Combating the No. 1 killer of troops in Afghanistan by Niki2

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Combating the No. 1 killer of troops in Afghanistan

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Sunday, May 16, 2010 11:02
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Saturday, May 15, 2010 9:28 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

We've all heard about them; most of us have probably seen one go off on TV or something. Now they're trying to find ways to fight them:

Quote:
Improvised explosive devices — or IEDs — are the No. 1 killer of NATO troops in Afghanistan. And although more than 40 nations are fighting in the ISAF coalition there, none of them have the kind of experience and resources the U.S. has in finding and eliminating these deadly bombs by insurgents.

The U.S. military put that expertise to use at a recent conference at the Joint Multinational Training Command in Germany to show dozens of its NATO partners the latest methods of combating IEDs as well as try to standardize the training and gear.

"It is very important to share the best practices immediately for all the others," says Ltc. Mati Lampinen of the Finnish Army. "So that is the most important thing. To share the best practices and then get them to the soldiers on the ground."

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/06/combating-the-no-1-killer-
of-troops-in-afghanistan/?hpt=Sbin

Training included mock IED materials.

Computer games simulate the environment where IEDs are likely.

Mock explosions help train in counter-measures to those heading to Afghanistan.

Training included a demonstration of a mini-drone.

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Saturday, May 15, 2010 2:49 PM

DREAMTROVE

IED is deceptive. A friend of mine was hit by and IED. He didn't die. IEDs do kill, but they are not the major cause of death. The major cause of death is explosive devices, EDs yes, but manufactured, not improvized.

There's a great video of a blackwater armored crawler running over an "IED" and being thrown 30 feet in the air and flipped. Fortunately, no one was killed. The blackwater guys did some analysis themselves on the physics of it and said "No way could you improvize this from raw materials available to insurgents."

They're absolutely right. It wasn't an IED. So what was it? A landmine. I know I've posted a number of threads about landmine scattering in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Serbia and Kosovo, and the international land mine treaty this is in violation of, and how angry all of the above countries are at us for our involvement in this...

In afghanistan it's worse. "landmine scattering" or the undocumented placement of landmines, got its major kick off from the USSR. Afghanistan has been in a civil war with major superpower intevention for three decades now, and there are landmines everywhere.

The real determinant here is the blast radius of a landmine. A regular IED can blow up a car. A landmine can blow up a building. We're talking an order of magnitude here, maybe 1000 times? One of the military/weapons experts help me out. I can identify the trend here, but ballistics wise, I don't know what I'm talking about...

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Saturday, May 15, 2010 3:48 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The real determinant here is the blast radius of a landmine. A regular IED can blow up a car. A landmine can blow up a building. We're talking an order of magnitude here, maybe 1000 times? One of the military/weapons experts help me out. I can identify the trend here, but ballistics wise, I don't know what I'm talking about...

One of the most poplar IEDs is an artillery shell(or several) with the regular fuse removed and replaced with a command detonator. There are probably tons of Russian 152mm shells floating around Afghanistan, and maybe a few U.S. 155mm. They weigh around 100lb and are pretty easy to rig, move, and conceal.

Most scatterable land mines the Russians would have used would be antipersonnel and not powerful enough to damage an armored vehicle. Why place antitank mines when the Afghans had no tanks?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, May 15, 2010 4:34 PM

DREAMTROVE

Geezer,

Thanks for the info. Do they have access to enough high powered explosives? I know they have some, but his is a serious question

As for Russian mines, I suspect 1)they used what they had, were doing the same thing in the Mideast, using what we have, which is often overkill for the job at hand, and 2) not all the mines were laid by soviets, or during that conflict. The us and china have been engaged in several and who knows whats going down now.

The pentagon has put out some disturbing reports on the prevalence of land mine hits in our operations. My guess as to fatalities is if you get hit by a real IED, your team might suffer loses, if you run over a land mine, its probably game over.

The specific anti-tank backwater story came from Iraq. They did not specifically says because they have a contract they want to keep, but there was a definite inference that blackwater thought that the anit-tank mine had been put there by the us military.

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Saturday, May 15, 2010 5:04 PM

FREMDFIRMA

I got a novel solution to countering the threat of IEDs in Afghanistan.

How bout... NOT BEING IN AFGHANISTAN, hows that for an idea, eh ?
*shakes head*

-F

There always has to be a price.

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Sunday, May 16, 2010 5:10 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Doesn't solve the land-mine problem, just gets more Afghans killed instead. I'm NOT advocating that or saying it's any better, just stating facts. I've seen the stuff on civilians killed and especially the children (who are sent out to collect donkey dung, which they use to burn) leaves me sick to my stomach.

Yes, we should get out; no, I don't want to see what happens when we do; and yes, I'm worried about expansion into Pakistan. The whole damned thing is a horrific joke; if ONLY Dumbya & Co. had done their job instead of sending our guys off to fight THEIR little war...sigh. If wishes were horses, as the saying goes...

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Sunday, May 16, 2010 5:39 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

#1 killer of US troops is the US govt.

Operation Northwoods is the signed confession the US Govt hires enemy soldiers to attack US troops to balme innocent patsies to justify war.

Seymour Hirsh wrote about the Airlift of Evil, when Pentagon and CIA rescued the Taliban/AllCIAduh before US troops could attack.

Radioactive DU and sabotaged vaccines have genocided 100,000 US troops and disabled 700,000 US troops during the 20-year Iraq War.

Pat Tillman was fragged by US troops to kill his antiwar PR campaign. Entire US platoons are fragged by their US commanders in Afghanistan, when they refuse to love genociding entire villages.

Kosher Al Qaeda Dictator Saddam Hussein Obama Bin Laden Soetoro is accellerating the genocide of US troops, Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakis and Iranians.

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Sunday, May 16, 2010 8:32 AM

DREAMTROVE

Hirsh is pretty on target most of the time. He's a good Jew.

Depleted uranium is harmless, and not responsible for the rise of brith defects in iraq. That would probably be chemical weapons.

I think you're very much on something re tilman.

Obama is not Jewish.

Ive been digging around this Jew thing, and I have to say if the Jews were really running the world they wouldn't keep getting screwed. It's not that hard to defeat palestine. Someone is fucking with them. Probably the people who keep saying "you need us to give you this new weapons system."

Seriously, think about it. If israel was running the show, they'd be in a lot better shape.

And if the Israelis and the common american Jewry do not fall into this group of people who you think are the powers that be, maybe the powers need a better descriptor than Jews. Perhaps something that would make more sense for Obama ot be one of them.

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Sunday, May 16, 2010 8:35 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

DT, if you're talking to PN, give it up. He sees everyone as Jewish and all Jews as worthy of being blown up. That will never change, pathetic as it is!

"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Sunday, May 16, 2010 11:02 AM

DREAMTROVE

Niki

I think you underestimate John. Sure I chuck a couple of hand grenades his way, but it's just to indicate that I think he's gone past the point of credibility. Overall I suspect he's more informed than any of us.

John,

My question was serious. Also, The possibility that Israel is being played here, with the simple measure of "it would be pretty easy to flatten palestine" no offense to any Palestinians, just calling it as I see it. If I look at this from a
US perspective, it's pretty classic fear mongering "oh some random guy in gaza will get you" gimme a break, what happened to real enemies like the soviets? But I think it's ak sucker sell. If tel aviv is convinced it needs this new missile defense system, its been suckered into taking welfare from mommy America, help it really doesn't need, and which may not cost it cash, but must somewherer down the line in the power politics of the global. Its never good to be in someones debt.

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