Can you activate IED's with a stick?

Factual Questions
21

My ‘Bat-pager’ went off.

You’d have far, far, better chances of survival by poking a napping Grizzly bear cub with a sharpened stick in front of it’s Mama.

I can answer your final question with a real-life conversation, but more on that in a moment. . .

This. Unless you have a 500’ stick, or telekinetic powers.

Flat f*cking wrong. In a broad-brush sense, all you need is enough pressure to contact two wires. I’ve pulled up enough that took about a pound. There are Soviet-manufactured cluster munitions that only take a few ounces.

I will admit, I’ve used garden rakes on the end of ropes to try to drag up command wires (they too can be booby-trapped), but normally it’s a robot or some nifty ropework I can use to “remote move” a device. The entire point is to be nowhwere near the thing should it decide to function. Your Private Joe Bag O’Donuts poking it with a stick violates ever rule and sort of common sense in the book.

So, what do you do you do if you’re not a trained engineer, but just a average soldier that has almost no knowledge about mines, but have found something anyway?

[Cue real-world dialog:]
Friendly: (sounding panicked) "EOD, EOD, this is Taco Four Three, requesting immediate IED support on Route Manhattan at Grid Location 12345 67890; how copy over?
Me: "Taco Four Three, this is Enchilada Six; closest team already at work, but will be making way in 45 mike. What’s up? kssshhhhhk
Friendly: “Enchilada Six, we are on priority supply run to FOB Queso-Blanco. We need to get this moving. I need a team now!”
Me: "Taco Four Three, look around you–is there anything blocking your left-and-right lanes?"
Friendly: (10 second pause) “Negative, Enchilada Six, it looks clear. What are we going to do?”
Me: “Taco Four Three, can you go around it?!?”
Friendly: (another pause) “Rog, we can. . .” (I can hear the light bulb go on)
Me: “Then there is your answer. Good day.” kssshhhhhk
[/Cue real-world dialog]

Tripler
Locations and callsigns changed to protect those that are . . . ‘special’ forces.

22

If I recall correctly, that was a set of US Navy teams. High on drama and lots of hair gel. I was in country when they were filming it.

Tripler
I am retired Air Force–I had a leather bomber jacket and white scarf on my calls. :cool:

23

This all goes to crap as soon as the bad guys get the smarts/time/resources to set up the REAL IED offroad, just where you’d have to go to avoid the OBVIOUS IED. But I’ve never heard of this happening, so mebbe they don’t have the smarts/time/resources.

24

I used to know some EOD guys when I worked as a US Navy contractor. Really smart and slightly crazy. I used to mow the lawn around their office and they’d joke about avoiding anything metal or with wires coming out of it. :rolleyes:

25

Obviously they put “tells” out on the road to try to divert traffic onto where the real IED is placed, but regular RCPs (and some fine Intelligence work from the MI guys) were able to validate the real ones from fictional ones before any supply traffic needed to get through.

That conversation was taken from a known ‘hotspot;’ a culvert that frequently got “tells” placed in it. It was like a small overpass in a floodplain. There was plenty of room for 250 yards around that culvert to travel. Happened often enough. . .

Tripler
Dammit, now I’m hungry.

26

Craving Mexican? :smiley:

27

Yay!

A sensible military would use that to divert the convoy into a pre-prepared ambush, right?

28

I don’t have any technical expertise about IEDs I’ve just been around them a lot. A hallmark of the Iraqi insurgency was their use of multiple IEDs in a single attack: they would set off one IED, then another one to get the people fleeing the first one. Some colleagues of mine were in traffic in Baghdad when an IED went off up ahead, they got out of their car and ran; asecond IED went off right next to their car and absolutely shredded it. Had they stayed in the car, they would have been dead; we had the car towed back to the office were it sat for a couple of weeks (that’s a demoralizing to see first thing in the morning). I remember one attack were in Baghdad when an IED went off in a market then another went off to get the people fleeing and then a third went off ten minutes later to get the ambulances transporting people from the scene.

There used to be an insurgency TV channel on satellite tv in Iraq and it would show videos of attacks, often set to music, some of the attacks were very well thought out, fake IEDs diverting people, etc. A friend of mine who was in the national guard was killed by an IED when his unit was disarming one IED when a second went off where the military was stopping traffic; he was on crowd control holding people back when the IED went off killing him and a number of Iraqis.

The Taliban never showed the same creativity with IEDs, in general their terrorism has never been as effective or sophisticated as in Iraq. Iraq did have a very well educated population from which to draw personnel, I guess. Those of us who spent a lot of time in Iraq didn’t see the Taliban as threatening as the Iraqi insurgents who were absolutely terrifying.

29

That route, IIRC, was patrolled/cleared regularly with overhead CAS pretty close by. And that spot had a lot of latitude for clearance on all sides. It was chosen because there was a lot of open space. The alternate route would have taken them through some gulches and had plenty of ‘keyhole’ spots for the Talibanners. The HHQ had taken their time to choose routes with options for escape.

I also drew a distinct point between the Taliban and Iraqi IEDs. I hadn’t spent really any time in Iraq but I got to see the reports. The ‘more civilized’ country had a lot more components to work with–Afghanistan was what you would call ‘parts poor.’

Tripler
Mmmm, breakfast burritos.

30

Sure, but that’s a different department. It’s like tech support. Tripler has solved their IED problem. They need to call someone else to help with their ambush problem.

31

Don’t worry; the USAF is standing by to solve their ambush problem subject to certain conditions: USMC Answering Machine - YouTube :smiley:

32

I have to tell this story.

When I was in Panjwai District at Masum Ghar, I could see up into the Aghrandab river valley. There were two A-10 Warthogs swarming down on a ground target in what I can only call a ‘Ballet of Death’. One would swoop, fire and pull up; the other would swoop down fire and pull up. Each 'Hawg had his Figure-Eight going on that rained pure hate, hell and discontent down on whatever godforsaken souls were on the receiving end. Sickly, I thought it was a beautiful thing. And I watched it go on for 10 minutes. That memory stays with me.

But that’s why I like A-10s and AH-64s. I had a chance to tour the Apache factory in Mesa, AZ when I was a kid, never realizing that having one over my shoulder would be a blessing 25 years later.

Tripler
It’s good to have angels on your shoulders.

33

Can i ask…
…Why in the bloody blue blazes are we contemplating randomly poking an unknown explosive device with a stick?

Unless we subscribe to the tune “Suicide is painless”

If you are untrained, you do nothing to try to dismantle the device, you mark it, you call it in, you leave it the hell alone.
And you better damned well carefully check the rest of your situation

Unless you fancy having the full experience of having your arm ripped off your body at extreme velocity? And that would be a minor consequence, most likely consequence is your mama get delivered a ziplock sandwich baggie containing whats left of you.