The Newest Thing In IED Defeating Technology

Military combat engineers and civilian technical experts gathered recently to conduct a series of experiments aimed at providing soldiers with new technology in the counter-improvised explosive device fight.

A diverse group of scientists, trainers and soldiers from across the country — including soldiers of 3rd Battalion (Engineer), 364th Regiment, 5th Armored Brigade,”Task Force Rampant,” Division West — spent five days testing and evaluating the HUSKY Vehicle Mounted Mine Detection Cause and Effect System trainer, known as the HMDS-CES.

The HMDS-CES was designed to replicate a critical detection capability currently used in the route clearance mission in Afghanistan.

Prior to the HMDS-CES, soldiers had to wait until they arrived in Afghanistan to train on this critical route clearance system. With the HMDS-CES, soldiers will be able to conduct highly realistic training before deploying overseas.

Once fielded, this advanced counter-improvised explosive device, or C-IED, trainer will be used by the 5th Armored Brigade to train Army Reserve and Army National Guard route clearance units.

“This new system will enhance the training we provide to soldiers as they train for deployment to Afghanistan,” said Master Sgt. Warner Stadler, a senior route clearance trainer in the 3rd Battalion (Engineer), 364th Regiment. “When they arrive in country and fall in on the live system, they will become ready to conduct the critically important route clearance mission in a short period of time with minimal additional training.”

With the trainer’s high-tech “cause-and-effect” system that simulates improvised explosive device, or IED, warnings, soldiers will be able to train in conditions that replicate the Afghanistan theater of operations without fear of damaging an expensive live system.

“The CES system has many of the same features as the live system,” said Staff Sgt. Johnathan Jacoba, an observer controller/trainer with 3rd Battalion (Engineer), 364th Regiment, and an experienced Sapper with recent combat experience in Afghanistan. “This system improves the operator’s field of vision and also aids in detecting threats near the vehicle.”

The new trainer also simulates explosions when operators fail to respond to critical warnings or indicators.

“This greatly enhances training and will save soldiers’ lives,” said Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Lindquist, a Task Force Rampant HUSKY operator and trainer. “The Cause and Effect trainer is a great improvement to the current surrogate trainer because it provides feedback similar to the live system.”

At the conclusion of the week-long experiment, Alfred Myers, the organizer and member of the Joint IED Test Board, thanked the scientists, engineers and soldiers who made the testing successful. “The support provided by Task Force Rampant and the soldiers at Fort Bliss (Texas) was outstanding,” he said.

Participants in the HMDS-CES evaluation also came from the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence, the Research and Development Command, Program Manager Explosive Ordnance Development and Counter-Mine, White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Program Executive Office — Simulations Training and Instrumentation, Army Test and Evaluation Command, and the United States Army Evaluation Center.

“This experiment was a great opportunity to bring all of the key stakeholders together to test and evaluate an important system,” Stadler said. “Developing training systems with soldier input is critical to getting first-hand experience into the hands of the developers.”

By Lt. Col. Aaron Dorf and Maj. Steve Bruner, 5th Armored Brigade, Division West

From www.army.mil

Finding IEDs With ‘Metal Detectors On Steroids’

The joint Afghan National Army – U.S. forces counter improvised explosive device team of seven soldiers walked down the dusty rural road in Shamulzai District, Afghanistan, ahead of their convoy; scanning the route with their eyes for subtle clues that might help them visually identify an improvised explosive device, or IED, hidden on the road.

When they see nothing, they verify as much by sweeping the same area with their VMR-2 Minehound and VMC-1 Gizmo metal detectors in a slow precise manner before walking ahead.

“We walked a good four and a half (kilometers) in front of the whole convoy because we had just recently been hit with an IED on the route back (to Forward Operating Base Sweeney),” said Staff Sgt. Antonio Barajas, 3rd Platoon, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, Task Force 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. “All seven of us had Gizmos and Minehounds (and were) out there clearing the whole road so the rest of the convoy could make it back to FOB Sweeney safely.”

“The Gizmo is just an easy (to use) metal detector used to identify metal or you can switch it to minerals,” explained Barajas when asked to describe the two devices used that day.

“It’s a lot like the metal detectors you see men on the beach with, but on steroids,” said Pfc. Niko Williams, also from 3rd Platoon, 5-20 Infantry, Task Force 1-14 Cavalry.

The use of such gadgetry has been a blessing to both ANA and International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan.

For Barajas and his team, the MineHound’s ground penetrating radar enabled them to discover a secondary IED earlier in the day, prior to the IED strike on their convoy. That IED was only a hundred meters forward of the one that hit them.

Without the MineHound, there stood a chance Barajas’ team may have missed that roadside bomb.

The Minehound and Gizmo metal detectors are “the current state-of-the-art technology dual sensor detectors capable of detecting command wires, non-metallic and low-metallic signature IEDs using ground penetrating radar,” according their product description online. “In addition to GPR, the Minehound uses Vallon’s advanced metal detector sensor, which is the same sensor used in Vallon’s VMC-1 Gizmo detector to find both metallic and non-metallic threats.”

The Vallon Company claims to have more than 2,000 Minehound detectors currently in use in Afghanistan. They, along with the Gizmo, have become an invaluable item in finding IEDs and weapons caches before they can be used against ANA or ISAF forces.

The use of the Minehound and Gizmo detectors started with combat engineers and explosive ordnance disposal personnel, but they are now issued to non-EOD units such as Battle Company, 5-20 Infantry, to aid in the discovery of IEDs and weapons caches.

Since the onset of the Afghan War in 2001, homemade bombs have increasingly become the insurgent’s weapon of choice in Afghanistan and certainly their most effective weapon.  Almost 60 percent of all coalition forces wounded or killed in Afghanistan since the start of the war in 2001 have been due to IEDs, according to a May 2011 report from the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, a U.S. Department of Defense organization located in Washington D.C.

To complicate matters, insurgents in Afghanistan have been increasingly constructing IEDs to circumvent simple metal detectors. Some IEDs contain rudimentary materials such as wooden boards, foam rubber, and plastic containers. The finished product contains very little metal making it difficult for a traditional metal detector to pick up, but not for the Minehound with its ground penetrating radar.

Increasingly compact, collapsible, light-weight metal detectors, such as the MineHound and Gizmo, are finding IEDs with more frequency than ever before, all of which has reduced the number of injuries or deaths to Afghan civilians, ANA and ISAF troops. In the hands of an infantry platoon, or similar-type unit, they are also being used to find weapons caches which often provide the insurgency with ample arms to fight for weeks or months.

“In the orchards (the Minehound and Gizmo are) good because that’s where they often hide the caches,” said Barajas. “So far we’ve found two caches with the Gizmo and Minehounds, and also with the ANA helping us out with their resources.”

Without doubt, improved technological devices such as the VMR-2 Minehound and VMC-1 Gizmo metal detectors are helping coalition troops across Afghanistan.

“It helps a lot when we’re in the orchards or going through the towns when we use the Gizmos and Minehounds because it also allows if something does get missed by sight it will pick it up,” said Williams. “That’s what makes the Gizmo and Mine Hound so important,” said Williams. “It helps make sure people are not being taken out of the fight … (that) you’re keeping them in,” said Williams.

By Sgt. Christopher McCullough

 From www.army.mil 

Improving The Hand Grenade

By Eric Kowal, RDECOM

As far as the design of the basic hand grenade goes, essentially it has been frozen in time.

The first pull-pin design with a lever and delayed fuze dates back to May 1915 and is often referred to as the grandfather to the current variation.

“The basic technology is almost 100 years old,” said Richard Lauch, a Picatinny Arsenal engineer, referring to the Mills Bomb No. 5.

The Mills bomb is the popular name for a series of prominent British hand grenades.  They were the first modern fragmentation grenades and named after William Mills, a hand grenade designer.

Lauch, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, has been on a mission to modernize the hand grenade so that it is safer as well as easier to use and cheaper to produce.

During the last year and half of his Marine service, Lauch was primary marksmanship instructor in the Weapons Training Battalion at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, Calif.

While he was assisting in training recruits on the proper use of the M67 hand grenade, Lauch became intimately familiar with what he saw as the grenade’s deficiencies.

 The current grenade fuze design only allows for a right-handed user to throw it in the upright position. A lefty has to hold the grenade upside down to safely pull the pin.

Also, the current fuze consists of an explosive train that is in-line from production through usage; thus, it is always “armed.”

In a grenade, the explosive train is the sequence of events that begins when the handle is released. That initiates a mechanical strike on a primer, which ignites a slow-burning fuze to provide time for the grenade to be thrown before the fuze sets off the primary explosive.

In an “in-line” explosive train, the sequence is always in-place and ready.  Until it is removed, a pin in the handle is the only thing that prevents the sequence from being initiated.

Lauch believes his design is safer because a lefty or righty holds the grenade no differently, and because the grenade can only be armed by rotating the explosive chain in line

Combat Engineers Passing On Some Explosive Knowledge [VIDEO]

The Antipersonnel Obstacle Breaching System (APOBS) is used to conduct deliberate or hasty breaches through enemy antipersonnel minefields and multi-strand wire obstacle. It is light enough to be carried by two soldiers with backpacks and can be deployed within 30 to 120 seconds. Once set in place, the APOBS rocket is fired from a 35-meter standoff position, sending the line of charge with fragmentation grenades over the minefield and/or wire obstacle. The Grenades neutralize, or clear the mines and sever the wire, effectively clearing a footpath up to 45 meters in length for the troops. It is the lighter, more mission-capable successor to the World War II vintage Bangalore torpedo.

In the video below, soldiers from the 530th Engineer Company train soldiers of the 504th Battlefield Surveillance and 2-38 Cavalry on the APOBS system.