Low Metal Content
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Bomb Tricks and Techniques in Afghanistan
08 July 2011
The enemy sees our people use metal detectors every day. Last time I was with the British, hardly a step was taken without waving the divining rod over the ground. You try to step into the step of the troop in front of you, and there are times when you don’t even take a single step off that hairline, intermittent path unless you are in a firefight. But even on paths that are “cleared,” if only by a metal detector and then only the precise footsteps you are trying to match—which dangerously refocuses your attention—that is not enough. Expertly trained dogs won’t do it. They are highly useful in equally highly constrained ways. Dogs will walk right over a bomb and must be kept cool like a tuna sandwich or, at best, they won’t work. Their attention span in the heat wanders like that of a puppy. In the heat of southern Afghanistan, dogs don’t look for bombs; they seek shade and water and quickly become a liability.
The “cleared” path is not cleared. The only part that has been pressure-tested has a boot print as a seal of approval, and that’s only true on ground where you can see a boot print. Even on soft ground, you can only see boot prints during daylight. At night you only use flashlights after someone is wounded or killed. Still, the boot print stamp of approval is worth little more than an Afghan promissory note. Oftentimes the first trooper who steps on a trigger does not get blown up. It might be the third or fourth or seventh. Others already have stepped on the trigger but it did not fire. Even that is not the rest of the story. The bomb itself often is not with the trigger. The man who steps on a simple land mine is the man who bears the brunt. But with these IEDs, the trigger might detonate multiple explosives “daisy chained” along the way.
To foil the first line of defense, the enemy has created low metal content triggers. Some are of plastic or wood. Others use the carbon rod component of D-cell batteries. The enemy knows that our metal detectors will miss the conductive carbon rod, and so they pull these out. Batteries that have been ripped apart is bad sign.
The carbon rod
Invariably someone will cry OPSEC violation here. It’s not; I learned this from the enemy. Their OPSEC has been violated, not ours. That they know that we know that they know that we know they use RPGs; is not an OPSEC violation. Nor is this.
The carbon rods are installed in an improvised crush plate.
Foam separates the rods and sometimes the first person to step on it does not sufficiently crush the foam. The relatively low metal in the wires might be missed by the detector.
Connection is made and detonation occurs.
The improvised explosives are often found in these bright jugs. These jugs often contain an anti-handling device and when the jug is disturbed, it explodes.
The many tricks are evolving.
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Comments
This might not fall under opsec, but is it so wise spreading information about how to build low metal content pressure plates, that are harder to find than conventional pressure plates.
Many of the TTP of the INS arent that widespread, and all of the provinces havent seen low metal content devices yet, and aiding the enemy with a building instruction as you just did is highley unprofessional.
Anyway this is not the right forum for this, use the right channels for educating if you feel a urge to spread your knowlege...
Thank you. Will file that under the "I learned it from the enemy and so it's not an OPSEC violation" folder.
http://mercs.wikia.com/wiki/Mattias_Nilsson
Obviouly this would not be suitable in much of Afghanistan but in many places it might be.
I've just come to expect this forum to play fast and loose with OpSEC. It's never as bad as when I watched Geraldo draw our current ops in dirt on live TV for the enemy to watch how we planned to attack in the next couple hours, but... Geraldo never wore a uniform either. I know that's a bit harsh but maybe I'm naive to expect a former SpecOps to be less forthright with specifics on how to kill us effectively. Maybe you can outline limitations of our hammers with public info
He says that you divulge TOO MUCH INFO, Michael. Please be aware and be careful not to give away operational or other info that the enemy can use.
Thank you
This is already dismissed in the article. AL quieda and Taliban have a growing rift due to CIVCAS. I won't cite numbers for OpSEC reasons but the enemy kills huge numbers more civilians than 150k troops with armed UAVs, aircraft, etc. They complete the IEDs circuit via "intelligent means" so the 30 happy go lucky walk unharmed ahead of the MRAP that gets lit up.
What's worse is when the ANA can't wait for US EOD and throw the IEDs in the back of their Ford Ranger truck. I promise you that truck doesn't Only Roll Downhill.
Matthias, I'm going to respectfully disagree. My bonafides: 10 years intel work and IED defeat. These IED models are readily available online. Anyone with the resources to view this website with a computer can find a step by step model of how to do it, sometimes even on Wikipedia, which is where I learned how to make EFPs.
my .02
Semper Anticus
Rudy
PS - my wife is a great cook!!
Well done for producing this article. For those complaining about opsec, I have some news for you.... non ferrous explosive devices are as old as explosives!! Gasp; is that a shock? Some further news for you; there are people all over the world who know how to use explosives in a non friendly manner. There is no secret to it. Nothing Michael Yon has written is new. It is all easily available on the net.
Michael, I would be interested in further related articles; e.g. three dimensional ied, layer systems, and even 4D ied.
Interestingly enough I was questioned by someone with prior military experience who could not comprehend the difficulties of afghanistan. I briefed the person as to what might constitute an ied, or evidence of one. I then took him for a walk down a street and said "Okay, where might there be an ied?" That really did bring it home to home the difficulties.
Me
With who? I thought you left Afghanistan yesterday?
BTW, is anyone who disagrees with you guilty of being a tool for the Blackfive bloggers? All I see in the comments is a few people guilty of nothing more than common sense and independent critical thinking based on their experience. How do you answer the parent whose son came back and said you give away too much information?
Oh, I'm not Blackfive, not a blogger, not Canadian, not military. Just a simple engineer who worked in Iraq while you were there.
What of our operations, tactics, equipment, or methods did Mr. Yon reveal? That we use metal detectors and that sometimes we try to step in the bootprint of the guy in front of us. Oh, and that we don't use flashlights at night until there are casualties. This is all common knowledge.
He reported what the enemy is doing to counter us, and that we know they're doing it. If the Taliban and Al Qaeda were comprised of illiterate idiots, then maybe - MAYBE - this post wasn't such a good idea. But they aren't, and stressing about this article the way some are amounts to a serious underestimation of our enemy. That's more dangerous than anything Mr. Yon has published.
These dispatches were read several times by military officers. Furthermore...i mportantly...I was invited to photograph without caveat. In fact, Task Force persons even helped while I photographed a laser at work. When I am invited to classified goings-on, people say they are classified and there are caveats.
The military does not need OPSEC police from the crowd to protect them. Probably two dozen generals and that many CSMs know how to contact me, and numerous often do. When they have issues, they contact me directly.
Best,
Michael Yon
This is something new for those that have not been exposed to war, the Middle East, or Afghanistan/Pak istan. It is simple technology, show a picture of it, 1 picture fully assembled, and then discuss. We don't need to have lone wolf idiots trying this in the US and Europe. Now they have a step by step guide. There's a old idiom I tend to believe fully in: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
But, I also think you're exaggerating Mr. Yon with the 'dozens of Generals and dozens of CSMs'. Boasting like that tends to make me believe otherwise. But that's just me.
Everyone is a custodian of OPSEC. That's usually in the first page of any OPSEC SOP. That said, you really need to get your narcissism checked out. If ANYBODY is publishing things along the line of this article, civilian or otherwise, it's unwise. And nobody gives a flying $h!t about Blackfive here. Stop bringing them up. It chews up your credibility. And let's not forget, you can never get that back when you lose it, right?
I don't know what you're talking about with regard to Jim Hansen and Blackfive, I never met the guy. They have always seemed pretty decent to me, but then so have you. That stopped about 5 minutes ago. I can only assume that Jim Hansen called you out on something and you disagreed. I'll be sure to go research it now though, I suspect I'm in good company.
What does being embedded with Canadian forces have anything to do with you teaching Americans how to build a bomb?
I'm quite familiar with TF Spartan. I've worked with them before.
The military releases a lot of information, but I know they don't have pages showing how to build IEDs. I've been to the Facebook TF Spartan page and there is no Part I: Snappers, Part II: Low Metal Content IED preparation guides for IEDs. QED
You know what to do with your Clown Award. Wear it with pride like those you bestow it on.
Or chemistry, or auto mechanics, or use of basic machine tools, or woodcarving, or...military history.
ANY mildly motivated person could come up with plenty of ingenious ways to make things go "boom" without internet access and just having a primitive DIY understanding of mechanics and electronics.
Experiment:
Give yourself four hours, and using household resources and say a junk appliance or junk car parts, and very basic hand tools, come up with a different (but effective) pressure trigger than that shown.
Wooden mines have been around a very long time.
There are reasons the one shown isn't optimal, but I'll let readers figure that out.
Hadji carving away in his scrounge pile will have built many variants anyway. It's narcissistic to think that Americans and the internet are the fountains of all knowledge.
The Viet Cong didn't have PCs, and had pressure detonated and command-detonat ed _mine_ (make it sound "modern" and say "IED") building down to an art before most readers of this blog were born.
Should we hide that from our own civil law enforcement agencies and other first responders too?
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