Iraq insurgents’ bombmaking gets more lethal
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Advanced explosives outpace military’s efforts to boost troop, vehicle armor
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Of the many dangers lying in wait for American soldiers in Iraq, the U.S. military increasingly fears one thing: the new, advanced roadside bombs planted by insurgents.
“There are very few things we fear,” says Col. Douglass Heckman. “When a simple roadside bomb goes off, it’s not going to kill us most of the time. A sniper can’t penetrate — we keep the gunners down — small arms can’t penetrate. ... In fact, a vehicle-borne suicide bomber typically isn’t going to hurt us. The thing that scares us is the advanced roadside bombs.”
Heckman’s teams of military trainers embedded with the 9th Iraqi Army Division have reason to be wary.
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“We were hit by an EFP — an advanced roadside bomb penetrated it and one of my captains was mortally wounded,” Heckman said, describing holding the dying man’s hand as they rushed him to a surgical hospital.
Unlike regular roadside bombs, EFP’s — explosive-formed penetrators — remain intact as they explode. The steel tubes with curved metal seals form a kind of super bullet that can go directly through a tank's armor.
The explosion turns the caps into molten jets of metal. An Iraqi translator with U.S. forces survived an attack recently that hit him in the chest with a lump of molten copper as the bomb ripped through the vehicle, officers said.
The explosives are coming from Iran, which orders the explosives from our "Friends", the Russians and the Chinese.