it right now, opting to first see what industry can dream up. Solicitations are due December 13. But the Army’s judgment about the usefulness of the current robot fleet is already clear to see. What will the incoming director of the Pentagon’s bomb squad think of a sure-to-be-expensive push for new robots?

Photo: U.S. Air Force

[buglerbilly]

Out-sniffing bomb-sniffing dogs

November 10, 2010


This is Tel Aviv University's explosive-detecting sensor. Credit: AFTAU

Dogs have long been called man's best bomb detector -- until now.

A Tel Aviv University scientist leads a research team that has developed a powerful electronic sensor to detect multiple kinds of explosives –– including those used in the recent Yemeni bomb threat. Based on nanotechnology advances, the new sensor is small, portable, and is more sensitive and reliable at detecting explosives than any sniffer dog, says its lead researcher Prof. Fernando Patolsky of Tel Aviv University's Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Chemistry.

With scientific findings on it published recently in the prestigious Angewandte Chemie, the new device is attracting considerable attention from security companies and fellow scientists.

Capable of detecting numerous types of explosives, Prof. Patolsky says the sensor is especially effective at detecting TNT. Existing methods and devices used to trace the explosive have the drawbacks of high cost, lengthy decoding times, size, and a need for expert analyses: "There is a need for a small, inexpensive, handheld instrument capable of detecting explosives quickly, reliably and efficiently," says Patolsky.

According to the researchers, this new sensor can out-sniff even a champion sniffer canine.

Portable and hidden from view

The device is made from an array of silicon nanowires, coated with a compound that binds to explosives to form an electronic device –– a nanotransistor. In order to enhance the chips' sensitivity even further, the scientists developed each one with 200 individual sensors that work in harmony to detect different kinds of explosives with an unprecedented degree of reliability, efficiency and speed.

One major advantage of the new sensor is its portability − it can be carried from place to place by hand. It is also capable of detecting explosives at a distance. It can be mounted on a wall, with no need to bring it into contact with the item being checked. And unlike other explosives sensors, it enables definitive identification of the explosive that it has detected. To date. the device has not had a single detection error.

Security companies are taking note. The American company Nanergy Inc. has developed a prototype based on the patent, and is already in contact with potential partners to develop explosives sensors for the commercial market.

Headed by Prof. Patolsky, who recently returned to Israel from Harvard University, the research team is considered to be one of the world's leaders in developing nano-based sensors that can detect chemical and biological molecules.

Such sensors may be used to detect not only explosives, but also biological toxins and threats, such as anthrax, cholera or botulinum. Looking beyond national security, the sensor offers attractive applications in the medical field as well.

Provided by Tel Aviv University

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Military Impressed by Tanzania's Bomb-Sniffing Rats

By KELLY KENNEDY

Published: 21 Nov 2010 11:45

When U.S. Army Maj. John Ringquist first encountered an African giant pouched rat in Tanzania, he was surprised by how affectionate it was.


African giant pouched rats are being trained to detect landmines in Tanzania. (Courtesy of APOPO)

"They're gentle, friendly animals," said Ringquist, a history instructor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., who specializes in sub-Saharan Africa. "They're relatively charming."

But interest in the African giant pouched rats goes well beyond their cuddle factor. Ringquist and Cadet Kayla Khan recently traveled to Tanzania to watch the rodents demonstrate their ability to sniff out land mines and see if there is any potential use for the animals in the U.S. military.....................edited............

Read more: http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=5085218&c=MID&s=LAN

[buglerbilly]

Northrop Grumman's ASTAMIDS Proves it Can Detect IEDs from the Air in Near-Real Time

(Source: Northrop Grumman Corp.; issued December 6, 2010)


The gimbaled multisensor that is the visible component of Northrop Grumman's new Airborne Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Minefield Detection System (ASTAMIDS) as mounted below the nose of Northrop Grumman's MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Unmanned Air System helicopter. ASTAMIDS is being developed for the Army under its Countermeasures and Explosive Ordnance Devices and Command and Control Systems program offices.

BETHPAGE, N.Y. --- Airborne Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Minefield Detection System (ASTAMIDS) demonstrated it can detect simulated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in a recently completed U.S. Army evaluation of the end to end system. The system was flown on the Northrop Grumman Corporation -owned MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned air system.

ASTAMIDS' laser also demonstrated its capability as a target designator for Hellfire missiles: in three missile firings, all missiles made direct hits on their targets.

In addition to detecting simulated IEDS, ASTAMIDS streaming telemetry data was collected, analyzed and processed on the ground using the new ASTAMIDS Ground Exploitation Station (AGES) processing equipment and software. AGES operators were able to identify target locations in near real-time.

"The fundamental goal for ASTAMIDS and all our airborne mine countermeasures systems is to get the soldier, Marine, sailor and airman out of harm's way," said Dan Chang, Northrop Grumman vice president of Maritime and Tactical Systems. "These tests proved we've achieved our goal with ASTAMIDS. We can identify ground threats and deliver targeting-quality data to adjacent war fighters to destroy the threats and do that in near real time. ASTAMIDS, we believe, is ready to save lives."

A lightweight, multi-capability sensor, ASTAMIDS will provide the Army with wide-ranging reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition capability in addition to its IED/minefield detection role. The ASTAMIDS airborne payload is a gimbaled, multi-spectral, electro-optical and infrared imaging sensor designed to be flown on both manned and unmanned aircraft. ASTAMIDS detects, locates and identifies ground targets, minefields, obstacles and IEDs, determines ranges to ground targets, and, as proven in the tests, designates targets for attack by laser-guided munitions.

ASTAMIDS and AGES can provide warfighters with actionable intelligence minutes after a specific area is analyzed, a capability critical for conducting successful counter-IED missions.

In this series of tests --a combination of 12 daytime and nighttime flights in September -- ASTAMIDS flew over target areas in order to demonstrate the system's C-IED nadir step stare capability, off-nadir road following capabilities, and large area precision mapping capabilities. ASTAMIDS operational availability was 100% for all scheduled flights. In total, ASTAMIDS has flown over 250 hours in tests and demonstrations aboard the Army UH-1 and the Northrop Grumman owned MQ-8B aircraft.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

IED Eradication Needs Global Attention, General Says

(Source: US Department of Defense; issued Dec. 7, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- Stopping the construction and use of improvised explosive devices is more than a military problem and must be addressed broadly by all governments, the director of the agency devoted to that effort said yesterday.

IEDs are the biggest killers of coalition forces in Afghanistan, where the crude, but effective, devices are made of homemade explosives, usually fertilizer ingredients like ammonium nitrate, said Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates, director of the Joint IED Defeat Organization, known as JIEDDO.

“When you look at [IED] precursor materials it’s not just a military problem,” Oates said yesterday at the Foreign Press Center here. “You need the whole of government to work on the IED, whether it’s in Iraq or Afghanistan or the rest of the world.”

In Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example, government officials are trying to reduce the flow of ammonium nitrate fertilizer into Afghanistan, he said. No ammonium nitrate is produced in Afghanistan; it all comes in across the border.

“Ammonium nitrate has a legitimate purpose as a fertilizer in Pakistan, but we don’t want it [moving] into Afghanistan,” Oates said. “President [Hamid] Karzai has declared it illegal to import ammonium nitrate fertilizer and the Pakistan government has worked very hard with the producers to limit the export, legal or illegal, into Afghanistan.”

The general said his organization believes this effort will have a positive impact over time. “As we look at trying to reduce sophisticated detonation systems, our Commerce Department works with governments all over the world to limit the financing of terrorist networks,” he said.

Commerce “works with commercial industries to make sure devices made for legitimate purposes are not modified to be used for destruction,” Oates said.

But almost anything that’s electronic can be used as a detonator, he added, noting the recent incidents of ink toner cartridges turned into IEDs and placed on cargo planes in Britain and Dubai.

“It was just through the vigilance of security personnel that they were able to detect that device. So getting all of the government involved in this process is very important to the solution,” Oates said.

IEDs are being used worldwide to impact stable governments, he said.

“We track 300 to 400 incidents a month occurring outside Iraq and Afghanistan where people are using improvised explosive devices against law enforcement or against military security forces,” he added.

Over the past 90 days, at least three vehicle-borne explosive devices have been employed in attacks against Mexico’s security forces –- a tactic similar to terrorist actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said.

Criminals use IEDs to maintain control of their illegal enterprises, and ideological groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia use the devices in their fight against the standing government, he said.

“Why do they use the IED? It works. It’s easy to obtain the precursor material you need for a homemade explosive,” said Oates, whose organization has been asked for help by other countries.

Peru’s minister of defense, Oates said, has asked for assistance through the U.S. Southern Command, which arranged for engagement through JIEDDO. The Peruvian government, he said, is experiencing an increase in criminals’ use of IEDs because of a resurgence of the “Sendero Luminoso,” translated as the “Shining Path,” a Maoist insurgency in Peru that partners criminals in the drug trade.

“The Peruvian government is interested in how we might use some of our experience with IEDs to help them, principally with vehicle-borne bombs and those that are in place to kill their policemen,” he added.

“Across the globe, these are very easy-to-use devices,” Oates said. “They’re very concealable, they’re inexpensive and they are terribly devastating in most cases against civilian populations.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Taliban Bombs Hit New High; 1500 In November Alone

By Spencer Ackerman December 8, 2010 | 7:17 pm



The bad news first: insurgents in Afghanistan have constructed more homemade bombs in the past six months than at any time during the nine-year-long war. But those bombs are killing and injuring fewer U.S. and allied forces. Most attempts at blowing up U.S. troops just fail.

According to new figures provided to Danger Room by the Pentagon’s anti-improvised explosive device task force, known as JIEDDO, the Taliban and its allies built 1507 homemade bombs just in November 2010 alone, an all-time high. That’s nearly 100 more than the 1415 they made the previous month — the reigning IED record in Afghanistan. July, August and September all saw monthly bomb totals of between 1374 and 1391; all of which were higher than June’s 1314. And their geographic distribution follows the pattern of violence in the war: 75 percent of them occurred in the southern provinces like Helmand and Kandahar where most of the surge troops are. The surge clearly hasn’t been able to stop the growth in the bomb rate.

But JIEDDO considers those figures to conceal a greater success. Most of the bombs didn’t do any damage. November’s high-water mark killed 24 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops and wounded 301 others. But in June, when there were almost 200 fewer bombings, 52 troops died and 297 were wounded.

That’s a pattern that largely held through the summer: a fairly steady uptick in incidents, but with a relatively low rate in those killed and injured. JIEDDO calculates the improvised-bomb success rate — in which a homemade bomb hurts someone — in November at 17 percent. (Some homemade bombs kill and/or wound more than one person, so it’s not a simple matter of tallying the killed/wounded figure and dividing by the number of bombs.) In June, that success rate was 21 percent, and from July to September it ticked up to 24 or 25 percent before dipping back to 21 percent in October.

It’s way too early to claim that November’s dip below the 20-percent effectiveness mark is a new trend. JIEDDO claims that the death rate from jury-rigged bombs has been falling since January, but the figures provided to Danger Room just go back to June. We’ve requested fuller totals — JIEDDO was kind enough to pass along additional data, but that data didn’t include Afghan casualty figures, so an apples-to-apples measurement over time is still elusive. As soon as I get more information, I’ll update this post.

But JIEDDO attributes the recent drop in effectiveness to increased early-detection measures. “We’ve seen really no significant change in the type of explosives being used,” JIEDDO’s outgoing director, Lieutenant General Michael Oates, told the Foreign Press Center in Washington on Monday. The steady state of the bombs — mostly made from chemicals found in fertilizers with very little metals — has allowed new bomb-sniffers to get up to speed, including blimps, drones and even bomb-sniffing dogs.

Dogs’ noses are well-honed by evolution, but other counter-bomb technologies required more rapid development. A top intelligence unit in Afghanistan, known as Task Force ODIN-A, developed a sensor that it stuck onto the bottom of a King Air turboprop plane to hunt the chemical signature of fertilizer-based bombs from the skies. Another, older solution used in Afghanistan is the Husky Mounted Detection System, a vehicle hooked up with ground-penetrating radar detectors, capable of finding “shallow buried metallic and non-metallic threats,” as JIEDDO spokeswoman Irene Smith puts it. And drones capable of staying aloft for up to 20 hours at a time capture full-motion video of insurgents planting bombs so ground units and bomb squads can take out both.

Here’s the latest JIEDDO data:



In the next few months, Oates will leave JIEDDO, to be replaced by Lieutenant General Michael Barbero. Although he won’t be a field commander, he’ll have much responsibility for expanding the recent trend of ineffective improvised explosives. It’s a heavy burden — especially since the last six months’ worth of data show that little is stopping the insurgents’ rising ability to build the cheap, deadly bombs.

Photo: U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command

[buglerbilly]

Italian C-27J Prepares For New Roles

Dec 9, 2010

By Andy Nativi
Genoa



The Italian air force is readying its C-27J Spartan tactical airlifter for war duty with upgrades aimed at protecting ground troops from improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The expansion into the counter-IED role is initially intended to aid Italian forces in western Afghanistan, but other regions eventually will be included, Italian military officials say.

Two systems are being developed for the new mission. One is effectively a jammer to disable IEDs that rely on a radio-frequency triggering mechanism. The technology was first tested two years ago during the Trial Imperial Hammer electronic warfare exercise in Sardinia. Since then, improvements have been added. The operational version is now in the final certification phase to fully verify compatibility with other aircraft as well as land-based and airborne electronic equipment.

The second system is a Thales Alenia Space ground-penetrating radar, which has been developed to detect IEDs hidden on or just below the surface. The radar’s active, electronically scanned array uses transmit/receive modules that are derived from Thales’swork on the Cosmo-SkyMed imaging satellites as well as on a foliage-penetration capability developed for Argentina’s new Earth-observation satellites.

The podded experimental version will soon begin operational testing, following extensive trials by the Italian air force test unit. The upcoming evaluations are intended to devise the optimal tactics and flying profiles to obtain the best target detection from the sensor. The air force is eager to deploy the new system in Afghanistan.

One of the benefits of packaging the counter-IED equipment on the C-27J is the long-endurance that the system can provide; the aircraft’s lower speed and operating altitude also can enable the service to optimally employ the radar.

The C-27J also will be used to support special forces and thereby see their activities expanded to night operations. However, endurance is somewhat limited by the fact that an airborne refueling capability has not yet been certified. The air force and Alenia Aeronautica have scheduled a test campaign for next spring, with an instrumented KC-130J serving as a tanker. But for now, the Spartans in Afghanistan will not be operationally cleared for aerial refueling.

Despite their new special-mission emphasis, the two C-27Js belonging to the Pisa-based 46th Aerobrigade set to deploy to Herat also will be required to perform basic logistics functions, which were the core of the transport’s activities during the prior two deployments (September 2008 to January 2009 and July-December 2009). At the time, the C-27Js operated from regular airfields; but this time, more austere operations are expected.

Photo: C-27J Team

[buglerbilly]

ITT Extends Counter-IED Leadership with JCREW 3.3 Phase III Contract

(Source: ITT Corporation; issued December 16, 2010)

CLIFTON, N.J. --- The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command has exercised the third option of the Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) 3.3 contract and has awarded ITT the development of this next-generation counter-IED system. ITT is the sole recipient of the contract option which is valued at $29 million.

JCREW 3.3 is a System of Systems (SoS) that enables the networking of several jammers to address threats in a more efficient and strategic way. The SoS includes devices that are man-portable, vehicle-mounted and fixed site (for installations such as military bases) that all work together to prevent the detonation of IEDs. ITT will develop all three capabilities under this contract.

As the IED threat continues to evolve, the SoS is designed to be flexible and features data collection and networking functions to provide improved situational awareness to U.S. and allied forces while enabling new reconnaissance, signals intelligence and electronic attack capabilities. Its open architecture and modular design includes enhanced performance beyond the sum capability of the currently fielded systems.

In Phases I and II of the competition, ITT and Northrop Grumman both produced designs for JCREW 3.3. Phase III of the program marks the U.S. government's decision to execute an option to complete the final design of the SoS.

“ITT’s leadership in counter-IED technology is built upon multiple decades of operational CREW and tactical battlefield communications experience demonstrated by our production and deployment of more than 30,000 CREW systems, including the first ground-mobile and man-portable systems, and more than 500,000 tactical radios,” said Chris Bernhardt, president of ITT’s electronic systems business. “We are committed to leveraging this experience to develop a more capable counter-IED solution to help our customers achieve their mission more safely and effectively.”

ITT provides JCREW 2.1 systems for use by all four branches of the military: Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, specialized systems for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and was awarded the production contract for JCREW 3.2 vehicle-mounted systems in August 2010.

ITT Electronic Systems is a leading supplier of information and electronic warfare (EW) technologies, systems and services that enable mission success and survivability. Key technologies include integrated EW systems for a variety of aircraft, reconnaissance and surveillance systems for air and sea-based applications, force protection and counter-IED systems, precision landing and air traffic systems for military applications, and under sea systems encompassing mine defense, naval command and sonar systems, and acoustic sensors.

Headquartered in White Plains, N.Y., the company reported 2009 revenue of $10.9 billion.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

NRL Team Provides Counter-IED Support in Iraq

09:07 GMT, December 21, 2010

WASHINGTON | Scientists and engineers with the U.S. NRL Marine Geosciences Division recently completed a three-month deployment to aid in facilitating the safe withdrawal of combat troops in Iraq. Partnering with Northrop Grumman, Dr. John Brozena and Dr. Joan Gardner co-managed Project Perseus to assist ground troops in counter-IED (improvised explosive device) operations.

Incorporating the expertise of the U.S. Navy Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1) projects office, the NRL team, including project engineer Robert Liang, mission planning specialist Mike Vermillion, and data processor Dr. Andrei Abelev, was able to expeditiously install and make mission-ready the Northrop Grumman Multi-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (MB-SAR) aboard the squadron’s NP-3D Orion research aircraft. Additional components for the MB-SAR were obtained from the Army Space Development Command, U.S. Air Force and an MX-15 electro-optical/infrared video camera system and trackball provided by the Office of Naval Research.

Arriving in theater, July 20, 2010, the team commenced the performance of 34 flights, approximately 6-7 hours each, under the direction of Task Force ODIN (Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize). MB-SAR images and scene-change images were produced onboard the aircraft with the latency of only minutes. Data were collected in circular passes to illuminate objects from all directions, enhancing the ability to see objects with any orientation.

A typical circle of about 20 kilometers in diameter took about 10 minutes to fly and illuminated a 12-kilometer section of a road and its surroundings. The SAR and scene change images were available 10 minutes after the completion of each circle and were calculated while the next circle was being flown.

This flight profile was executed for more than 20 consecutive circle passes, covering up to 200 kilometers of road in a single flight while NRL and Northrop Grumman personnel performed data acquisition and image exploitation onboard the aircraft as constant imagery feeds from the MX-15 assisted in analyzing and adding visual situational awareness to the acquired scene change data.

“Missions such as these are incredibly beneficial to us as scientists and researchers,” said Brozena. “Direct interface with the end-user in the environment that the technology is to be applied allows us to better understand what direction to focus research. More importantly, it gives us an awareness of what needs to be done in order to effectively transition the technology to the operational environment.”

MB-SAR is an airborne payload that can be integrated onto a variety of platforms. The payload’s capabilities include improvised explosive device detection, foliage and building penetration, change detection, and wide area surveillance. MB-SAR is a research system that has been under development for the Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. Air Force and NRL.

“We initially used MB-SAR in a sensor suite tailored for counter-narcotics work in Colombia,” said Gardner. “We saw its value and quickly recognized its greatest capabilities were being under utilized. We partnered with Northrop Grumman and further developed the system for specific applications such as counter-IED and counter-narcotic multi-sensory operations.”

In 2009, the Marine Geosciences Division also used the MB-SAR system for foliage penetration and ice penetration applications. In this latter application, the system was used to search for a U.S. Coast Guard Grumman Duck aircraft lost over Greenland in 1942 and believed to be buried in up to 100 feet of ice. The MB-SAR’s L-band can penetrate several tens of meters of ice and can cover large areas in a small amount of time. This capability provides a cost-effective way to verify and engage in recovery operations for the downed aircraft. In the area of foliage penetration, high-quality MB-SAR data in several modes (strip-map, circle and spiral) were acquired over Colombia in 2009 under sponsorship of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

The 2010 Iraq operation was not the first time NRL personnel worked in an active warzone. The group deployed in 2006 and 2008 to Afghanistan, for several months, to conduct the Rampant Lion I and II missions. Partnering with scientists and engineers from the NRL Remote Sensing Division, Rampant Lion I processed, analyzed, interpreted then integrated collected data into U.S. Geological Survey assessment methodologies released to the Afghanistan government, international donor organizations, private investment groups, and NGOs working on the reconstruction and economic revitalization of Afghanistan.

The collected imagery will be enormously important for seismic and flood hazard analysis, development of roads, pipelines and property boundaries, and other civil infrastructure projects and agriculture resource management, a successful and ongoing process.

Rampant Lion II objectives developed new technologies for the rapid acquisition, processing, archiving and distribution of a broad spectrum of commonly registered geospatial information, primarily to support military operations and counter narcotics objectives that also included testing the utility of new sensor systems for various applications.

Due to their success in Afghanistan and Columbia the NRL team was chosen for this mission as a recognized leader coordinating and operating a multi-sensory platform under hostile conditions. In 2008, Brozena and Gardner received the Superior Civilian Service Award, and Liang the Group Achievement Award, for contributions to the Rampant Lion I mission. In 2009, Gardner was awarded the Society of American Indian Government Employees (SAIGE) Meritorious Service Award for her contributions to the global war on terrorism.

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Military Fields New Mine Roller Technology to Defeat IEDs

(Source: US Army; issued Dec. 30, 2010)



The U.S. military is fielding new mine roller technology expected to provide even more protection from improvised explosive devices.

The new roller, called the Self-Protection Adaptive Roller Kit System II, is a part of an integrated family of equipment that allows service-members to adapt to changing IED threats.

The job of the SPARKS II is to attach to the front of vehicles and detonate roadside bombs before they have a chance to harm service-members riding in the cab. This is the same job as other mine rollers, but SPARKS II gives service-members more options to protect themselves.

The driver has the ability to make on-the-spot changes to how the new roller operates from inside the vehicle. They can manipulate a variety of settings and change how SPARKS II interacts with the environment within moments.

One of the most useful features of the new system is the ability to change distance from the vehicle to the roller, which can also be done without having to leave the vehicle, said Tilford Briscoe, site manager for R4 Inc., the company in charge of fielding SPARKS II.

"It keeps the enemy guessing," said Briscoe. "With this, the moment we see something suspicious, we can change how we operate. I would trust my daughter riding in this thing."

Another useful feature is the ability to detach SPARKS II from the vehicle at any time from inside the cab. This allows service-members to continue on with their mission or get to safety if the roller gets damaged and becomes a hindrance.

The ability to remain protected while under attack is sure to save lives, said U.S. Army Spc. Steven L. Hanni, combat engineer and driver for 469th Engineer Company, 863rd Engineer Battalion.

Hanni's unit, which is deployed to Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan from Dodgeville, Wis., is one of the first to field SPARKS II. Even though they have not experienced an attack with the roller, Hanni praised the new features.

"If something was to happen and we didn't have to leave the vehicle and step into a fire fight -- that would be the most amazing thing ever" said Hanni. "It's incredible."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Attacking IED networks

08:11 GMT, January 4, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan | When a roadside bomb killed 14 Afghan civilians Dec. 30, including women and children, it was clear who was responsible for the blast. Taliban insurgents, under increased pressure from a superior force newly flush with resources and additional troops, rely heavily on the devices to inflict casualties and avoid face-to-face confrontations that could further decimate their ranks.

But insurgent bombs have proven more likely to kill or maim civilians than coalition forces. The bombs, commonly called improvised explosive devices - or IEDs - are indiscriminate killers accounting for more than half of insurgent-caused fatalities in Afghanistan.

Because they are so widespread and hamper everything from military operations to shopping trips for locals, defeating IEDs is a top priority for the International Security Assistance Force. Yet despite the influx of additional troops and additional counter-IED resources, military leaders acknowledge this is no simple task. While many of the devices are relatively crude, the networks of people responsible for creating IEDs in Afghanistan are complex.

"It's more than just a couple of guys in a garage," said U.S. Air Force Col. Richard Moorehead, a member of ISAF's Counter-IED Advisory Plans and Policy Team. "There's a whole bunch of people behind them making it happen. And you have to figure out, where are the critical points and where are we going to put our assets to try to stop them?"

ISAF is addressing the IED threat from a number of angles. Teams of bomb hunters patrol on foot and in vehicles to find and disable devices. Cameras monitor routes to catch insurgents in the act of burying bombs. Afghan forces are being trained to find, disable and exploit them.

But critical to the long-term success of the counter-IED fight is a large-scale effort to attack the networks that supply, build, emplace and trigger them.

ISAF's strategy to degrade IED networks can be likened to the Allied effort in World War II to disable the German war machine by going after key infrastructure and resources such as ball bearing factories and oil fields. Strategic bombing of such targets reduced the Germans' ability to produce and deploy the weapons they needed to carry out their military campaign.

Similarly, targeting IED networks is expected to have a similar impact on the insurgents' ability to intimidate and kill civilians and threaten coalition and Afghan forces. In counter-IED terms, it's called targeting the "left of the boom" - eliminating bomb-making personnel and materials before an explosion happens.

Some, but not all, personnel in the networks are aligned with the insurgency. There are financiers who pay for materials, often with money from drug or other criminal enterprises; smugglers, many of whom are part of broader criminal syndicates, who ferry bomb materials over the border; planners who pick targets and locations to deploy IEDs; and builders who turn the raw materials into bombs to carry out the planners' goals.

Below them are low-level insurgents and hired help who carry out the more dangerous tasks of emplacing and triggering IEDs, often for small amounts of money or under coercion by higher-level insurgents.

ISAF and Afghan security forces are identifying and targeting both the key personnel in these networks and low-level operatives that carry out their plans.

Using various intelligence assets, coalition and Afghan forces listen in on their plans, search for telltale signs of production facilities, gather information from informants and glean information from devices found in the field - even those that have gone off. Interdiction efforts have caught some of the raw materials before they make it into insurgent hands. Other security forces actions have led to finds and destruction of bomb-making materials and facilities.

Despite successes and optimism about efforts to effectively neutralize the networks, the coalition realizes that it is a very long-term effort to completely defeat the IED threat in Afghanistan. The near-term goal is to reduce the number of IEDs to a level that will allow for continued progress in efforts geared toward reconstruction and development of civil society. In the long term, the threat must be reduced to a level that Afghan forces can manage on their own.

----
Matthew Millham, ISAF HQ Public Affairs Office

[buglerbilly]

Commanders to change bomb disposal tactics

Army commanders are planning to change bomb disposal tactics in Afghanistan to cope with the surge in the number of Taliban booby traps.


WO2 Iain Martin defusing an IED on the Bandi Barq Road in Gereshk Photo: PA

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 9:00PM GMT 12 Feb 2011

I've thought for a long, long tme that this is the correct way to go...............................

Rather than removing bombs from the ground without blowing them up, so that they can be forensically analysed, more devices will now be simply destroyed in situ. Senior officers believe the new tactic will be quicker and safer.

All six bomb disposal operators killed in Helmand since 2006 have died while attempting to remove improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from the ground so that they could be examined by intelligence staff – a process known as "exploitation".

The current tactics are based on trying to achieve a balance between destroying bombs in order to allow greater freedom of movement for troops, and gathering intelligence to target the Taliban networks which build and plant IEDs.

All information gleaned from analysing the components of an IED, such as the switch or pressure plate, the configuration of the power pack, together with any DNA evidence is fed into a Nato intelligence database.

The information can then be used to either capture and prosecute those responsible or, as is more often the case, allow the special forces to target the insurgents in a strike operation.

While exploitation has met with some considerable success, there is a growing belief amongst commanders that better freedom of movement for the local population, Nato and Afghan security orces might reap greater rewards in the battle for hearts and minds.

Thousands of IEDs have been buried in Helmand, especially in area where British troops are deployed.

The so called "build quality" is usually poor, making handling of the devices extremely hazardous. It is no longer regarded as "tactically appropriate" to recover devices as a matter of routine.

Between the beginning of July 2009 and the end of March 2010 – the period when Taliban bomb production soared – 109 British soldiers were killed, and of those 83 died in IED blasts.

Sources have said that given the number of bomb disposal teams, which are relatively few in number compared with the volume of bombs, commanders now favoured a move "to destroy rather than exploit" IEDs.

One senior source said: "Every operator who has died was killed while attempting an exploitation. The job is inherently risky.

"The operational situation on the ground will always dictate whether a device is disarmed or destroyed but if an operator is clearing a route with ten devices he shouldn't be disarming them all.

"The risk is too great, but that decision is always left to the operator."

According to the sources, "cultural" differences exits between the various experts within the Counter IED Task Force, which was established in 2009 in response to the surge in use of Taliban bombs, in their approach to dealing with the devices.

Royal Engineers tend to view IEDs as an obstacle preventing freedom of movement that should be destroyed, whereas members of the Royal Logistic Corps, the unit which historically deals with IED disposal, would always seek to neutralise a device as part of the intelligence strategy.

At an inquest last week it emerged that Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid was killed in Sangin in October 2009 while attempting an exploitation.

Prior to the explosion in which he was killed, he had already removed two bombs so that they could be forensically analysed.

The other bomb disposal operators to have died in Helmand since 2006 are: Warrant Officer (2nd Class) Gary O'Donnell GM and Bar, Captain Daniel Shepherd, Capt Daniel Read, SSgt Brett Linley and WO2 Charles Wood.

Colonel Gareth Collett, head of Army Bomb Disposal, said: “It is up to the explosive ordnance disposal operator on the ground, nobody else, to make the decision to exploit or destroy any device he or she encounters, based on a thorough threat assessment of the situation, the commander’s mission and the time available.

“Preservation of life and property is paramount in any decision. The introduction of dedicated IEDD (Destroy) teams has enabled commanders to improve significantly the freedom of movement of coalition forces in Afghanistan in areas where there is no obvious exploitable benefit to be gained from an IED.”

[buglerbilly]

European Training Command Offering Counter-IED Training to Multinational Forces

(Source: US Army; issued Feb. 14, 2011)

GRAFENWOEHR, Germany -- On March 18, 2010, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates outlined a directive to the combatant commanders to tangibly support partnered nations to "increase the effectiveness of their forces to counter improvised explosive devices."

The directive states; "we must now move forward with concrete actions to assist our coalition partners and enhance their C-IED (counter-improvised explosive device) capabilities in the areas of equipment, training and technical expertise."

In response to this directive European Command, and subsequently U.S. Army in Europe tasked the Joint Multinational Training Command, or JMTC, in Grafenwoehr, Germany, to increase the capacity of C-IED training for our partner nations in Europe.

The JMTC has always worked with partner nations to conduct training during brigade rotations, and specifically on C-IED to ensure the success of the mission and to save soldiers lives; no matter what flag they are wearing.

One unique aspect of the JMTC's U.S. and NATO training rotations is the participation of coalition forces, which enhance the training environment. Partnered nations act as Afghan Army replicators or additional units on the battlefield, such as Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) or company maneuver formations.

They in turn receive training on C-IED in a counter insurgency, commonly referred to as COIN, environment as part of a larger brigade force. Thirty percent of the forces that make up the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan are coalition forces, and of that 30 percent, more than 80 percent are from the U.S. European Command's area of responsibility.

It's a natural fit for JMTC to assist partners in C-IED training and capacity building, whether in Germany or at their home station.

At the JMTC, C-IED training focuses on collective training from patrol-size elements to brigade-and-battalion battle staffs. The JMTC teaches many courses to help partnered nations build capacity, as well as multinational C-IED cooperation.

The Defeat the Device Baseline Course, conducted at Hohenfels, focuses on senior noncommissioned officers and junior company-grade officers, providing them a baseline understanding of C-IEDs to facilitate the training of their own troops prior to deployment.

The Attack the Network Battle Staff Course, conducted at the host nation, focuses on battalion and brigade staffs and prepares them to operate in a C-IED or COIN, environment.

Train the Force Situational Training Exercise, or TtF STX, focuses on a battalion's company and platoon patrols preparing formations for deployment, and enabling nations to build capacity in their country through C-IED training. The C-IED TtF STX is taught at Hohenfels and in the host nation.

The JMTC's CIED Master Trainer course conducted at Grafenwoehr, builds on the Defeat- the-Device Course by providing partner nations Master Trainers to expand and build on their Train-the-Force and Attack-the-Network capability.

In 2010, JMTC trained more than 4,000 U.S. and multinational Soldiers as part of brigade rotations.

The JMTC implemented a multinational Defeat-the-Device Route Clearance Patrol course in November while also standing up the "Badger" C-IED Training team, which will be fully operational in spring 2011.

The multinational courses at JMTC are focused on two things: preparing soldiers for combat in a C-IED/COIN environment, and saving soldiers’ lives no matter what flag they wear. All courses are conducted in accordance with International Security Assistance Force and NATO standards.

The JMTC will continue to support our coalition partners and assist in building national capacity as part of the Security Forces Agreement outlined by Secretary Gates.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Device Detonates Roadside Bombs Remotely.

Analysis by Amy Dusto

Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:46 PM ET



Explosive mines are not only a fact of war-torn countrysides, but also of countries that harbor terrorists or guerilla groups. Some of the most notorious bombs are IED's, or improvised explosive devices, which are homemade explosives often buried near roadsides. These can be hard to detect since they're usually built with rag-tag materials like plastic, glass or plaster of paris, and contain little metal that can be picked up by metal detectors. While they're sometimes thrown off bridges or tossed into buildings, IED's are often left as mines that are detonated by remote control or with built-in sensors.

The threat of IEDs presses close to home for Félix Vega and Nicolas Mora, two doctoral students at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland who are from Colombia, a site of ongoing guerilla conflict. In response, the two have figured out how to detonate IED's remotely using pulsed electromagnetic energy. In laboratory tests, their device set off bombs 65 feet away on average.

Remotely detonating an IED has several challenges that Vega and Mora addressed. First, the pulse of current needs to be strong enough to have an effect not only from a great distance, but on bombs that might buried deeply underground. The device also needed to affect as many different bombs as possible, because improvised explosive devices are just that: improvised. So the electromagnetic currents need to cover a range of frequencies. But sending energy pulses successively in many different frequencies weakens each current that reaches the IED. Too weak, and it won't detonate. Fortunately, the researchers found that most IED's were triggered by similar frequencies and so they were able to make a short list of which ones to use. This saved energy over many feet and made the device effective.

Vega and Mora developed the bomb detonator in collaboration with two Colombian Universities and tested the device at Colombia's Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory, where professional bomb disposal experts constructed real IED's for detonation. The pulses shot by the researchers easily penetrated the bombs, which are usually designed with inexpert circuitry barely shielded from electromagnetic radiation -- a plight of being plastic rather than metal-based. And since the detonator can set off unprotected devices in the correct frequency range, it neatly gets around the problem of having to physically pinpoint a bomb before taking care of it. Instead the device can just send impulses out into an area with suspected IED's and clear up any lurking threats.

Now the team is working on a longer study to make the detonators smaller and more durable so that they are suited to bring on back country roads. The National University of Colombia and the University of Los Andes have committed to four years of tackling this project together.

Caption: This Humvee was destroyed near Nangalam Village on the Pech River Road in eastern Kunar Province, Afghanistan, along what U.S. Marines knew as IED Alley. Credit: Ed Darack/Corbis

[buglerbilly]

Bomb disposal expert suffering 'cumulative tiredness', MoD documents suggest

The decorated bomb disposal expert Olaf Schmid may have been suffering from “cumulative tiredness” when he was killed defusing a bomb, the Ministry of Defence has admitted in restricted documents.


Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid Photo: Andrew Crowley

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 9:08PM GMT 21 Feb 2011

Of course he was over-tired! Only an imbecile would claim otherwise...............these guys were all over-worked and over-stressed at the time, possibly still are.......to be blunt, this "desire" to manually defuse bombs in most/every case(s) is ridiculous. The forensic evidence gathered is not worth the human cost.

His wife Christina Schmid 35, has claimed that the inquest earlier this month “brushed under the carpet” vital evidence of his mental and physical exhaustion as he tried to defuse his last IED.

She alleged that the Army did not want it known that there was a shortage of counter-IED soldiers although the inquest was told the unit was 50 per cent undermanned at the time.

In the restricted document obtained by Channel 4 News the MoD admitted: “There was no evidence of fatigue on the day; however, the issue of cumulative tiredness is a possibility."

The manning levels of bomb disposal experts was “significantly low” at the time of S/Sgt Schmid’s death because the pool of operators had been “exhausted”, defence sources have disclosed to The Daily Telegraph.

In order to keep within what is called “harmony guidelines”, that allow troops only to deploy once every two years except in exceptional circumstances, the MoD did not have enough counter-IED experts at the time of Staff Sgt Schmid’s death in October 2009

The restricted document said the Army faced "problems" with a shortage of bomb disposal operators at a time when guidelines for troops' rest and recuperation breaks were being "breached".

Mrs Schmid left the hearing in Truro, Cornwall a day early after a fellow soldier gave evidence that S/Sgt Schmid, 30, who was posthumously awarded the George Cross after he defused 64 bombs in five months, might have been "unsettled" by a call to his little stepson Laird who wanted him to come home.

Mrs Schmid, 35, said her husband's death in 2009 came not long after he had suffered a fainting fit caused by exhaustion.

She told Channel 4 News: "I just feel that they were quite happy to discredit him.

"I do feel that the chain of command were quite happy and clearly quids in that, you know, it was blamed on the operator, or the device, or he was unlucky, or whatever. Whereas actually you can't say that because he clearly hadn't been looked after as well as he could have been and the guidelines were flouted and they were overworked and undermanned".

The coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing and said little could have prevented "catastrophic injuries" sustained when the blast threw the soldier’s body 150ft into the air.

[buglerbilly]

‘Surge’ Hasn’t Slowed Onslaught of Afghan Bombs

By Spencer Ackerman March 2, 2011 | 3:17 pm

Updated: Mar. 2, 2011; 6:02 p.m. EST



The leader of the Pentagon’s $19 billion bomb squad has many ways to measure how the war in Afghanistan is going. One is to count the number of things that go boom. And by that measure, the war isn’t going well at all – despite a “surge” of thousands of fresh American troops and a fresh strategy that puts a premium on wiping out militant networks.

In January 2011, there were 1,344 bombs discovered or detonated in Afghanistan. That’s essentially the same number of explosives as there were seven months earlier, in June of 2010. Yet wintertime is ordinarily when there’s a lull in Afghanistan’s fighting. (For perspective, in all of 2005, there were only 465 homemade insurgent bombs discovered country-wide.)

“When that volume [of bombs] starts dropping, then I think you can start making some assumptions about the effectiveness of the overall counterinsurgency,” Lt. Gen. Michael Oates tells a small group of reporters ahead of his departure on Friday from the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO. But the bomb volume isn’t dropping: November saw the highest monthly total of the entire war, with 1,508 explosions.

The raw bomb number isn’t Oates’ only battelfield metric. He’s also keyed in on the number of “effective” explosive attacks — the ones that actually kill or injure someone. By that measure, there’s been some progress: a 25% effectiveness rate has dropped to 16%, according to numbers compiled by the bomb squad. It means that “the enemy is 84% ineffective,” the general says. The number of coalition troops killed or wounded in action has been halved, during that period. Oates adds that he’s heartened by that recent statistical trend, which he attributed to a surge of sensors, from giant tethered blimps to video-equipped drones to chemical-sniffing planes to trusty dogs.

“But because the volume has not dropped, this tells us the enemy still has the motivation, he has the financing, he has the precursor material and he has the ability to emplace IEDs,” Oates concedes. “Until the volume drops, we have to assess that the enemy is still actively trying to kill or injure us with IEDs and he still has that capability.” An effort to stop the importation of ammonium nitrate fertilizer from Pakistan, the main component of homemade bombs in southern Afghanistan, hasn’t yet stanched the increase of the bombs.

Contrast Oates’ bracing words with January’s letter to the troops in Afghanistan from their commander, Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus wrote that NATO has made “enormous progress” in Afghanistan, “halt a downward security spiral” and turning 2010 into a year of “significant, hard-fought accomplishments.”



After fourteen months at the helm of JIEDDO, Oates will retire from the Army and return to his home in Texas, handing over the wartime bomb squad to Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, whom he’s known since both were green lieutenants. Barbero is just back from Iraq, a factor that Oates says guides his departure: being too far removed from the wars limits the director’s efficacy, especially on Capitol Hill, where criticism of JIEDDO’s $19 billion expenditures has been an on-again, off-again pulse.

For all JIEDDO’s sponsorship of tech-intensive solutions for the bombs — JIEDDO is asking Congress for $2.3 billion for the next fiscal year — Oates says the next big project from the squad will be one that provides “a better understanding of the social dynamics behind how the enemy operates,” including how insurgent bomb networks communicate, pay people, “motivate people” and replenish their ranks. He didn’t elaborate, but it sounds like an insurgent-focused version of the Army’s tumultuous experience trying to use sociological tools to understand human networks in foreign cultures.

Asked what it meant that the U.S. doesn’t understand that after nearly a decade in Afghanistan, he replies, “It says we’re still pretty ignorant about a lot of cultures in this world.”

JIEDDO was set up as an emergency task force in 2004 to stanch the newfound bombs’ lethality in Iraq and Afghanistan, and eventually, as the wars end, it may shuffle off the Pentagon’s mortal coil. But Oates says he’s confident Army and Marine training, vehicle purchases and body armor reflect an understanding that cheap, improvised bombs aren’t going away: every month, outside of the two wars, between 300 and 400 detonate worldwide. Oates says he’s generally concerned about the migration of bomb tech to Latin America, where drug cartels and rebel groups might use them — especially as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad forges greater ties to the region — and a successful bomb attack will “probably occur” within the U.S., he says.

In Afghanistan, at least so far, insurgents haven’t felt the need to change up their bombmaking strategies, even as their effectiveness has diminished. In the south and southwest, the Taliban’s bombs are still made from fertilizer, detonated through the compression of metal-free pressure plates, usually made of wood, when someone walks or drives over them to complete a circuit. Only the insurgent network of Jalaleddin Haqqani in eastern Afghanistan uses a limited amount of “military grade munitions” and remote-controlled detonations.

What will ultimately stop the bombs in Afghanistan? According to the lessons of Iraq, it’s no big secret: a secure population, an “effective counterinsurgency strategy,” competent Afghan soldiers and cops, “lethal targeting” of insurgents, and “some kind of political reconciliation.” Still, it’s worth noting that according to JIEDDO’s figures, there were over 400 bomb attacks in Iraq in January alone, which might say something about what “success” in the fight against the signature weapon of the U.S.’ two long wars actually looks like.

[I]Illo: JIEDDO; photo: explsovive attack simulation, courtesy U.S. Army

[buglerbilly]

Task Force Targets Human Network Behind IEDs

07:22 GMT, March 11, 2011

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. | What started as a super-secret program to protect ground troops in Iraq from roadside bombs has matured into a coveted asset in Afghanistan, where it provides a persistent surveillance capability against enemy threats, an official who provided materiel support for the program reported.

Task Force ODIN was established in 2006 to help in countering the improvised explosive devices that were taking a huge toll on U.S. forces in Iraq. ODIN, also the name of a Norse god of war, is an acronym describing the task force’s counter-IED mission: observe, detect, identify and neutralize.

Officials recognized early on that simply identifying and defusing IEDs was only part of the solution, Richard Wittstruck, chief engineer for the Army’s Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors here, told American Forces Press Service.

“We can never forget that the device itself is not the threat,” he said. “It’s the tool used by the threat. So we have to address the tool. But if we don’t also address the threat, then they just come up with a different tool.”

So ODIN focused on the human network behind the IED threat, from the people who design and deliver them to the ones who cache them and give the detonation orders.

“You want to get as far left of the boom as you can,” Wittstruck said. “You want to get past the emplacement cycle back into the transit cycle, back into the connection cycle, all the way back to the planning cycle, if you can. And then you want to cut it off there so that they don’t get the rest of those steps in place. And Task Force ODIN provides that capability.”

Wittstruck and his team, along with their colleagues at Army Material Command, were responsible for designing, developing, producing, fielding and sustaining the elements of Task Force ODIN. They include a family of manned and unmanned aerial platforms, their sensors, the communications data links used to transmit the information they collect and the ground-station operations where analysts turn that information into intelligence.

The system proved highly successful after being activated in Iraq in 2007. Two years later, Task Force ODIN brought this new capability to Afghanistan to shore up gaps in the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets supporting ground troops there.

Army Maj. John Baynard was commander of Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment’s flight company during that first rotation in Afghanistan.

Flying King Air 300 medium-altitude reconnaissance system aircraft over sweeping areas of Regional Command East and Regional Command South, his soldiers provided valuable communications and signals intelligence as well as full-motion video of areas of interest. Meanwhile, various unmanned aerial vehicle platforms augmented their efforts.

“Utilizing our high technology, Task Force ODIN coordinated with ground forces to neutralize numerous high-value targets,” Baynard said in a PEO-IEW&S video. “Targets ranged from financiers of insurgent activities to kidnappers, money launderers and guys who performed indirect-fire operations on coalition bases.”

In addition to taking high-value targets off the battlefield, Baynard said, his company also provided ground forces early warning of enemy activity in their operating areas. It’s “an essential capability for coalition forces against an adaptable enemy,” he said.

Since its first deployment, ODIN has matured to the point that it now provides persistent surveillance over vast geographic areas. “They are surveilling across wide areas of real estate, looking for indications of insurgent activity, and then informing a commander in a near-real-time operation of what the threat and situation is so he can be more effective in his maneuvers,” Wittstruck said.

ODIN’s overwatch capability makes it possible to tip off maneuver commanders about anything from movement along a specific goat trail to unusual activities that might indicate enemy operations under way or being planned, Wittstruck said.

For example, a local marketplace typically is packed at about 3 every afternoon as families shop for their dinners. What does it mean when, for some unexplainable reason, it’s empty one afternoon?

“That’s an indicator that maybe somebody on the ground wants to be notified so they can go seek out and find what it is the locals know that we don’t know about that marketplace today, or what is about to happen at that marketplace,” Wittstruck said.

One of Task Force ODIN’s biggest triumphs, he said, is the “true sensor-to-shooter connectivity” it provides as it delivers actionable intelligence to ground forces and warns them of unknown threats. ODIN provides that connectivity, he said, saving lives and improving troops’ combat effectiveness.

Wittstruck said he’s particularly proud of the speed with which Defense Department officials fast-tracked funding and development processes and introduced the force structure changes and training needed to deliver Task Force ODIN to the combat theater.

“This shows that as a country and as a coalition, we can be agile in a time of war to respond to a threat,” he said. “Task Force ODIN is a testament to that.”

----
Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

[buglerbilly]

Bull Launches Shadow: A Signal Jamming System –Unique in the World – Designed to Prevent Attacks from Remote-Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices

(Source: Bull; issued March 16, 2011)

PARIS --- Bull, which specializes in open and secure IT systems, and its subsidiary Amesys, the leading designer of mission-critical systems, have launched Shadow: an ‘intelligent’ signal jammer, based on technology that is unique in the world, designed to intercept, jam and neutralize RCIEDs (remote-controlled improvised explosive devices).

With Shadow, Bull has developed and refined a whole new generation of jammers, able to deal with all forms of systems relating to remote-controlled explosives, including the very latest ones such as those using UMTS protocols…

This new technology further strengthens Bull’s security offering, a few months after its acquisition of Amesys.

Philippe Vannier, Bull’s Chairman and CEO, commented: “Bull’s innovation strategy is focused on computing power and security; two areas where our added value and technical expertise are very strong. Following the launch of DLP – designed to protect enterprises’ confidential data – Shadow once again clearly illustrates our know-how and our capacity for growth in these sectors.”

Shadow is designed for armed forces and is equally well-suited to meeting homeland security requirements. It not only protects passengers, vehicles and critical areas against remote-controlled explosive devices, but can also be used to identify enemy communications and monitor radio signals.

The ‘intelligent’ jamming technology at the heart of Shadow optimizes the jammer’s capacity for action. Effectively, Shadow adapts its power as a function of the interference waveforms, as well as of the threats it identifies, thanks to its ability to detect and classify them. The system only transmits in the presence of a threat, and automatically reconfigures itself depending on its location – taking account of international frequency allocations.

Compared with traditional systems, this adaptability considerably reduces operators’ and vehicle passengers’ exposure radiation; which makes the system especially well suited to intensive use.

Shadow technology processes signals from all the systems used with remote-controlled explosive devices, while also making the most efficient use of the radio spectrum and associated RF power. Shadow can instantaneously detect over 2,000 threats and is geared up to respond extremely effectively to GSM and DECT ‘bursts’ from mobile and cordless telephones.

Bull is an Information Technology company, dedicated to helping Corporations and Public Sector organizations optimize the architecture, operations and the financial return of their Information Systems and mission-critical related business processes. Bull focuses on open and secure systems, and as such is the only European-based company offering expertise in all the key elements of the IT value chain.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

More Criticism for Pentagon's anti-IED Shop

Posted by Paul McLeary at 3/28/2011 12:03 PM CDT



We’ve known for a long time that even for all of its hard work, the Pentagon office charged with figuring out ways to defeat the deadly scourge of roadside bombs—Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, in Pentagonese—was fighting a moving target.

JIEDDO, the Joint IED Defeat Organization, started by Congress in 2006 and funded to the tune of $20 billion over the past 5 years, has come under withering criticism over the years, and is the subject of a new investigative piece from McClatchy newspapers and the Center for Public Integrity.

The piece doesn’t really unearth much of importance that we didn’t already know, but does manage to sprinkle some tidbits of interest. For example, JIEDDO spent $400 million for “Army force protection” (meaning: unclear) in 2010 and $24 million to hire private contractors for intel operations in Afghanistan, and the authors list several technologies that either didn’t work, or that insurgents quickly managed to overcome.

Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, who left the organization recently—the third director in five years, which points to some internal problems—told the reporters that “we fund things…sometimes we fund things that don't work. Some call that waste; I call it risk.” To that Bill Solis, the director of defense capabilities and management at the Government Accountability Office, retorted that funding the right projects has been “a weakness from the beginning. They don't have good controls over start-ups.” Not only do they allegedly not have good control over start ups, but they’re fighting for space with a whole host of other offices within the different service branches that are working on the IED threat independently of JIEDDO, which was supposed to be the Pentagon’s coordinator of the fight.

Another thing that the IED shop has have never managed to overcome are basic management and record-keeping issues. JIEDDO has long been criticized for failing to keep a centralized database of its various initiatives in order to prioritize what has worked, and what hasn’t, and there is no indication that they’re any closer to building one today than they were several years ago.

Many of these problems have long been known, and consequently picked apart by critics. So much so that back in 2009, SecDef Gates kick started a new anti-IED program, Task Force Paladin, which he said he wanted to “break down the stove pipes” that keep the various counter-IED groups sprinkled throughout the military from working together. “We have people working all these different pieces,” he told reporters. “My concern is whether all this has been properly integrated and prioritized and aligned, and whether we are adaptable and agile enough.”

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told me at the time that with the institutional muscle that the new task force was being given, it was hoped that it would be able to get the services to begin working together rather than working the problem separately. Morrell said that Gates “had a very tight meeting with some of the principles involved, where he announced this… he was meeting with the ISR Task Force, the MRAP Task Force, JIEDDO, intelligence officials, with CENTCOM, and with ISAF,” to hatch his plan. “This is more than a JIEDDO problem,” he continued, “if it’s just the bombs themselves, that’s one thing, if it’s just the vehicle protection itself, that’s one thing, if it’s just the intelligence, that’s another thing. [Gates] wants to make sure that all of these efforts are integrated and collaborating, and that’s what this is about. It’s not a shot at any one of those organizations, but he thinks that we’re now confronting a situation in Afghanistan where we have to make sure we are all pulling in the same direction in order to get ahead of these guys.”

That was about 18 months ago. JIEDDO has been turning down my repeated requests for interviews for at least the past year, so their view on the whole thing is a mystery. But we have the numbers, courtesy of the McClatchy piece. In 2010, 3,366 Americans were wounded and 268 killed by IEDs in Afghanistan, up from 168 killed, and 1,211 wounded in 2009. More bombs were planted last year than in previous years, of course, and more are being found, but those numbers don’t look like success.

Pic: US Army

[buglerbilly]

NATO to Deploy Mobile Counter-IED Labs by Late 2011

By JULIAN HALE

Published: 31 Mar 2011 10:52

BRUSSELS - NATO's Special Operations Forces headquarters is working to put mobile counter-IED labs in theater by the end of this year.

The aim is to have "a dedicated lab functional in theater by the fall of 2011," a NATO official told Defense News.

The labs would analyze forensic data from found or exploded IEDs and exploit technical data from equipment such as captured cell phones and personal computers.

The fight against IEDs comes under three main headings: defeating the device (detecting it/dismantling it); training (how to identify IEDs and IED activity); and attacking the network (the human element).

The mobile labs are designed to help NATO forces attack the network - track down bomb emplacers, suppliers and financiers. The labs will help forensics experts exploit information from mobile communication devices, computers and fingerprints and feed it into a central database for use by NATO forces, the source said.

"The evidence may be used for investigative and potentially legal action," he said.

The cost of a lab is estimated at about 800,000 euros ($1.1 million). So far, NATO member states have contributed 370,000 euros of seed money to buy analysis equipment. The remainder of the funding is primarily from the U.S., which is serving as the framework nation for NATO's SOF headquarters.

The labs "will fit in a C-130 or C-160 air transporter, so they are pretty mobile," the source said. "Ideally, we would have a lab in theater and a lab in a [training] schoolhouse in Belgium so that there could be cross-pollination."

Having a lab in the schoolhouse would help ensure that procedures to collect forensics material and analyze it are standardized, he added.

The 370,000 euros comes from a total NATO anti-terrorism budget of 1.75 million euros. Countering IEDs is one of 11 areas covered by the program.

The European Union is well on track to deploy a similar capability in Afghanistan this year. A deployable field laboratory for forensic research of roadside bomb explosions is in production at Indra, the Spanish electronics company, and will be delivered to the European Defence Agency (EDA) by mid-2011. The lab will then be handed over to France and deployed with a multinational crew in Afghanistan.

The blueprint for it, "comprising all the required information and experiences to develop, stand up and operate such a facility," will be provided to the EDA's participating member states, an EDA official said.

[buglerbilly]

Explosives-Detecting Ink Could Help Ground Terrorists

Analysis by Nic Halverson

Mon Apr 4, 2011 05:22 PM ET



A new spray-on material that detects and neutralizes explosives commonly used by terrorists could lift government restrictions on liquids carried aboard airliners.

The material is an ink-like substance made of tiny metallic oxide nanoparticles that changes color, from dark blue to pale yellow or clear, in the presence of peroxide-based explosives. These explosives were used by terrorists in the 2005 London subway bombing and by the thwarted "shoe bomber" who attempted to detonate this substance aboard an airplane in 2001.

“This stuff is going to be used anywhere terrorist explosives are used, including battlefields, airports, and subways,” said study leader Dr. Allen Apblett. “It’s going to save lives.” Apblett, a chemistry professor at Oklahoma State University, presented his findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Apblett said the color-change feature allows the material to act as sensor for quickly detecting vapors produced by explosives that could be hidden in clothing, food or beverages. The ink contains nonparticles of a molybdenum compound, a metal often used in missile and aircraft parts.

Test strips containing the ink could be dipped into non-beverage liquids prior to boarding. For beverages, a unique capillary tube filled with the ink could be inserted into these liquids that would not contaminate the drink. A sample would be drawn and the chemical reaction would take place inside the tube.

Aplebett and his colleagues founded Xplosafe, a company that develops and markets the ink-like material. They hope the explosive detecting substance will be used in airports in as little as a year.

http://www.xplosafe.com/

Photo: C Squared Studios

[buglerbilly]

Rheinmetall Wins Important Bundeswehr Force Protection Orders

(Source: Rheinmetall-Defence; issued April 14, 2011)

Germany’s Federal Agency for Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB) has contracted with Rheinmetall to supply the Bundeswehr with innovative force protection technology, which will soon be providing German troops deployed in Afghanistan with even greater security. The total volume of the two individual contracts, both of which were issued in response to an immediate operational requirement of the Bundeswehr, amounts to around EUR 24 million.

First, Rheinmetall will thoroughly modernize four Büffel/Buffalo armoured recovery vehicles to provide their crews with effective protection against ballistic threats, landmines and improvised explosive devices; the latter pose a particularly serious danger to ISAF forces in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Rheinmetall has been tasked with providing a pioneering high-tech system for reliably detecting mines and booby traps buried in the soil which will enhance the security of frequently travelled routes as well as protecting convoys. In future, remote control systems will be used for this hazardous task, enabling soldiers to remain in protected vehicles outside the danger zone.

“German Route Clearing Package” – a high-tech system of systems

By the end of 2011, Rheinmetall will supply the Bundeswehr with seven systems as part of the German Route Clearing Package (GRCP). A complete system consists of four vehicles, including one for detection and one for clearing explosive devices, as well as a command vehicle and transport vehicle.

In the GRCP ‘system of systems’, Rheinmetall’s remote control Wiesel, equipped with a newly developed built-in dual sensor with ground penetration radar and a metal detector, will take on the task of detecting mines and IEDs concealed on roads and in open terrain.

The Fuchs/Fox 1A8 armoured transport vehicle will serve as a highly mobile, well protected mobile command post, equipped with workstations for operating the remote control systems as well as systems for evaluating signals from the dual sensor.

Ordered separately, the remote control “MiniMinewolf”, which is already in service with the Swiss Army, will be used for neutralizing hazardous unexploded ordnance. Depending on the mission requirements, the 6-ton vehicle can be equipped with a robot arm, mine plough or bulldozer blade. An integrated video system enables the crew onboard the Fuchs/Fox command vehicle to monitor operations at all times. Made by Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles (RMMV), “Multi FSA” logistics vehicles will serve as the GRCP system’s transport vehicles.

Moreover, Rheinmetall is currently developing a manipulator arm for conducting high-precision bomb disposal operations. With an operating reach of over ten metres and a heavy carrying capacity, it will enable verification and disposal of suspicious objects from a safe standoff.

Additional protection package for the Büffel/Buffalo armoured recovery vehicle The modernization of the BPz 3 Büffel/Buffalo armoured recovery vehicle includes optimization of its ballistic protection features, crucial for safeguarding the crew from rocket-propelled grenades and light antitank weapons. Furthermore, the floor of the hull is to be reinforced with additional anti-mine protection to shield the crew from blasts occurring under the vehicle, while the vehicle’s flanks will be fitted with special protection elements to attenuate the blast wave caused by roadside bombs.

The extensive overhaul of the Büffel/Buffalo also involves modernizing the vehicle’s C4I systems and improving its ergonomics.

These armoured recovery vehicles, which are mounted on a Leopard 2 tank chassis, are above all required for deployment in Afghanistan where they will be used for recovering and towing tracked vehicles. The heaviest tracked vehicles currently fielded by the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan are the Marder 1A5 infantry fighting vehicle and the PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzer.

Rheinmetall has already carried out comparable modernization work on Büffel/Buffalo armoured recovery vehicles belonging to the Canadian armed forces. Their high level of protection has proven highly effective even in extreme situations.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

iRobot Announces $7.6 million SUGV Order from the U.S. Army

(Source: iRobot Corp.; issued April 20, 2011)

BEDFORD, Mass. --- iRobot Corp. a leader in delivering robotic technology-based solutions, has received a $7.6 million order from the U.S. Army Contracting Command-Warren, Michigan, for 50 of its 310 SUGV (Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle) tactical mobile robots and spare parts. The order was issued under a new indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract that allows for an initial delivery of 50 robots.

310 SUGV gathers situational awareness in dangerous conditions while keeping warfighters out of harm’s way. The robotic system weighs about 35 pounds, making it ideal for dismounted mobile operations. While 310 SUGV has been used in theater primarily by explosive ordnance disposal teams, the robots in this order will also be used by combat engineers and Marines.

“310 SUGV has proven its worth as a man-portable, rugged and easy-to-use robot. As a result of ongoing positive user feedback and its success on the battlefield, 310 SUGV will now be used to perform an even wider variety of missions,” said Robert Moses, president of iRobot’s Government and Industrial Robots division. “iRobot is honored to provide more of these life-saving robots for our troops.”

iRobot and Boeing developed the SUGV family of vehicles under a strategic alliance that began in 2007.

iRobot designs and builds robots that make a difference. The company’s home robots help people with smarter ways to clean, and its government and industrial robots protect those in harm’s way. iRobot’s consumer and military robots feature iRobot Aware® robot intelligence systems, proprietary technology incorporating advanced concepts in navigation, mobility, manipulation and artificial intelligence.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Roadside Bombs Contine to Take Toll

Posted by Paul McLeary at 4/21/2011 9:18 AM CDT



From January to March of this year, sixty-two percent of NATO combat deaths in Afghanistan were due to improvised explosive devices (IED)—the now infamous buried bombs that have traditionally targeted vehicles on the roads, but are increasingly hitting dismounted soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan.

Researchers Lazard Capital Markets noted in a report released last week that after combing though “every casualty report released by the DOD since January 1, 2006 to identify trends in war-related deaths attributable to IEDs,” it found that of first three months of each year, 2011 “posted the highest IED-casualty rate in comparison to the [same] period over each of the last five years” and that the rate of deaths in Afghanistan compare with those in Iraq during 2004 and 2005.

The report was written to assess Mercury Computer Systems Inc. win of an ITT subcontract for the JCREW (Joint Counter-Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device) 3.3 program. The JCREW family of jammers includes a man-portable system (3.1); a vehicle mounted system (3.2); and the 3.3 allows the networking of several jammers to help tie the battlefield together.

ITT was awarded a $29 million contract in December for the new version, which will help troops “collect information about their radio frequency environment, perform onboard processing and share information with commanders at other locations without stopping current IED missions,” according to SIGNAL magazine. This will allow commanders the ability to build a common operating picture while sending data to analysis centers quickly. While 3.3 is still in its engineering development model phase and won’t see testing until 2013, ITT is looking at securing a production contract later this year.

And it could be a big one. The Lazard analysts note that after the IED threat ramped up in Iraq in 2004, the DOD quickly bought up over 30,000 jammer systems over the next four years. “With U.S. and coalition forces slated to remain in Afghanistan until 2014,” the report states, “we believe the DOD will prioritize and deploy cutting edge, next generation systems like JCREW 3.3 to mitigate further IED casualties.”

The IED fight continues to evolve.

[buglerbilly]

Grunt Tech IED Finder

by christian on May 7, 2011



Sometimes the solution to a problem comes down to one guy with a very simple idea.

That was the case in Safar Bazaar in Helmand province, where Afghan insurgents put up stiff resistance until Marines finally drove them out last summer. The enemy’s ubiquitous improvised explosive device was proving particularly difficult to find, even with the usual tools at hand: dogs, ground-penetrating radar, and aerial surveillance.

At least at first.

“There was a unique IED challenge there. There was dust on the ground. It was like walking on the moon,” Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Mills told reporters in Washington, DC, on May 5. And not just a fine layer of dust, but easily several inches deep, according to Mills’ description.

“Rather than use things you stepped on, put strings and wires through the dust, and you tripped that and that would trigger the explosion,” he said. The system made it difficult to find the IEDS, he said, until one of his Leathernecks came up with his own solution.

“This young Marine had devised this tool, like a boat hook,” Mills said, using piece of wood about as long as a conference table and affixing to one end a makeshift hook he’d found among some trash.

“Basically, you’d leaned it out into the dust and eased it back and as you eased it back, if you felt tension on it, it was a wire and you stopped and you went forward and disarmed it,” Mills recalled. “It was an amazing success. We’re producing those now.”

[I]Bryant Jordan, Military.com

Read more: http://kitup.military.com/#ixzz1Lp3fuqS0
Kit Up!

[buglerbilly]

Now, the opposite end of the IED tech developments................

New Nanosensor Sniffs Bombs, One Molecule at a Time

By Spencer Ackerman May 10, 2011 | 5:51 pm



Imagine a piece of metal 30,000 times thinner than one of the hairs on your head. Mixed with a little protein from bee venom, that microscopic filament becomes the most powerful explosives-detection system in history, able to detect a single molecule of dangerous chemicals.

Now imagine having that in an airport. No need for taking a pornographic photograph or having your genitals massaged by the Transportation Security Agency. And a nanotechnology specialist may have hastened that happy day for homeland security.

Michael Strano, an associate professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spent the past two years testing out the boundaries of nanotech in explosives detection. For less than $200,000, he took it practically to the atomic limit. “There’s no further improvement in the sensor part you can get,” Strano tells Danger Room. “It’s the last word in sensors.”

Some of his colleagues aren’t quite so sure. Strano’s system is promising, they say. But they have questions about bringing Strano’s sensor into the field.

The science behind the Strano’s sensor is complex. But here’s the simplest way of breaking it down. Put bee venom on a carbon rod and you’ve got yourself a sensor.

Believe it or not, bees are powerful bomb sleuths. That’s why Darpa wanted to enlist them to find explosives, landmines and “odors of interest” in the early 2000s. As it turns out, inside of every bee sting is a small fragment of a protein called a peptide that has an uncanny property.

“When it wraps around a small wire, that allows it to recognize ‘nitro-aromatics’,” Strano explains, the chemical class of explosives like TNT. That wire is a carbon nanotube, a mere one atom thick.

Put that against a nitro-aromatic treated with the bee peptide, and take a look through a near-infrared microscope. “The light from the carbon nanotube will fluoresce — so red that your eye can’t see it,” Strano says. “What you’d see in the microscope is: The nanotube would flicker off and on.” A single molecule of the explosive material would set off the sensor.

Strano and his team published their work Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The ion-mobility spectrometers currently used to spot bombs in U.S. airports are “poor machines,” says Ray von Wandruszka, chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Idaho, who’s worked on atmospheric explosive detection since 1989. The spectrometers typically detect chemicals in the “low parts per billion” range. Strano’s sensor would be vastly more sensitive.

If it works, that is.

Neither von Wandruszka nor his colleague at the university, Patrick Jerzy Hrdlicka, have read Strano’s paper. But Hrdlicka is intrigued.

“Single-molecule detection is clearly interesting and something people are striving for these days,” Hrdlicka says. “Surely that’s going to be a very interesting result, provided their sensor technology is reproducible, easy to commercialize, easy to use, and so on.”

Indeed, if so, there’s a market for it that extends far beyond the airports. The threat from homemade bombs to troops at war has prompted billions in spending over the last decade.

But the state of the art technology is still a dog’s nose, according to the Pentagon’s anti-bomb squad — which is why the Navy SEALs took a canine companion along when raiding Osama bin Laden’s house.

Explosives-detection tech modeled on a dog’s nose is also the claim to fame of the director of the Pentagon’s blue-sky research agency, Regina Dugan. (It’s also what her family firm, RedXDefense has controversial contracts with Darpa to study.)

Nanoscience isn’t even the most baroque method of explosives detection around. A biologist at Colorado State University is breeding plants that change color in the presence of bomb materials.

There are limits, though. Von Wandruszka thinks a sensor that sniffs down to a single molecule would be subject to false positives. And while the sensor doesn’t have a “clear distance after which it can’t be used,” Strano says, it’s meant more for “looking for contaminated surfaces” — not remote detection.

At the same time, while Strano’s sensor isn’t designed for detecting explosive compounds at a distance, there’s a simple engineering solution: Make the device mobile.

It’s an engineering and finance problem to get the sensor mobile, Strano figures, a matter of shrinking down an infrared microscope that can see the sensor’s flickering signal. Because his work has been funded by the Army’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT, he might be able to find some deep-pocket sponsors who’d be interested in taking it mobile.

“If you walked through the airport after a shower, you’d be dripping wet,” he explains. “Anyone you touch or brushed up against would get a little bit wet. That can help me follow everyone you’ve touched. But if I get closer to where you are, I’ll find a lot of wetness.” Beats having your junk touched.

Photo: Los Alamos National Laboratory

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Army set to enhance counter-IED training for Soldiers


U.S. soldiers conduct training on Fort Pickett's convoy live fire training lane and IED defeat lane (Photo: U.S. Army)

08:40 GMT, May 30, 2011 WASHINGTON | Three years after development of counter-improvised explosive device training lanes, the Army is poising itself to standardize and enhance the technology that helps Soldiers defeat the signature weapon in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 39 training lanes are located at 37 Army installations around the world and help Soldiers build the skills they need to detect and defeat IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers learn the basics on a computer, called Virtual Battlespace, before going to the field.

"This will replicate the area of operations as closely as we can get it here in the United States," said Donald Karcher, chief of operational counter IED training at Training and Doctrine Command. "This can increase the realism of training."

The lanes were originally funded by the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization in 2008 and were designed by each installation and tailored to their specific needs. The lanes were turned over to the Army for sustainment and soon TRADOC will start to examine how to standardize the lanes and update the training software, said Karcher.

That standardization will create a baseline of competencies that each lane must train Soldiers on and will mandate certain types of training scenarios, he said.

Computer-simulation training happens before the Soldiers take to the lanes and makes training more efficient, said Karcher. In the classroom, an entire company can learn how to clear a route by using interconnected monitors. If something goes wrong, the unit can stop and discuss the learning points as they go.

Once on the lanes, the Soldiers use the skills learned in the classroom to detect IEDs along a route that is built to look like a village in southeast Asia. If a unit fails to identify a training IED, an effects simulator is triggered and pyrotechnics and loud noises follow.

"You can't simulate a real blast, but we try our best to prepare the Soldier," said Ron Doxtrader, a counter-IED training specialist with TRADOC.

With the lanes located at home installations, units don't have to travel far to become proficient in counter IED tactics.

"The whole point is to give them the home station capability so the first time that they see this training is not at a [National Training Center] location or a mission-rehearsal exercise," said Donald Gregg, program analyst at Headquarters Department of the Army, Training Simulations and Systems.

The fact that the lanes are always accessible to a unit preparing for a deployment gives unit commanders the opportunity to tailor training to the Soldiers strengths and weaknesses. In the end, that just means better training and, perhaps, faster reaction time.

"We want these lanes to prepare the units to go to NTC and it works with that and closes the loop," said Karcher. "If we are aware of what units are doing well or having problems with at the NTC, we can convey that to the lanes and prepare the units."

The lanes are based at major Army installations in the United States, two in Germany and one in Korea. There are also lanes available for National Guard and Reserve training at mobilization sites.

----
Sarah M. Rivette / Army News Service

[buglerbilly]

UK Operation Panama active in Afghanistan

June 02, 2011

The UK armed forces' latest unmanned initiative went operational in Afghanistan this week under the codename 'Operation Panama', defence sources have revealed.

Comprising approximately a dozen unmanned Snatch Land Rovers and associated sensor suites and data links, sources told Shephard that the vehicles were now working in conjunction with other manned land platforms as part of 'Operation Talisman'- the UK effort designed to counter IEDs.

Sources said a single system, consisting of two Snatch UGVs and ground control station, were working in each of the six Talisman teams which already comprise two Buffalo Rummage and four Mastiff 'Protected Eyes' vehicles; two micro air vehicles; two HMEEs; and two Talon UGVs. It is understood that the MoD has a total of six Talisman teams in operation as part of a £260m programme.

A source said: 'Talisman is providing positive effect in theatre to enable safe passage, thereby allowing more taskings to be met. It also provides surveillance at distance with base protection an emerging requirement.'

As part of a £15m contract, sources said the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) had selected a MIRA unmanned Snatch ahead of offerings from BAE Systems and Marshall Land Systems. With additional integration of specialist equipment from Thales UK and Exponent, the UGVs were originally slated to deploy in March following extensive field trials in Jordan last year. Shephard is unable to specify particular sensor payloads due to operational security implications.

Meanwhile, the MoD is still compiling a business case for the use of UGVs for base protection. Options include Israeli company G-Nius's AvantGuard system with small systems such as Dragon Runner offering potential for situation awareness, ISR and counter-IED capabilities.

MIRA remote-control technology is fitted to the Snatch Land Rovers allowing it to be driven by operators within a convoy. Sources said the vehicle could also be easily reverted back into a manned platform for use inside bases such as Camp Bastion in Afghanistan's Helmand province. However, sources said concept of operations for the system were continually evolving.

Andrew White, London

[buglerbilly]

The Secret History of Iraq’s Invisible War

By Noah Shachtman June 14, 2011 | 4:00 am



In the early years of the Iraq war, the U.S. military developed a technology so secret that soldiers would refuse to acknowledge its existence, and reporters mentioning the gear were promptly escorted out of the country. That equipment – a radio-frequency jammer – was upgraded several times, and eventually robbed the Iraq insurgency of its most potent weapon, the remote-controlled bomb. But the dark veil surrounding the jammers remained largely intact, even after the Pentagon bought more than 50,000 units at a cost of over $17 billion.

Recently, however, I received an unusual offer from ITT, the defense contractor which made the vast majority of those 50,000 jammers. Company executives were ready to discuss the jammer – its evolution, and its capabilities. They were finally able to retell the largely-hidden battles for the electromagnetic spectrum that raged, invisibly, as the insurgencies carried on. They were prepared to bring me into the R&D facility where company technicians were developing what could amount to the ultimate weapon of this electromagnetic war: a tool that offers the promise of not only jamming bombs, but finding them, interrupting GPS signals, eavesdropping on enemy communications, and disrupting drones, too. The first of the these machines begins field-testing next month.

On a fist-clenchingly cold winter morning, I took a train across the Hudson River to the secret jammer lab.

Tucked behind a Target and an Olive Garden knock-off, the flat, anonymous office building gives no hint of what’s inside. Nor do the blank, fluorescent-lit halls. But open a door off of one of those halls, and people start screaming.

“Screens off!” barks a man with a fullback’s build. “Turn off the test equipment!” On the ceiling, a yellow alarm light flashes and spins — the sign that someone without a security clearance is in a classified facility.



Afghan militants began attacking U.S. troops with improvised explosive devices in the first days after the October 2001 invasion. By early ‘02, al-Qaida bomb-makers were cramming radio frequency receivers and simple digital signal decoders into the bases of Japan InstaLite fluorescent lamps. Then they’d connect the two-and-a-half inch wide lamp bases to firing circuits, and to Soviet-era munitions. The result was a crude, radio-controlled weapon dubbed the “Spider” by the Americans. With it, an attacker could wait for his prey, set off the bomb at just the right moment — and never have to worry about getting caught. When the explosion happened, he’d be hundreds of yards away.

Worse, U.S. forces had no way of blocking the Spider’s triggering signal. Military bomb squads carried around a few half-assed jammers. But they couldn’t be mounted on vehicles, “and they were too weak to provide protection beyond a few yards,” Rick Atkinson notes in his exquisite history, Left of Boom: The Struggle to Defeat Roadside Bombs.

Navy engineers hustled to build something a little stronger, and a little more portable. By November of 2002, they had a jammer called Acorn that was hard-wired to stop Spiders. It wasn’t much. As a so-called “active jammer,” the Acorn put out a relatively-indiscriminate “barrage signal” that ate up power and generated all kinds of interference. That kept its effective radiated power — the amount of signal hitting any one bomb receiver — low. The signal was so weak, the jammer had to be left on and screaming constantly. Otherwise, troops would be inside the bomb’s danger radius before they ever had a chance to block it. Worse, it could only block the specific receivers used in Spiders. If the bombers switched frequencies, the countermeasure would be useless.

Meanwhile, the Army looked for ways to modify its Shortstop Electronic Protection System, designed to shield troops from artillery and mortar fire. This was a so-called “reactive” countermeasure. It monitored the airwaves, listening for one of the radio signals used by the munitions’ proximity fuses. Once the countermeasure heard that signal, Shortstop recorded it, modified it, and then blasted it back at the munition. By confusing the weapons with their own signals, Shortstop could fool the shells into prematurely detonating.

The soldiers tweaked the Shortstop to scan for radio-controlled bombs’ triggering frequencies, and to rely on a Humvee’s power supply. “The wife of one Fort Monmouth engineer collected miniature kitchen witches that inspired a new name for the device: Warlock Green,” Atkinson recounts.

Five Warlock Greens accompanied U.S. forces into Iraq in March, 2003. By mid-summer, there were 100 jammers in the warzone. It wasn’t nearly enough. Iraq’s militants had learned from their compatriots in Afghanistan, and were setting off remotely-detonated explosives everywhere.



Just like the first turn of this improvised explosive device (IED) war, the electronic countermeasures were having trouble keeping up with the bombs. It took Warlock Green, ultimately manufactured by the EDO Corporation, a couple of seconds to record, modify, and rebroadcast a triggering signal. An insurgent bomber could set off an explosive in a few fractions of a second, if he had a simple, low-powered trigger, like a garage door opener. The jammer didn’t have time to catch up.

The jammers could only cover a small slice of the radio frequency spectrum. Whenever the insurgents should change triggers — from say, door openers to key fobs — the jammer-makers would have to go back to the drawing board. Warlock Greens could be reprogrammed, within limits. The Acorns couldn’t; the new threats rendered them useless.

“Every time we put a countermeasure in the field – especially with Warlock – they were able to outstrip it,” says Paul Mueller, a long-time defense executive, who supervised jammer-building operations at EDO and at the ITT Corporation. “They were a step ahead of us.”

But with insurgents setting off 50 IEDs a week, even the step-behind jammers were better than no jammers at all. By May 1, 2004 — one year to the day since President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations — the improvised bombs had wounded more than 2,000 American troops in Iraq. The IEDs killed 57 servicemembers in April alone, and injured another 691. “IEDs are my number-one threat in Iraq. I want a full-court press on IEDs,” Gen. John Abizaid, then the top military commander in the Middle East, wrote in a June 2004 memo.

In the early fall of 2004, the Army signed a contract for 1,000 Warlocks. By March, 2005, the Army upped that order to 8,000 jammers. It was a high-tech, electromagnetic surge. And it was meant to send the militants sliding back down the scale of sophistication. “If somebody can sit a click [kilometer] away with a radio and target our guys, we’ve got almost no ability to get him,” says a source familiar with the jammer buildup. “But if he’s doing the Wile E. Coyote thing, and pushing down that plunger, at least we’ve got some chance to shoot him before he gets it down.”

All the big defense contractors — and lots of little ones — got into the electronic countermeasure business. The Marines bought one model; the Army another; Special Operations Forces, a third. The Army began buying Warlock Reds — small, active jammers that blocked out the low-powered triggers that Warlock Green couldn’t stop in time. Warlock Blue was a wearable jammer, to protect the infantryman on patrol. Each countermeasure had its shortcomings; Warlock Blue, for instance, was “a half-watt jammer at a time when some engineers suspected that 50 watts might be too weak,” Atkinson notes. But no commander could afford to wait for a perfect, common bomb-stopper; too many men were getting blown up. By May 1, 2005, the number of U.S. troops wounded by the bombs had climbed to more than 7,700.

There were drawbacks to throwing all those countermeasures into the field at once. Warlock Green would sometimes mistake Warlock Red’s signal for an enemy’s, and go after it. That would lock the jammers in a so-called “deadly embrace,” cancelling one another out.

When the Warlocks were operational, they wreaked havoc with both the remote-controlled robots that were supposed to handle bombs at a safe distance and the radios soldiers used to warn each other about upcoming threats. Warlock Red “prevented communications” from three of the Army’s most common radio systems, according to a classified report released by WikiLeaks. The report recommended keeping radios and countermeasures in different vehicles to prevent the “electronic fratricide.” Of course, that meant a soldier with a jammer in his Humvee was cut off from the rest of his convoy.

For reporters, pointing out these drawbacks — in fact, pointing out anything about the jammers — risked a swift military response. In Baghdad, a top official with the Joint IED Task Force called me an al-Qaida ally for putting together a Wired.com report on counter-IED technologies based on other publicly-available information. A few months later, David Axe mentioned the Warlocks in a post for Defensetech.org from Iraq. Shortly after the post went live, Axe was detained, and was promptly thrown out of the country.

Even more secret were the flights of the jammers in the sky. The Navy’s EA-6 Prowlers could not only block triggering signals; they could remotely detonate the bombs, as well. But they had to be very, very careful. U.S. vehicles equipped with jammers had to get off of the roads, or risk the deadliest embrace of all. Pilots had to make sure that civilians were nowhere nearby, when they set the bombs off.

Despite the hiccups, the jammers were saving lives — including, I believe, my own.



In July of 2005, I found myself at a rubble-strewn intersection of two highways, not far from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal team I was traveling with called this place the “Death X,” because of all the attacks nearby. The bomb squad was called out to the area because of a suspicious package — a package that turned out to be nothing more than a balled-up pair of pants. But on the way back from the incident, our Humvee rolled over an artillery shell, buried in the highway’s middle lane and wired to a radio. An improvised bomb.

The IED didn’t go off, for reasons that weren’t completely clear. The Death X bomber might have gotten cold feet. More likely, one of Warlocks in the Humvee prevented him from detonating the weapon.

That same day, I took a Black Hawk ride to the town of Mahmudiya, just south of Baghdad. At the outpost there, I met Staff Sgt. Johnnie Mason (pictured), who showed off the cordless phone than nearly killed him. It was wired to a series of artillery shells, and stuffed under a row of human corpses, rotting by a canal in the 118 degree heat.

When Mason — a lanky, 31 year-old Texan with big brown eyes and a goofy smile — came across the bomb, he wanted to puke into his Kevlar protective suit. The dead bodies, they smelled like catfish bait. But there was no time to heave. Mason knew the weapon was live, and that he was outside his Warlock’s protective bubble. He figured he only had a moment or two to act before a bomber remotely detonated his device. So Mason jumped behind a three-foot berm, and crouched into a fetal position before the shock wave hit him. “It was too fast for me to think, ‘Oh God, I’m gonna die,’” Mason said. “It was just instant fear.”

The bomb was less than twenty feet away when it went off. Dirt flew up. Shards of bomb zipped through the air. The shockwave knocked Mason over. But he was intact, somehow.

Mason’s partner, Pfc. Brian James, ran over. “Are you alright?” he yelled. “Where you at?”

“I’m in Iraq, Brook!” Mason shouted back. Brook was his wife’s name.

Mason sat down for fifteen minutes, drank some water. And then he went right back to the bodies. Before the explosion, he noticed a second shell, 20 meters away. So Mason took a couple pounds of C4 plastic explosive to demolish the thing. “I still had a job to do,” he told me.

Five months later, on the 19th of December, Mason found himself on another highway, responding to another suspicious package call. His team stumbled on another IED, practically beneath their feet. Insurgents were routinely luring bomb squads with one weapon in an attempt to kill them with the second. In this case, the tactic worked.

Mason told everyone to clear out of the way while he tried to disarm the device. Then the bomb went off.

Johnnie Mason was buried at Arlington Cemetery on January 10, 2006.



2006 rolled on. The insurgency in Iraq got worse. Much worse. The number of troops wounded by bombs hit 15,000, and kept going. Explosively formed projectiles — bombs that shot out jet of molten, armor-piercing metal — went from a macabre curiosity to something like a staple of the insurgent arsenal. There seemed to be no end to the carnage.

Militant bombmakers increasingly turned to long range cordless telephones and cell phones for their triggers. That was a serious issue. The digital devices were built to overcome dropped packets, reflected signals, and transmission errors. Warlock Green’s trick of fooling a trigger with its own, modified signal didn’t work. The gadgets were used to the hiccups.

Behind the scenes, however, there were signs of improvement. The Navy sent to Iraq hundreds of electronic warfare specialists, to bring the cacophony produced by 14 kinds of jammers into some sort of harmony. Protocols were established, to allow one device to send its signal and then go silent for a few milliseconds, so another gadget could broadcast; that allowed Warlock Red and Warlock Green to be packaged into a single, combination unit. The ‘deadly embrace’ between the jammers began to loosen. The Pentagon’s IED task force became the Joint IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, with a $3.6 billion annual budget to tame the homemade bomb threat. Mongtomery Meigs, the retired four-star general in charge of the organization, worked to unravel the bureaucratic tangle that tied up bomb trigger analysis. The intelligence specialists at the Combined Explosive Exploitation Cells got faster and faster at analyzing which frequencies the insurgents were using. That, in turn, allowed the jammers to be updated more quickly, so they could counter emerging threats.

Most importantly, perhaps, a new generation of jammers entered the battlefield, thanks to JIEDDO’s billions. Some, like the Marines’ Chameleon countermeasure, could cover a broad range of frequencies, from low-powered triggers (like key fobs) to high-powered ones (like walkie-talkies). In February of ‘06, the Corps announced they were buying 4,000 of the 125-pound, Humvee-mounted systems.

Warlock Duke used a technique called “set-on” jamming to overcome the more advanced digital triggers. Like Green, Duke would listen for a malicious signal. But rather than confuse a receiver with a modified version of its own signal, Duke had a series of built-in jamming responses, designed to fool very specific devices. If Duke heard a particular FM walkie-talkie, Duke would send out a specific FM spoof. It was actually a cruder technique than Green’s. And it relied on very detailed knowledge about exactly which threats were in which area. But it worked. Tens of thousands were eventually fielded. And slowly, slowly, the percentage of radio-controlled bombs as a whole began to fall. Then they began to disappear altogether.

“Electronic warfare defensive systems were instrumental in saving thousands of Soldiers and Marines from being casualties in Iraq,” emails retired Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, who led the 10th Mountain Division during its tour in Iraq at the time, and then became director of JIEDDO. “The high use of remote controlled detonation capability… was a significant and effective threat until the jammers were developed.”

By the time I returned to Iraq, in the summer of 2007, IEDs had become relics in broad swaths of the country. The insurgents had largely abandoned their tool of choice.

It was not altogether good news.



North of Baghdad, insurgents took insulated copper threads, some not much thicker than a hair, and buried them in the dust. Then they strung them out for as long as a kilometer. At one end was an insurgent triggerman. At the other, an explosively formed projectile. It was a crude approach to killing — even more primitive than those first bombs planted in Afghanistan. But it was lethally effective.

These “command wire” bombs had a fatal flaw, however. Insurgents had to stick around to set them off. That made them vulnerable to American counter-attacks and preemption. And that brought the number of bombs and bomb fatalities way down. In December of 2007, only nine U.S. troops were killed by IEDs, and another 166 were wounded. It was still an awful toll. But it was a tiny fraction of the 69 slain and 473 injured in December of 2006.

The casualty figures continued to fall as the military began to field a third generation countermeasure — one that could stomp out a huge swath of radio triggers with all sorts of jamming techniques. In April of 2007, the Pentagon signed a deal with EDO for up to 10,000 of the so-called “CVRJs.” Shortly thereafter, ITT bought EDO, and began to crank out the machines. The CVRJ held up to 15 mission loads at once, quadrupled the number of simultaneous channels it could jam on, and doubled the spectral coverage of pre-existing systems. More importantly, the CVRJ could be reprogrammed on the fly: not just the frequencies it covered, but the specific responses it used to counter particular threats. “For the first time ever,” says Mueller, the EDO-turned-ITT executive, “we had a canvas to create a painting.”

That enabled CVRJ to target the most advanced triggers — the ones which relied on the latest mobile and long-range cordless phones. The new phones hopped between frequencies and spread their signal across the spectrum to overcome interference. That made them much harder to jam. But the phones have a potential flaw. They relied on software protocols to establish connections between transmitter and receiver. Those protocols could be spoofed, keeping the connection from ever happening. That is, if you had a fully programmable countermeasure, like CVRJ.

In the broadest sense, the strategy behind the U.S. jammer buildup had succeeded. Thanks to the Americans’ bleeding edge technologies, the militants had dropped back down the ladder of sophistication. They were now taking the Wile E. Coyote approach — pushing down the plunger to detonate the bomb — and suffering for it. “That was the whole intent of the program: pushing the enemy back to archaic means,” says a source familiar with the effort. “So they’d actually have to face you and fight you.”

In Afghanistan, however, the terrain favored the low tech. All the gadgets the Americans had bought and built for Iraq proved largely worthless against a new slew of throwback threats. The bombs were largely made of wood and fertilizer, making them practically invisible to metal detectors. No command wires were needed to set them off; just the pressure of an unlucky boot. The placement of the bombs added to their effectiveness. The U.S. military’s new hard-shelled, blast-deflecting vehicles were built for Iraq’s well-paved roads. So the insurgents put their explosives in the gullies and the mud paths, where the trucks were useless. The bomb-handling robots couldn’t handle the rough terrain, either. And, during the summer, the weather was so hot, EOD technicians didn’t even bother wearing their protective suits.

As the fighting grew more intense — and the U.S.-led coalition poured more troops into the Afghan campaign — the total number of bombs there crept up, from 1,931 in 2006 to 3,276 in 2008. By July, 2010, that figure had reached nearly 1,400 explosives found or detonated a month. It’s stayed about that high ever since.

The deaths and injuries caused by these bombs continued to mount, as well. In July 2008, 25 American troops were wounded by Afghan IEDs. In July 2009, that figure was 174. In July 2010, the number was 378 injured — about 15 times higher than the casualty count from two years before.

JIEDDO shifted its focus to compensate. Jammers alone weren’t going to do much against these no-tech weapons. The organization spent more on surveillance and intelligence analysts, trying to find ways to crack apart Afghanistan’s IED networks.

But even if those networks are shredded tomorrow, there’s a sense in the Pentagon that the improvised bomb has now become a permanent threat. Over the last six months, there’s been an average of 245 jury-rigged explosives found or detonated — outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. The IED has gone global.



The lab where ITT engineers work on the fifth generation of bomb-stoppers looks like a schoolroom — from the desks facing the front of the room to the guy with the ponytail and circular glasses delivering the lecture. Behind the guy — he’s an engineer, not an English prof — are two screens. One shows a CGI version of a jammer’s guts: the amplifiers, the transceivers, what have you. The other screen shows a map of a military base, covered in red and green. It shows how the countermeasure might perform with that configuration.

The Pentagon can’t afford any more to crank out yet another stop-gap countermeasure for yet another kind of bomb. So the military is instead backing the development of a jammer that can be used anywhere, and for years to come. The system is awkwardly known as Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare 3.3. An initial batch of 21 of these JCREW machines are supposed to ship to the military in July for field testing. If it passes those trials, among other hurdles, up to 20,000 of the uber jammers could eventually be built.

But before it gets into troops’ hands, the countermeasure gets simulated here. Lower the antenna from 15 feet to five makes more red splotches appear on the map, indicating gaps in jammer coverage. Add a bigger amplifier, and some of the red goes away.

ITT has bigger ambitions for its JCREW machine than simple bomb-blocking. Step through a door, and there’s a more traditional-looking electronics workroom: cable-strewn benches, and machines stacked head-high. Guys with soldering irons connect wires to boxey machines. The goal here isn’t to see how the countermeasures block signals. It’s to see how they talk to one another. There’s a JCREW jammer designed for vehicles, another for individual troops, and a third to protect bases. All of the machines are meant to work together.

The JCREW 3.3s are supposed to be fully networkable, and able to communicate over the military’s wireless battlefield networks. That should save them some power and interference– if you’ve got four jammers in a convoy, for instance, one can silence a receiver while the other three quiet down. Or maybe that jammer can spot the threat, record its signal and location, and transmit that information back to headquarters. In that way, the new machine becomes more than a single bomb-beater. The system might help track down the explosives, and the guys who planted them. It could be configured to listen in on communications — those cell phones are for more than triggering explosives, after all. Hell, if the machines are passing data back and forth, they could work as radios themselves, in theory.

With proper power management and frequency coordination, the new JCREW could have a whole new range of “potential targets,” according to a company briefing. Those include “information systems and infrastructure,” drones, communications grids, sensors, “position, navigation and timing capabilities” (that’s shorthand for GPS signals), as well as “aircraft, vehicles, ships, troops.” In other words: everything.

For now, these are just ideas, not orders. “It’s all on the roadmap, potentially,” Mueller says. “How much we actually do remains to be seen.”

But one thing is for sure: it’s a long way from stopping crude triggers, stuffed into disposable lamps. It’s a long way from frantically tweaking electronics in the hope of somehow keeping thirty soldiers a day from being blown up. It’s a long way from the near decade-long fight against remote-controlled bombs in which the enemy had the advantage of being the first mover. This may be the chance to get ahead, before the next wave of terror weapons hits.

Photos: USMC, Wikimedia, Noah Shachtman, ITT

[buglerbilly]

UV Europe 2011: Unmanned Snatch a work in progress

June 15, 2011

More work is required to fine tune 'Operation Panama', the UK Ministry of Defence's unmanned Snatch Land Rover solution for the Talisman route-clearing capability, according to a senior British Army officer.

Speaking at the UV Europe conference in Brussels, Maj Thomas Donohoe, HQ 29 EOD and Search Group, confirmed the system was now deployed in Afghanistan although he conceded that there were a 'number of issues'.

'We are not 100 per cent clear on its capability,' he said. 'There is more work to be done but at least we are in the right ball park to get a mounted system to detect and prevent my soldiers dismounting.'

Comprising approximately a dozen unmanned Snatch Land Rovers and undisclosed sensor suites and data links, the vehicles are now working in conjunction with other manned land platforms.

Sources said a single system, consisting of two Snatch UGVs and ground control station, were working in each of the six Talisman teams which already comprise two Buffalo Rummage and four Mastiff 'Protected Eyes' vehicles; two micro unmanned air vehicles (MUAV); two HMEEs; and two Talon UGVs. It is understood that the MoD has a total of six Talisman teams in operation as part of a £260m programme. Donohoe said the Land Rovers were being towed behind a Buffalo Rummage platform.

Op Panama vehicles are designed to replace dismounted search parties, which according to Donohoe, could cover as little as 500 metres in two hours in particularly high risk areas.

Donohoe was describing Talisman operations during Operation Herrick 12 in 2010 which included defeating devices, force protection and mentoring of Afghan National Security Forces.

Conducting 40 separate tasks over the six-month tour, Donohoe said missions spanned Talisman's 'entire array of CONOPS [concept of operations]' and explained how Viking all-terrain vehicles were used to secure the high ground, allowing Talisman troops to move through an area of operations followed by the combat logistics patrol a 'tactical bound' behind. The latter, he said, could comprise anything up to 15km.

Utilised for both defensive and offensive operations, such as ensuring safe passage for coalition forces conducting strike operations as well as 'shaping the battlefield', Donohoe described how his Talisman troop conducted tasks throughout the whole of Helmand province from Camp Bastion.

'Terrain, threat and going vary significantly across the area of operations and in the South there was more restrictive terrain and it was difficult to avoid any vulnerable points,' he explained.

'Most enemy actions were identifiable', Donohoe continued whilst describing ground sign associated with IEDs. 'Through training, our search advisors identified potential IEDs in the ground and if possible we would avoid it and if necessary do something about it. Lessons were learned and hits were taken.'

Sub-systems carried as part of the Talisman troop also performed well, he said, with the Talon UGV providing the clearance capability: 'It is because of this [UGV] that we were able to conduct our mission. It was the mechanical means [to deliver] whatever weapon system we required and similar to tactics used in Northern Ireland,' he continued although he was unable to provide more details on existing TTPs.

During Op Herrick 12, Donohoe's Talisman team lost a single MUAV during the tour although he described it as a 'very noisy, capable beast'.

'We would send it ahead of search teams to suspected or known vulnerable points to cue assets or call in others to provide better eyes on. When it went up, the atmospherics in the area changed immensely and we could get down to within two feet of suspect devices,' he said. However, Donohoe conceded that the air vehicle did suffer from a low wind threshold.

[I] Andrew White, Brussels

[buglerbilly]

UK still trusts aged systems for EOD missions

June 29, 2011

Reflecting on the UK's experiences in conflicts such as Northern Ireland, a military official has argued that the fundamental concept of EOD ROV deployment in theatre is the same now as it was then.

Speaking at the Military Robotics conference in London on 28 June, Lt Col Andy Stevens of the UK Defence Academy, outlined how one of the first ROVs used in the Northern Ireland conflict in 1972, the Wheelbarrow, is still as important in theatres such as Iraq and Afghanistan, as it was then.

Stevens told Shephard that in order to understand and advance the technologies currently being deployed, the UK must look at the platforms that were 'really simple', yet still adaptable today.

He referred to UK's principles when it comes to ROV usage, such as you should 'always put a robot into harm's way', and in order to demonstrate that you are a 'force for good', the UK-centric approach was to leave as little collateral damage as possible.

The 'hugely versatile beast' that is the Wheelbarrow has survived until now because of important, yet simple, features.

'The option for cables should always be there in uncertain theatres', as on the Wheelbarrow, otherwise human intervention is necessary and negates the advantage of using an unmanned system.

The Wheelbarrow can also have a range of utilities attached to it, such as a scalpel or a claw to open doors, and this is something that is being lost through the current trend of using one uniform system.

'We are going down the route of one size fits all, but I'm afraid it doesn't,' Stevens said.

He said that in order to provide the right balance of capabilities, there needed to be a complete range of system types, and he pointed out that the US is now 'ripping off trigger systems and cutting off components', because they had not got the balance right in the first place.

Maintenance of these systems was also paramount, and the Joint Robotics Repair Detachment at Victory Base Complex in Baghdad, which repaired some 1,800 ROVs from April 2009 until April 2010, is an example of the prevalence of such systems in theatre.

To increase the life-cycle of its Wheelbarrow systems, the UK has painted the ROVs white to reflect heat away from the system. The UK MoD is also eagerly awaiting the delivery of its new 'radically different' Cutlass system, which will be employed during the London Olympic Games in 2012.

Beth Stevenson, London

[buglerbilly]

Canadian Army plans for expansion of UGV capabilities

June 29, 2011

The Canadian Army is planning on adding two new UGVs to its family of EOD devices in an effort to continue the re-establishment of its EOD ROV capability.

After 'giving up' on UGVs in 1995, the army has been moving towards re-developing its UGV capability, James Hewitt, director of combat support equipment management for the Canadian Forces, told the Military Robotics conference in London on 28 June.

Working under a $(CAD)700 million equipment budget over eight years, the army plans to purchase two new UGVs to add to the four systems currently in service.

'We're building an inventory. That re-establishment is what's really costing us,' Hewitt told the conference.

'You've got to spend a long time preparing for the introduction of the equipment. Basic UGV platforms do not change much, what does change are sensor packages, tools and accessories.'

The tender for the first - for a dismounted operations UGV system - is expected to be released by the end of 2011, and the requirements will include: a 5kg weight; the system to be throwable; the ability to fit into a soldier's backpack; good camera outfit; and the ability to fire a recoilless disruptor.

The second tender for a chemical, biological, reconnaissance, and nuclear (CBRN) reconnaissance UGV is expected at the end of 2012 and will call for a 75-100kg platform, which will therefore require a two or three man operation.

The specifications for this UGV include: a CBRN and explosive sensing payload; a narrow and low profile platform; the ability to climb stairs; 22 systems; the ability to work in conjunction with the forces' Multi Agent Tactical Sentry (MATS) system; and a high-quality manipulator.

Canada introduced the first Pedsco Remote Mechanical Investigator in 1982, which was in service until 2010. After this a new family was introduced as a result of the air force and navy requesting new systems in 2003.

Two contracts were awarded, one to Telerob for 58 tEODor systems, and one to Allen-Vanguard for 51 of its Vanguard Mk2 ROV. The forces also have the MATS system, and the Remotely Operated Mechanical Explosive Clearance System (ROMECS).

Hewitt said that since dissolving its remote EOD capability, the Canadian Army was finding it 'extremely difficult and extremely expensive' to re-establish the capability, and he warned other militaries to not ever give up an EOD programme.

A study conducted by the army into the future of unmanned systems, completed in May, found that the short-term vision was limited because the army was 'not conducive to the large scale use of UGVs at present', Hewitt said.

The medium-term vision was to see the gradual introduction of UGVs in order to 'socialise' troops to them, and the long-term vision was to replace humans in high-risk tasks.

Hewitt told Shephard that in 1995 the army had decided that this capability was a police function, but the air force and navy retained a few capabilities in case they were needed during maritime port missions.

While the army now has to completely rebuild the capability, the air force and navy are also aiming to develop their capabilities, and they all hope to meet at the same level.

'We want it to be more cohesive and not as disjointed as it was before,' Hewitt said.

Beth Stevenson, London

[buglerbilly]

Army Uses Radar to Spot Suicide Bombers From 100 Yards

By Lena Groeger July 8, 2011 | 3:16 pm



The security at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel wasn’t nearly enough to stop nine suicide bombers from setting the place ablaze and killing 12 people last month. But the U.S. military thinks it can do better – by spotting treacherous individuals before they get close enough to cause serious harm. Meet the CounterBomber.

The Army just awarded Science, Engineering and Technology Corporation (SET) an up to $48.2 million contract for a machine that could spot bomb-toting individuals from afar. The Virginia-based company, owed by SAIC, has already sent the CounterBomber to over 40 locations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So just how does this $300,000 device catch would-be human explosions at a distance? Two video cameras automatically detect and track individuals walking anywhere near the system, within the range of a soccer field. Low-level radar beams are aimed at them and then reflected back to a computer, which analyzes the signals in a series of algorithms.

“We call it our ’secret sauce,’” says Rick Thornton, the director of business development at SAIC. That sauce is apparently so potent it can spot signs of bombs or weapons hidden under someone’s clothing.

It does this by comparing the radar return signal (which emits less than a cell phone) to an extensive library of “normal responses.” Those responses are modeled after people of all different shapes and sizes (SET got around to adding females in 2009). It then compares the signal to another set of “anomalous responses” – any anomaly, and horns go off. Literally.

When the computer detects a threat, it shows a red symbol and sounds a horn. No threat and the symbol turns green, greeting the operators with a pleasant piano riff. Seem pretty self-explanatory? It’s meant to be.

“We built a system so anyone coming out of chow hall can operate it.” Thornton says. “As long as you’re not color blind, you can do it.”

For those worried that those piercing radar eyes might be seeing a little too much, the system doesn’t produce any quasi-nude images, à la TSA (privacy is apparently more of a priority for SET). And while Thornton won’t reveal any numbers, he claims the accuracy is much higher than the 40% false alarm rates of airport scanners. The system also detects more than just metal – which is good, since the insurgent bomb of choice is mostly fertilizer.

Even so, this is one of the many, many attempts the U.S. military has made to counter the burgeoning use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), a major cause of soldier casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. They don’t just come strapped onto a suicide bomber’s chest, either – these make-shift weapons turn up in vehicles, buried underground, or on the roadside. Detecting a person-borne IED is just a small part of a much wider picture, one the Pentagon has poured billions of dollars into with only mixed results.

A human bomb-detecting radar contraption is a start, but this is one tough problem to solve. Secret sauce just might not cut it.

Photo: SET Corp

[buglerbilly]

A couple of Michael Yon's photo essays are worth taking a look at related to Afgan IED's.............

Low Metal Content

Bomb Tricks and Techniques in Afghanistan



Read more: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/low-metal-content.htm

The Snapper

Bomb Tricks and Techniques in Afghanistan



Read more: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/the-snapper.htm

[buglerbilly]

Toy Truck Saves Soldiers From IED

August 05, 2011

UPI

Damn good idea! AND you can bet nobody in our lot will take it up it costs too little...........sarcasm intended!

A U.S. Army sergeant says a radio-controlled toy truck given to him by his brother saved the lives of six fellow Soldiers in Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Fessenden said he's been using the tiny truck, equipped with a miniature video camera, to run ahead on patrol and look for roadside bombs, ABC News reported Thursday.

Fessenden said he's has had the truck since 2007, when his brother Ernie, a software engineer in Rochester, Minn., and Kevin Guy, the owner of the Everything Hobby shop in Rochester, rigged it with a wireless video camera and shipped it to him.

Last week, he said, it paid off when he loaned the truck to a group of Soldiers who used it to check the road ahead on a patrol.

The tiny truck hit a trip wire and set off an estimated 500 pounds of explosives. The six Soldiers, controlling the toy in their following Humvee, escaped injury.

Fessenden said the little truck had successfully located four IEDs since he first got it.

"Is it a toy?" he wrote in an e-mail to his brother. "Yeah it is ... is it fun? ... absolutely ... but the guys here take the truck very seriously when out on [a] mission."

His brother and hobby shop owner Kevin Guy said they're trying to send Chris a new truck.

"That's just unreal," said Guy when he learned of the recent incident. "That's six mothers that six guys are going home to."

© Copyright 2011 UPI. All rights reserved.

[McFriday]

[QUOTE=buglerbilly;19731]Toy Truck Saves Soldiers From IED

August 05, 2011

UPI

Damn good idea! AND you can bet nobody in our lot will take it up it costs too little...........sarcasm intended!

I intended to post this article with some commentary re. cost effectiveness, off the shelf tech, doesn't matter that it works-it's not researched enough by DARPA, doesn't come from Lockmart, GD, Boeing or BAE!

But

A: You'd already posted it.

B: Your comment says it all in much fewer words.

LOL
Mac

[buglerbilly]

Zap! Marines Cancel Lightning Gun Deal

By Sharon Weinberger August 10, 2011 | 3:55 pm



Other reports, probably more accurately, say this device doesn't work and is based on dubious technology so far as IED's are cocerned...............

Lightning gun maker Applied Energetics recently lost a $3 million contract. The reason? The Marine Corps decided the company’s device, which is meant to zap improvised bombs, just isn’t what they needed.

Marine Corps Systems Command confirmed yesterday that it had canceled a contract with Applied Energetics, as I report today in an article for the Center for Public Integrity. Ironically, this news came the same day that the company (formerly known as Ionatron) held a conference call with investors, which didn’t mention the loss of the contract.

Instead, Applied Energetics president Joe Hayden said the military was still evaluating the device.

Applied Energetics has had a tough time in recent years: They’ve been sued by shareholders, the Pentagon’s bomb-making agency stopped funding them, and their wonder tech has ended up on an eBay fire sale. The loss of the Marine Corps contract is yet another blow for the company, which has taken in over $50 million in government funding.

A series of e-mail exchanges with a spokesman for the company did not help shed light on the situation, but rather focused on the semantic difference of whether the contract had been canceled or not. “The Marine Corps did not Terminate for Convenience,” the spokesman wrote. “A Termination for Convenience comes before a contract is complete or fulfilled which did not occur.”

The Marine Corps’ explanation is clear, however. “We initiated a sole-source contract under urgent and compelling circumstances, negotiated a price and asked the vendor to take as much risk as possible in obtaining long-lead time components,” Jim Katzaman, a spokesman for Marine Corps Systems Command, wrote in an e-mail. “On the day the contract was ready for approval and signature, the commander in the field canceled the requirement.”

The government cut a $187,000 check to Applied Energetics for canceling the contract.

Image: USMC

[buglerbilly]

Army Seeks Safe Soldier Solutions Through Research

(Source: U.S Army; issued August 15, 2011)

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. --- Imagine a checkpoint where soldiers don't have to walk up to a vehicle that's been rigged to explode, but instead, they can detect the explosives at safe, standoff distances. That's the kind of technology the Army Research Laboratory, or ARL, is investing in as part of a research effort now shared with the Leonard Wood Institute in Missouri.

That technology is laser spectroscopy, which can be used for standoff explosive detection, is based on ARL's advanced research in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. It is 1980s technology that today can detect explosive threats in real time, sometimes processing agent analysis in as little as one-second. The Leonard Wood Institute work involved advancing current technology to detect such threats, including home-made explosives, beyond 20 meters.

The Leonard Wood Institute, or LWI, is a non-profit organization located at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., that was created to connect regional businesses and university expertise to Army training and technology needs. Its formal Cooperative Agreement with ARL's Human Research and Engineering Directorate allows LWI to initiate, fund, manage and participate in applied research, and build capacity to support Army innovation.

The laser spectroscopy testing launched at Fort Leonard Wood looks to be a promising way to keep soldiers out of harm's way, experts say. The newest system based on that technology, the Checkpoint Explosives Detection System, uses a multi-modal approach to detect harmful materials. The system combines ARL's laser induced breakdown spectroscopy, the ultraviolet Raman spectroscopy and Townsend effect plasma spectroscopy.

This combination could be vital in the counter-improvised explosive device, or IED, effort and thereby, saving lives in current and future counter-IED operations, said Alan Davison, chief of the Maneuver and Mobility Branch with ARL's Human Research and Engineering Directorate at the Fort Leonard Wood Institute.

U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq currently have no effective means to detect trace elements of explosives from a distance that make up the enemies' strategic weapon of choice, IEDs, which are the primary cause of death and injury to American soldiers.

Improving upon systems like this, while also using robots, keeps soldiers out of harm's way.

"One of the biggest challenges that soldiers have when operating robots is that the two-dimension computer displays they use provide very limited depth perception," Davison said. "Two-dimension displays do not provide the kind of depth perception needed to perform many military tasks."

For example, if a soldier is searching through a pile of roadside garbage for an IED using a robot, it is much more difficult to manipulate objects using the robotic arm through a 2-D computer screen because the soldier cannot perceive how deep that robot should truly dig in the garbage.

Three-dimensional visualization, however, greatly improves the soldier's ability to mentally place an object in the spatial world. ARL researchers believe that by combining the benefits of 3-D or stereo vision with tactile feedback enhanced manipulation, soldiers will be much better enabled to locate and manipulate objects associated with IEDs. This improved capability should also lead to less time in hazardous zones while working with IEDs or their components.

"Up until recently, the robotic work has focused on improving the stereo-vision. That clearly has helped the soldier see what he is trying to accomplish by manipulating the arm. But as the stereo-vision continued to improve, it became more obvious that the robotic work was still not nearly as good as human performance," said Davison.

"For example, reaching out to grab a bottle was difficult and not so much because the visual was not good but that the manipulator arm was hard to control."

He said an ARL experiment, planned for September 2011, will combine a tactile feedback (haptic) manipulator arm that operates much more like the human hand with some force feedback through the manipulator to the controller in the soldier's hand, with a 3-D stereo vision system.

"While robotics are probably a long way from approaching human performance in many tasks, if we can close this gap, we can improve what a soldier can do with a robot and reduce the time in the most dangerous conditions."

Soldiers in combat today often get up close and personal to dangerous objects, and use hand-held devices with sensors to detect all metallic and nonmetallic antitank and antipersonnel mines. That technology, the AN/PSS-14, combines ground penetrating radar and highly sensitive metal detector technology using advanced data fusion algorithms.

This combination allows the system to detect anti-personnel and anti-tank mines but operators of this eight-pound hand-held device need refresher training about every 60 days or less on well-prepared training terrains. Researchers from ARL, LWI, industry and academia have developed a device that can effectively bring refresher training to operators in a small, indoor environment, which is a quick-fix to locations where the more traditional training sites are not always available, and are expensive to set up.

The team developed two landmine detection training simulators -- including all hardware and software -- that are similar to the AN/PSS-14 landmine detector. The system uses two cameras, which wirelessly transmit information to a laptop via Bluetooth technology.

The training device, they say, offers an efficient, low-cost way to provide realistic landmine detection training for soldiers, allowing the trainer to give valuable, real-time feedback to equipment operators. Training with this new device can be conducted inside, in only a small area. While it is not designed or expected to completely replace the traditional training on outdoor lanes, it can provide an opportunity for badly needed refresher training.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

RE2, Inc. Wins Multiple Contracts to Develop Robotic Technologies for AEODRS

(Source: RE2, Inc.; issued August 16, 2011)

PITTSBURGH, PA --- RE2, Inc. announced today that it has been competitively selected to develop multiple technology components for the First Increment of the Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robotic System (AEODRS) for Joint Service Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams managed by the Naval Surface Warfare Center EOD Technology Division (NAVEODTECHDIV).

RE2 will be developing the Manipulator Arm, End-Effector, End-Effector Interface, and the Master Capability Module for the dismounted class of AEODRS robots.

Currently, robotic systems for explosive ordnance disposal are developed and manufactured by several different companies. According to NAVEODTECHDIV, these robots utilize different architectures, disparate user interfaces, and lack a common controller, making training difficult and fielding upgrades expensive.

The goal of the AEODRS program is to develop a family of interoperable and interchangeable robotic systems that employs Open Architecture, enables robust multi-manufacturer innovation, allows for upward and downward compatibility, supports emerging technologies, and ultimately reduces the cost of EOD robots.

"By encouraging open architecture and seeking next-generation innovation, AEODRS allows small businesses such as RE2 to participate in programs of record and ensure that emerging technologies make it to the field," stated Jorgen Pedersen, president and CEO of RE2. "We are honored to have been selected and entrusted to develop multiple components of the dismounted class system and are dedicated to ensure that the AEODRS program succeeds."

RE2 has been selected to develop the following robotic components:

--Manipulator Arm:
RE2 will leverage its proven, modular, power-dense, highly-controllable manipulator arm designs to develop a light-weight, affordable, robotic arm with a high strength-to-weight ratio for the AEODRS dismounted platform.

--End-Effector:
RE2 will develop an affordable, light-weight, two-fingered gripper end-effector that will be easily mounted on the end of the Manipulator Arm. The end-effector strongly leverages RE2's existing electro-mechanical design experience in developing robust, cutting-edge tools for manipulator arms.

--End-Effector Interface:
RE2 will develop a family of end-effector interfaces to allow for tool-less, manual and automatic coupling and communication between the End-Effector and Manipulator Arm. The creation of a robust, standardized interface between these modules is critical in the realization of a modular family of robotic components.

--Master Capability Module:
RE2 will develop the master communications capability module for the AEODRS dismounted platform. The Master Capability Module strongly leverages RE2's history of JAUS development, software engineering, and system integration.

"Interoperability is the end result of a system based on open architecture and open interface standards," stated Keith Gunnett, vice president of engineering for RE2. "Robotic systems that can easily communicate will accelerate integration, allow for rapid insertion of enhancements and upgrades, and ultimately lower system costs -- ensuring a more reliable and robust solution for EOD operators."

These AEODRS contracts equate to the creation of additional high-tech and manufacturing jobs for the Pittsburgh region. RE2 has more than doubled its staff over the past eighteen months and anticipates continued growth to support the AEODRS program. RE2's participation in the AEODRS program further strengthens Western Pennsylvania as one of the world's premier regions for the development of robotics technology.

RE2 is a leading developer of Intelligent Modular Manipulation Systems. RE2's mission is to advance the state of the art of mobile manipulation. RE2's development efforts are focused on creating plug-n-play manipulation systems and end-effectors that are interoperable with existing and next-generation robotic platforms. RE2's products include the RE2 Family of Manipulators, RE2 Family of Quick Releases, ForeRunner UGV, and Robotics Engineering Services.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

AUVSI: Remotec introduces Titus

August 17, 2011



Northrop Grumman subsidiary Remotec unveiled a new member of its Andros family of UGVs at Unmanned Systems North America on 16 August.

Speaking at the event the company president, Mike Knopp said that the new vehicle, Titus, satisfied the demand for a UGV that was lighter, faster, stronger and more intelligent. At 120 lbs the UGV is smaller than the company's existing Andros vehicles, but offers more capability.

'It's important that product be able to fit in to a tight space,' Knopp stated. 'It's significantly different from what you've seen from Remotec in the past.' The Titus is 27 in long and 16 in wide.

The company designed Titus so that it can complete a variety of missions. Attention was put in to ensuring the UGV, which can be fitted with both wheels and tracks, could traverse tough terrain such as mud and sand. The wheel and track design includes a self-bailing system to assist with particularly tough conditions.

The vehicle, with a base speed of 7.5 mph, is also significantly faster than the other UGVs in the Andros family. 'First responders need to get down range fast,' Knopp explained. In the wheeled configuration the vehicle is actually capable of speeds of up to 15 mph.

To enable better control of the vehicle the engineering team has developed a software assisted drive control system. The system includes 'terrafillic behaviours' that allow the vehicle to make adjustments to the terrain its traversing.

The vehicle can be controlled at a range of up to 500m non-line of sight utilising the PC-based, software operated OCU.

'At the heart of Titus is its intelligence and electronics,' Knopp stated. Titus' electronics are open architecture allowing the UGV to incorporate a variety of payloads on a plug and play basis.

The company says its is aiming to be able to begin deliveries of Titus in the third quarter of 2012 with an expected unit price in the region of $115-130,000.

Darren Lake, Washington, DC

[buglerbilly]

Cobham to Supply Spanish Armed Forces with Three Additional EOD Robots

(Source: Cobham; issued August 17, 2011)



ARLINGTON, Virginia --- Cobham has been awarded a contract by the Spanish armed forces to provide three more units of the telerob Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) robot tEODor. This award finalizes a ten year purchasing program of advanced bomb disposal technology within the Spanish military. The Spanish Army now operates the world’s fourth largest fleet of tEODor type robots, featuring 27 systems in total.

Almost ten years ago, the tEODor (telerob Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Observation robot) was selected to replace the entire fleet of older generation equipment designed to remotely render unexploded ordnance safe. Thanks to its superior technical capabilities and high reliability, the system was selected over other available systems including those provided by in-county manufacturers.

“We’re pleased to continue support of the Spanish EOD/IEDD team as a critical suppler of the main EOD robot that will provide support to the Spanish Armed Forces as well as Allied Nation Coalition Force bomb disposal capability,” said Iain Gibson, senior vice president of Cobham Mission Equipment.

Cobham Mission Equipment is a systems integration business that has been providing innovative solutions to its customers for over 75 years. The business is the market leader for air-to-air refuelling (AAR), providing fifth generation ‘nose to tail’ solutions from the cockpit of the tanker aircraft, to the tail of the receiver platform. More than 1,000 systems have been delivered for buddybuddy refuelling, tactical and strategic tanking for fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, with Unmanned Air vehicle refueling development well advanced.

Cobham specialises in meeting the insatiable demand for data, connectivity and bandwidth in defence, security and commercial environments. Offering a technically diverse and innovative range of technologies and services, the Group protects lives and livelihoods, responding to customer needs with agility that differentiates it. The most important thing we build is trust. Employing more than 11,000 people on five continents, the Group has customers and partners in over 100 countries, with annual revenue of some £1.9bn / US$3 billion.

-ends-

This is a version reported as being in use with the NSW Police.....its wheeled and not tracked........

[buglerbilly]

$265 Bomb, $300 Billion War: The Economics of the 9/11 Era’s Signature Weapon

By Spencer Ackerman September 8, 2011 | 6:30 am



The signature weapon of the 9/11 Era is lethal, easily concealable and maddeningly easy to construct. But the greatest danger from the improvised explosive device — what ensures its endurance far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan — lies in how cheap it is.

The improvised explosive device, or IED, isn’t a bomb. It’s a category of bombs, and within that category, insurgent MacGyvers construct makeshift bombs from whatever they have at hand. The Iraqi insurgency often relied on looted stockpiles of artillery shells or mines, juryrigged together and detonated from a cellphone. In Afghanistan, insurgents can’t similarly rely on abandoned weapons depots for their explosives, so they construct bombs using ammonium nitrate fertilizer, detonated by a fuse or using wooden plates that complete a hidden circuit when a soldier inadvertently steps on it. Insurgent allies in the security services of states like Iran or Pakistan add more sophisticated bomb ingredients or aid with logistics.

The common theme: all the ingredients for the bombs are inexpensive enough to remain in mass production, even when the U.S. attacks an insurgency’s revenue stream. And they’re vastly cheaper than the vehicles they destroy, the gear used to find them, and the troops they maim and kill.

Determining just how expensive they are is difficult, owing to all of the different components in the bombs. But according to the Pentagon’s bomb squad, the average cost of an IED is just a few hundred bucks, pocket change to a well-funded insurgency. Worse, over time, the average cost of the cheapo IEDs have dropped from $1,125 in 2006 to $265 in 2009. A killing machine, in other words, costs less than a 32-gig iPhone.

Dollar figures for the bombs are hard to come by — it’s not like there’s a Consumer Reports for black-market mines — but the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, known as JIEDDO, shared some estimates with Danger Room about how much Afghanistan’s bombs cost. Those estimates, publicly released for the first time, will have to serve as a proxy for the costs of the weapons worldwide.

The most plentiful types of bomb from 2009 — the most recent available figures for the myriad types of bombs — were, unsurprisingly, the cheapest. On average, a “victim-operated” bomb — one set to explode when its target or a civilian inadvertently sets it off — cost a mere $265. (That seems remarkably high for bombs that can be as simple as a bunch of fertilizer chemicals, wires and a pressure plate made out of two blocks of wood, but that’s what JIEDDO says.) Those types of bombs accounted for 57.9 percent of homemade bomb incidents in 2009. The next most plentiful category of bomb, those set off with command wires leading from the device, also cost $265 on average in 2009, accounting for another 23.8 percent of attacks.

As the bombs get more difficult to construct or operate, the costs rise. Bombs activated with a remote detonator like a cellphone cost a mere $345 and accounted for a surprisingly small — 12.6 percent — of attacks, perhaps owing to the U.S.’ hard-won ability to jam the detonator signal. (One would imagine the major cost component is the cellphone.) For insurgents to turn a car into a bomb or convince someone to kill himself during a detonation — or both — the cost shoots up into the thousands: $10,032 for a suicide bomber; $15,320 for a car bomb; nearly 19 grand to drive a car bomb. All together, those relatively expensive attack methods accounted for fewer than six percent of bomb attacks in 2009.

Most of those bombs have gotten cheaper to produce. In 2006, victim-operated IEDs cost an average of $1,125. Command-wire bombs were $1,266. Remote detonation bombs? The same. And as the costs dropped, victim-operated and command-wire detonated bombs skyrocketed. Back in 2006, they accounted for merely 21.3 percent and a piddling 1.9 percent of all bomb attacks, respectively.

But the sophisticated bombs have gotten more expensive. Car bombs cost $1,675 on average in 2006 — which seems absurdly low, given the cost of one involves acquiring and then tricking out a car. And the going rate on suicide bombers appears to have risen, from $5,966 in 2006 to nearly double that in 2009. Accordingly, both accounted for over 16 percent of IED attacks in ‘06. And JIEDDO says it has preliminary reporting indicating that suicide bombers cost $30,000 as of January.

It’s also worth mentioning that the number of IEDs in Afghanistan has mushroomed: from 1,952 in 2006 to 5,616 in 2009. All told, since the Afghanistan war began, homemade bombs have killed 719 U.S. troops and wounded 7,448.



JIEDDO provided a lot of caveats to accompany its stats. “Data on IED costs and component prices are extremely rare and is difficult to come by,” explains spokeswoman Irene Smith. “There are inconsistencies in collection, definitions, and reporting. Single source, uncorroborated reporting is common. There is no readily available open source data on black market prices or supplies of components or initiators.” JIEDDO didn’t have available cost estimates for IEDs in Iraq.

But homemade bombs have proliferated far, far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. JIEDDO’s 2010 recent annual report records an average of 260 IED attacks every month (.PDF) outside of the warzones in 2010. So far in 2011, there are upwards of 550 IED attacks beyond Iraq and Afghanistan every month. On Tuesday, Nigerian officials discovered a homemade bomb factory near Abuja; on Wednesday, a bomb stuffed into a briefcase killed 11 people and wounded 79 more in New Dehli.

And if the most common types of homemade bombs cost a couple hundred bucks to produce, the U.S.’ measures to stop them — robots, optics, flying sensors — are orders of magnitude more expensive. Explosive ordnance detection teams in Afghanistan use a small robot called a “Devil Pup” to locate IEDs. JIEDDO has paid $35 million for the 300 mini-robots — a little over $116,000 per ‘bot, which can buy about 440 victim-operated bombs.

In late July, JIEDDO announced it would provide another $12 million worth of sensors and jammers to detect and stop IEDs. It’s all part of a counter-IED effort that’s cost at least $19 billion since 2004, even as IEDs have proliferated globally.

JIEDDO also contends that comparing the cost of a particular sensor or jammer to the cost of an IED is an inexact science, since some equipment is used for training and never sent to a frontline unit. And there are lots of variables involved in determining how much a typical IED attack costs the U.S.: do you count a soldier’s life by how much the Defense Department pays him?

That may be true — even if it seems self-serving for JIEDDO to make the point. But it also underscores that the improvised explosive device is a weapon of mass economic destruction, and its proliferation won’t stop until either its costs rise or the costs of counter-bomb methods drop substantially.

So far, it’s not going so well. Efforts to stop the importation of ammonium nitrate fertilizer from Pakistan into Afghanistan, for instance, have stalled. A truck driver named Ali Jan recently told the Associated Press it’s worth it to him to haul the fertilizer across the border. His take? $20.

Photos: Flickr/JIEDDO

[Exsandgroper]

Minister for Defence and Minister for Defence Materiel – More equipment to protect Australian soldiers against IEDs

12 September 2011


Canada will loan two Canadian systems for additional protection against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for Australian soldiers operating in Afghanistan.

The arrangement was announced by Minister for DefenceStephenSmith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare following their meeting with the Canadian Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay in Canberra today.

The two systems comprise of:
•two HUSKY protected mobility vehicles fitted with ground penetrating radar (GPR); and
•one BUFFALO mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle fitted with an interrogation arm and mast mounted Gyrocam camera.

The vehicles will be used by Australian Army engineers to detect explosive hazards, including mines and IEDs, to create a safe pathway for troops as they patrol Uruzgan province in Afghanistan.

The HUSKY mounted GPR provides the ability to detect explosive hazard threats from within an armoured vehicle.

It will protect our troops by allowing them to detect IEDs that other detection equipment might not be able to find, especially devices with low or no metal content.

The interrogation arm is a safer way of confirming that an IED has been found. It allows our troops to make this confirmation remotely from a safe distance under armour from inside the BUFFALO vehicle. Currently, Sappers have to manually examine any suspected IED.

The high definition Gyrocam camera is mounted on a mast 8 to 10 metres above the vehicle to give a 360 degree view of the terrain. It has a thermal imagery capability and high quality zoom to detect IED indicators from a distance.

The vehicles will be on loan for around 12 months from 2012. In the meantime, work is underway to assess the possible aquisition of a permanent system.

The systems were used by Canada in Kandahar and will become available following the draw down of Canadian Forces, which will be completed by the end of the year.

These additional measures come on top of other initiatives put in place to protect Australian soldiers against IEDs.

Measures that have been delivered as part of the $1.6 billion package the Government committed to following the 2009 Force Protection Review include:
•Upgrading our Bushmaster vehicles to provide better protection for troops inside;
•Equipping Bushmasters with heavier calibre weapons;
•Rolled out new lighter TBAS combat body armour;
•Attaching mine rollers to the front of Bushmasters to roll ahead of the vehicle to take the impact of an IED explosion;
•Purchasing new handheld mine detectors;
•Improving counter IED training here inAustralia; and
•Delivering the Counter Rocket Mortar and Artillery early warning system.


Didn't the Dutch order Bushmasters with a interrogation arm ?

Cheers

[buglerbilly]

They did indeed..............


New Counter-IED variant gives Thales's Bushmaster extra edge

Source: http://www.defpro.com/news/details/6343/



12:59 GMT, March 24, 2009 defpro.com | A new variant of the Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle is currently being delivered from Thales's Bendigo facility, destined for Dutch forces operating in Oruzgan province, Afghanistan.

The nine vehicles are equipped with an interrogation arm designed to help crews uncover, investigate and examine suspect items such as Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) from within the Bushmaster. Each arm is fitted with a camera and metal detector to assist in this activity.

The result of a request from the Netherlands Ministry of Defence, the new variant demonstrates Thales's extensive systems integration expertise in Bendigo, as well as the flexibility of the Bushmaster as a plat