[superfries]

the question isn't what is an IED it is why are they so effective? Why is the millions of dollars spend on IED defense and defeat a wasted govt boondoggle? Seems to me that with the advent of multi/hperspectral technology we could easily scan a street and see if the dirt had been displaced in the past few hours. Why are we sending men in bomb suits in to disarm these devices? Send in a robot. Who cares if there is collateral damage, blow it in place after you clear the area. I just cannot understand why we don't have so many UAV’s circling the areas we occupy that they block out the sun and use their hyper/multi spectral imaging to figure out where the bombs/IEDS are? In the end we will look back on the utter FAILURE of C-IED and JIEDDO and wonder if the lives changed and the limbs lost were all worth it. Somebody should be having a hell of a time sleeping over this bullshit.

[ThunderSleeps]

The problem is IEDs are not just simply dug-in along side a road. They could be in vegitation, a fake section of guard rail, a broken out piece of curbing, etc. Being dug in reduces the blast effects, but gives you more shrapnel (rock, road, etc.) being above ground enhances blast effect, by you generally have to provide your own shrapnel.

Imaging and diffing entire cities with the required resolution, day or night, fair weather or foul, is not an easy task. There are other things we can (and do) do. The blogger is right - the highest return is in going after the source, the bomb planters are simple cannon fodder.

[DBrow]

“Seems to me that with the advent of multi/hperspectral technology “

Hyperspectral cameras are very expensive and touchy to environmental issues. At 200K and up, they are division level tools. Very few are small enough to put on a UAV.

We need squad and platoon level tools for this, and the price point for that will be 10K or less. Or a solution that will fit on an average UAV.

Trust me, there are people working on this and other aspects.

One trick the bad guys use is to bury a new bomb where EOD has just removed one, so the disturbed earth is overlooked (the assumption will be that the fresh dirt was caused by the EOD team).