TMT's question deteriorated into a [somewhat interesting] political discussion, but the question as to what to do techically about IEDs is a very interesting question and very much on topic of this newsgroup. Perhaps, in this sub-thread, we could post our own thoughts as to what could be done to reduce the threat of IEDs.
I would like to ask NOT to post any political opinions into this sub-thread.
My own thinking is that if about 2,000 miles of roads were made safe from IEDs, the safety of US convoys could be greatly improved. If that could be done by spending $1,000 per every 100 meters, or $16,000 per mile, then securing 2000 miles would cost 32 million dollars. That's really not too much.
What can be done for $1,000? A couple of light/IR cameras, solar chargers and batteries, lasers and motion sensors and a transmitter does not seem to be far fetched. It would be stuff similar to what is sold at home depot and x10, only a little more rugged. It does not have to be terribly reliable, as they can be treated as consumables and replaced when it breaks.
So... if they set up some motion sensor activated cameras, transmitters etc, then a few computers that receive these transmissions can monitor those 2,000 miles of roads. If activity is detected in any area, it can first of all be marked as "treat with caution and search for mines", and second, maybe photos of suspects could be taken and displayed.
That could go quite a long way. Obviously, development of such a project would take some money too, but I think that it is a feasible project.
It may be more problematic to do it inside of cities, but still doable.
--Looks like I sorta ended the last thread, or maybe nobody's awake yet today. Two things to consider: 1) The Humvee is a lame vehicle in that it wasn't designed to protect against this kind of threat. Applique armor notwithstanding it's still a lame solution. There are *much* better vehicles for sale but the US seems to want to buy "domestic" and that's what's killing people. 2) As the British found in Northern Ireland, once your troops are bottled up in an IED-proof vehicle they become ineffective; i.e. too dangerous to leave the vehicle, you might as well not be there, or be there in a tank and accept the fact that you're going to have to destroy the neighborhood to whack the bad guys. The "solution" is to not be there, IMO. Oh, sure, you could switch to a bazillion remote sensing platforms, but that's an imperfect fit with the mission. As a pal of mine who's in the profession says: the landmine *is* the "hack"..
Could they construct concrete barriers along the sides of the roads, like we have along some interstates. It would also have the benefit of employing the local people. Employed people are happy people. Finding sand wouldn't be a problem...
So you take pictures of the tangoes and mail them tickets? Take pix fast, because the mean life of those cameras will be minutes.
Technology is only useful in warfare to the extent that it better enables soldiers, sailors or airmen to shoot, move and communicate, deliver fire and capture or destroy the enemy.
The Humvee is the replacement for the jeep. It was never intended to be an AFV anymore than a jeep was intended to be an AFV.
Now, what are these "*much* better vehicles" that serve the same function as a jeep? Or are you saying that there is no place in the miltary for a jeep?
"Whacking the bad guys" only works once you've found the bad guys. And once you've found them if you're willing to destroy the neighborhood you may as well just call in an air strike. If you've found enough of them that you can't get out of the vehicle because of the intensity of fire then you've accomplished your mission of finding them.
Further, a tank is not an "IED-proof vehicle", it just needs a bigger or more cleverly applied IED.
Probably a lot more effective and durable to build a four-lane paved road so nobody can bury anything in it, then pay locals to keep it swept and maintained. Driving down the center would keep the vehicles far enough from any blasts on the edges of the road to reduce the damage. Plus you'll have a paved road to leave the locals when finished. In bad areas make it policy--and tell everyone beforehand--to blow away any suspicious piles at the edges of the roads. Sink rigid posts along the sides of the road every so often so anyone trying to drive a car bomb into a convoy would have to aim for a gap and approach at a near-90-degree angle. Makes it easier to pick 'em off before they get too close.
OK I'll bite , What if you sprayed some kind of dye on the roadside every few days. something that colors the ground, it would alert you to fresh digging so you get a better idea of where to focus. you could have different colors or types (dyes that only show up with IR light ect.) and rotate there use to deter false application. It won't stop the planting of the IED's but it might alert you to them and reduce damage.
Nothing wrong with your idea but it's not really practical. The problem we are facing with the IEDs in Iraq is a classic example of measure and countermeasure that is the cornerstone of warfare. As such there is no way for a long term win in this conflict. Everything we do, and I mean everything, can and will be countered by a clever enemy. As we have already learned, the insurgents are indeed smart so you must expect that no matter what we do they will find ways to beat it.
There is only one reason why the insurgents are using IEDs in the first place. They can't fight our forces head to head. Their solution to that is to use bombs of all stripes to inflict damage to our troops instead of actually fighting us. If we could stop that they would just come up with some other way to hit us. The point is they have only one way to win against us and that is by the good old "death of a thousand cuts" strategy. The use of IEDs allows them to bleed us day by day. They will not stop until we have had enough and call it quits. So there is really no solution to that problem aside from pulling out. Of course, by now everyone knows that's exactly what we are going to do but it's only a matter of when. As such we have gotten into a return to the Vietnam days when nobody wants to be killed in a war we know we are losing and are going to pull out from. Just like in that war, in this one all the troops will find themselves doing everything to avoid being killed instead of aggressively fighting the enemy. Which only adds to our problems. Ultimately, we have to acknowledge we made a mistake and then rectify it by leaving Iraq to the Iraqis. The question is how long do we keep up a policy that doesn't work before admitting our mistake and changing the policy.
Combat troops know what areas are unsafe. There are no safe areas in a combat zone infested with tangos. Unfortunate and regrettable events sometimes happen in such an sit because tangos don't wear badges. Shit happens in a theatre of operations.
Read it again, Ig: "Technology is only useful in warfare....." I speak as both a technopuke and a vet. Technology can be useful if applied or devised by practitioners who have learned tactics by experience. It is otherwise usually a waste of taxpayer money.
There may have been some of "troops doing everything..." as you say, but it's incorrect as a blanket statement. Westy was far more a politician than a general officer or leader. There were plenty of troops who were frustrated as hell by being prevented from doing the job they were trained to do and quite able to do if adequately supported by HQ. It's impossible to kick ass and take names with the constraint of being politically correct to waffling "leadership" that leaves you high, dry, disowned and rots 'o ruck hopeyadisappear when mission accomplishment turns out to have politically ugly ramifications, hope ya don't E&E so as to cause any embarrassment by having done as asked to do at the time.
I am not a warrior, never have been . I don't like conflict, particularly mortal conflict. But I have been there and done that. I led small teams because it was my job at the time. Ya don't have to like it but ya do have to do it.
Don't park the 'Nam fiasco on the troops. That flat isn't fair.
The troops in Iraq are far different from those in 'Nam. Our people are better educated and highly motivated, committed to finishing the mission. And they, working with the decent Iraqis, are making progress, despite all the gloom and doom from the media and the skeptics.
========================================================= Long "first principals" response ---
This is a typical American response to a perceived problem, probably because we were leaders in both creating and producing technology for many years, and to slightly mangle an old saying "when the tool you use best is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
This is not a bad approach as long as it is "A" *TECHNICAL* problem you are trying to solve and not a multitude of inter-related problems lumped under one convenient codeword or acronym. An additional danger is the misidentification of the problem even when it is nominally technical - See appended Business week article.
==> An implicit *MAJOR* assumption is the Iraqi insurgents are not innovative and will/can not develop alternative tactics, which does not appear to be correct.
Over a 30 year career in industry [1st tier suppliers of automotive & heavy truck components] and 15 years in post-secondary education [technology instruction and administration] I have repeatedly seen well financed and planned "technical solutions" (some of the proposals should have won a Pulitzer prize for creative writing) go down in flames because these were attempting to address either a non-technical problem with at most a few and generally a single technical aspect, or more commonly a totally non-technical problem.
These attempts were uniformly expensive in both time and money, generally produced minimal to no measurable results, and frequently exacerbated the underlying problem(s). They had the advantage of generating large amounts of activity, expending large amounts of money, avoiding examination of the foundational problems(s) in depth (which were directly the result of management), and engendering warm and fuzzy feelings such as "we're doing something!" while avoiding distasteful personnel confrontations.
One technique for avoiding this is what I call the "plunk the magic twanger" technique [Google "Froggy the Gremlin" for background] whereby you assume that whatever you are proposing is fully operational, and examine how things change.
All together now let's PLUNK THE MAGIC TWANGER and the IEDs are neutralized. -- Now, how have things changed?
The immediate answer is - not much. Our armed forces are still confined to their fortified posts, albeit with [more] secure communications, but are subject to instant death or injury if they set one foot outside their secure parameters. Operationally they are still prisoners in Iraq although with an expanded exercise yard.
The popular "when you have them by the b***s, their hearts and minds will follow" technique, which is operational and efficient in hierarchal command organizations such as the military, corporations or police states, is being applied in amorphous Iraq with the same success it achieved in amorphous Viet Nam. The creation of the required police state would simply replace "their" Saadam with "our" Saadam who would have the additional baggage of being known as a US puppet. [Ghost of Ngo Dinh Diem enters stage right at this point.]
When we step back and examine the problem from "first principals" we see that what is now occurring is an attempt to sell hoards of very averse, diverse and increasingly hostile customers a change in their basic lifestyles without speaking their language, understanding their customs/social structure, or comprehending their history. [E.g. Would you like a beer with those pork rinds Ali?] One example of this on a much smaller scale was the [highly unsuccessful] attempt by a major US car company to sell their product in Latin America with a name that meant "No Go" in the local idiom.
The Iraq "problem" is not *A* problem but rather a tremendous number of separate, overlapping and mutually reinforcing problems, which are continually evolving and mutating into to evermore toxic and poisonous forms, many of which are *NOT* the result of U.S. occupation.
We would do well to remember that the resolution of basic questions about the political structure and economic basis of the United States, commonly shorthanded as "slavery," required a protracted and bloody civil war to resolve. Iraq was in the process of moving from the 19th to the 20th century under Saadam, and these questions may have been resolved with fewer Iraqi deaths and property destruction on a percentage basis that the US experienced in their civil war.
Additionally, the "solution" to any one existing problem has the potential to generate (and in many cases are generating) two or new more problems, producing the classical hydra headed monster.
What is required is a multidisciplinary evaluation including anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, demographers, marketing experts and statisticians, although this will produce highly distasteful conclusions, as these are certain to be different from the assumptions [wishes? dreams?] of the policy makers of the cheap quick fix.
=========== Business Week Article from Google =================
Dig Before You Decide
By Keith McFarland Wed Mar 15, 8:08 AM ET
Entrepreneurial companies make fast decisions. And most of the time, that counts in their favor. But if we don't take care, we can spend a lot of time, effort, and money chasing solutions that merely mask the symptoms without diminishing the real problems. A key sign of a company achieving a transition from entrepreneur-centric to a real organization: when it begins the hard work of identifying a handful of root issues facing the company, which if addressed will best leverage its future potential.
A good way to identify root issues in your business is to keep asking: "Why?"
A few years ago National Parks managers noticed the Jefferson Memorial was crumbling at an alarming rate. When they asked why, they found out it was being washed far more often than other memorials. For most organizations, the analysis would stop here. The solution is clear, right? Adjust the cleaning schedule to match those of the other memorials.
Midge Of Trouble. Unfortunately, that solution would have only led to a very dirty Jefferson Memorial. Because when Parks managers asked about the reason for the frequent washings, they found it had an exceptionally large amount of bird droppings deposited on it every day [no, this isn't a metaphor -- it really happened]. What's the solution now? Erect scarecrows? Declare open season on pigeons?
Luckily, National Parks managers kept inquiring. And when they asked why the birds seemed to soil Jefferson at rates higher than they did so to Kennedy or Lincoln, they discovered the Virginian's memorial harbored an incredibly large population of spiders upon which the birds were feeding. And the population of spiders had exploded because of an abundance of midges (tiny aquatic insects) in and around the Memorial.
By now, you have the routine down. When Parks managers asked why so many midges congregated on the Jefferson memorial, they learned what any fly-fisherman finds out his first day on the river: Midges are stimulated to emerge and mate by a unique quality of light (for the rivers of my home state of Utah, it usually falls between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on a cloudy day).
Gratis And Easy. It just so happens park managers were inadvertently creating this unique quality of brightness by turning the lights on the memorial just before dusk. This one variable caused the whole chain of events -- lots of midges, lots of spiders, lots of bird droppings, lots of effort on the part of the cleaning crews, and finally, the crumbling of the statue.
The solution ended up being pretty simple, and actually saved the Parks Department money: Just wait until dark to turn on the lights.
Ridiculing the inanities of government decision-making has turned into something of a national pastime, but let's give it credit for getting it right this time. I shudder to think what might have resulted had the problem been assigned to some of the entrepreneurial companies I know -- companies that move so fast they find it hard to stop and think deeply about root causes. My guess: They would have called task forces charged with simultaneously formulating new detergent formulas, spreading bird poison around the memorial (later ingested by children and pets), and designing intricate spider traps.
Of course, I'm not suggesting entrepreneurial companies should slow down. Their ability to react quickly can enable them to better position themselves against deeper-pocketed foes. But eventually, entrepreneurial companies do need to develop a skill for getting to the root of an issue. As they grow and become more complex, the companies will surpass the abilities of all but the most ingenious entrepreneurs. That means founders need to "clone" themselves and hone their skills to get to root causes. Most important, they need to teach people to keep asking: "Why?" Unka George (George McDuffee)
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic. «The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937; repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)
"Ignoramus4546" wrote in message news:9ZBRf.89609$ snipped-for-privacy@fe16.usenetserver.com... | TMT's question deteriorated into a [somewhat interesting] political | discussion, but the question as to what to do techically about IEDs is | a very interesting question and very much on topic of this | newsgroup. Perhaps, in this sub-thread, we could post our own thoughts | as to what could be done to reduce the threat of IEDs.
One of the things that the Iraqi people have in abundance now is cell phones, all to exercise their new-found freedoms. The perverse part of it is that these are the thing that are used to set off the IED's. Connect up a bomb to a phone bought from the rack at the local "stop and rob" and use it as a trigger. When you call your new toy, it'll have a rather distinctive "ring" to all those in the area. I'm guessing that many high value vehicles and personnel travel with cell phone jammers going, which prevents their use. Personally, I think there should be a system that calls every phone there is in the system at random intervals, at least once a day, perhaps more depending on certain criteria such as newness, type of service, how little you paid for your phone, etc. It'll blow up a lot of bad guys trying to make bombs, and merely be an annoyance for everyone else, long enough for them to abandon that technique and look for something else to use. Gotta be careful, they might come up with something worse!
The insurgents would quickly adapt to triggering the IED from a code sent to the cell phone and they would love the superior timing; better accuracy than waiting for the ringer.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.