New vehicles allow GIs to find, remove hidden IEDs, Roadside Bombs! (GNFI)

Stars & Stripes, European Edition ^ | 4 Jan 04 | Rick Scavetta

[xzins]

By Rick Scavetta, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, January 4, 2004

Rick Scavetta / S&S
Pfc. William Stribling, 19, of Brooklyn, N.Y., operates the remote control arm on a Buffalo, the Army's latest equipment to counter the threat of roadside bombs in Iraq.


Rick Scavetta / S&S
The Meerkat, a South African-designed mine detection vehicle, is used by U.S. Army engineers in Iraq to sweep for roadside bombs along convoy routes.


Rick Scavetta / S&S
A Buffalo crew uses a remote control arm to search for improvised explosive devices on Highway 1 south of Samarra, Iraq, as a supply convoy passes by.

BALAD, Iraq — Using recently fielded mine detection vehicles, soldiers from Company C, 489th Engineer Battalion are hunting roadside bombs similar to those that have killed and maimed dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq over the past six months.

Equipped with South African-designed vehicles — the Meerkat and the Buffalo — the Arkansas-based Army Reserve troops have taken an Army side project to the forefront in the military’s efforts to counter the threat of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Insurgents aiming to demoralize the U.S.-led coalition often stage ambushes with crude explosives hidden among debris along convoy routes or buried near roads.

The platoon of combat engineers, who had been working odd jobs in Kuwait, are now sweeping major convoy routes in central Iraq to clear highway shoulders and medians.

Cramped in the single seat Meerkat, Spc. Stephen Fowler, 22, of Fayetteville, Ark., examined a stretch of Highway 1 last week with the tractor’s powerful winglike metal detectors.

“We have certain audible tones when we find something,” Fowler said.

An ink jet marks the spot. Soldiers in the heavily armored Buffalo pry suspicious objects from the ground with a remote-controlled fork. Sappers — engineers trained in explosives — can then demolish the device.

Both vehicles are designed to protect soldiers from a blast, said Sgt. 1st Class Ed Fletcher, an Oklahoma native supervising the operation.

“It can take up to 20 pounds of TNT and everybody inside will survive,” Fletcher said. “The vehicle is down, but the passengers are all right.”

In June, civilian contractor Shon Craig, 50, of Manassas, Va., arrived in Iraq with the $1.5 million Interim Vehicle Mounted Mine Detection System, a package of several mine-detecting vehicles that the military has kept for five years, Craig said. The equipment, based on South African anti-mine technology, saw action last March at the U.S. airfield in Bagram, Afghanistan, he said.

At first, the Army in Iraq was not interested in manning or field-testing the new equipment, Craig said. The mine threat was minimal, and units were busy changing from combat to occupation duties, he said.

But for six weeks, South African trainers taught Fletcher’s platoon about the equipment from the inside out. Then soldiers translated the schooling into Army tactics. And there were no mine-clearing missions.

Meanwhile, IED attacks against U.S. troops were rising.

“They had all this multimillion-dollar equipment sitting around, so we put it to use against IEDs,” Fletcher said. “It was pretty scary at first.”

On an early mission, the crew stumbled upon an IED half-buried in a foxhole.

“It was an artillery round. You could see the blasting cap and the wire coming out the end of it,” Fletcher said.

His soldiers fanned into a security perimeter and traced the wire’s end; thankfully, no enemy was attached, Fletcher said.

Sgt. Brad Lipe, 24, of Van Buren, Ark., operated a Buffalo for two months.

During that time, he found IEDs and other unexploded munitions. Years of video games prepared him to maneuver the Buffalo’s mechanical arm using only a small display screen to watch the nine-pronged fork scrape into the dirt.

“At first you are a little nervous, but after numerous times it becomes routine,” Lipe said. “You get used to seeing certain things, and know when something’s been put there.”

The Buffalo’s long arm jabs into the crusty roadside. Watching a screen on the dashboard, the operator uses the arm’s camera to pluck out objects.

Much of the time, they find debris.

“We’ve found everything from manhole covers to mufflers,” Lipe said.

At times, locals will point out potential bomb sights, for fear that an attack could harm their children, Lipe said.

Now, the team is sharing their experiences with fellow soldiers, as the company trains other units to use the gear.

“The Army decided to train us up on this and they like how we did,” Fletcher said. “So, they bought several more systems.”

The operation caught the attention of top brass, said Lt. Col. Kent Savre, commander of the Fort Lewis Wash.-based 864th Engineer Battalion, the team’s higher headquarters.

Savre, 43, of Edina, Minn., recommended that the Army supply one system to each division in Iraq. Three weeks after filing the request, a half-dozen more sets were shipped out, Savre said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 19 years in the Army,” Savre said. “The senior leaders saw the threat and immediately bought more [systems].”

Both the Fallujah-based 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit sent troops to Balad to train for clearing missions in their sectors. Another team recently deployed to southern Iraq to begin work there.

“They’re figuring it out and morphing this equipment into something useful,” said Col. Gregg Martin, commander of the 130th Engineer Brigade, who oversees much of the Army’s engineers in Iraq. “This is cutting-edge stuff

[archy]

Archy is a one-man archive of military history.

Most everything I've picked up along the way I've either survived to tell about because somebody else showed me how, or better, I knew about beforehand by virtue of something imparted me to somebody who knew more about a particular item, situation or possibility than I did, and I had learned enough that it came as no surprise to me.

It's really amazing how well you'll do if you just aren't surprised, or if you are, don't act like you are.

So I owe it to others who showed me the way when I was a pilgrim. And the price of admission is that I do the same, and pass on what I've picked up to those who may profit from it and not find out the hard way at a higher price. It's just a matter of taking care of your partners and pals.

-archy-/-

[Lazamataz]

Well, I didn't mean what I said offensively. :o)

I *DID* say you were the real deal. :o)

[archy]

Well, I didn't mean what I said offensively. :o)

I *DID* say you were the real deal. :o)

Oh, not taken with offense, not at all! And it's certainly true that more of my activities now are more involved with logistics procurement or design considerations, or observations of the changes that have come over the last couple of decades- especially in materials technology- than with door kicking or low crawling in the weeds.

But though age has indeed taken its toll, particularly on my eyes, I can still get off the porch and run with the big dogs every now and again. And I hope to shortly, and hope their conduct is sufficiently noteworthy and professional as to deserve repeating to a general audience with little firsthand knowledge of such things. And if I pick up an affection for one or two bits of equipment similar to if not quite identical to some of that U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan are now using, that too might be interesting.

-archy-/-

[Travis McGee]

Well I for one am glad for the opportunity to sponge off of you.

[TomasUSMC]

I don't like the whole idea of this great hurrah arising from the use - finally - of mineclearing vechiles and robots. These mines are remotely controlled. Our little anti-mine rover detects a mine, and then what happens?

Well the mine can be blown and there goes our little rover. That is a win for the terrorist. Not as big a win as notching some kia and wia stats, but a win nevertheless. And what the terrs will do now is plant two bombs. We can't afford to trade one rover per buried artillery shell.

We must be proactive. Cordon the Sunni triangle off and clear it out! The clearing out process should be linked to the continued resistance of the people in that area. When there is a bomb planted the reaction should be to bulldoze entire blocks and make it public. Those people need to fear the U.S. more than the Mulluhs and terrorist.

All this school building and infrastructure creation has nothing to do with winning the peace and beating the terrs. We could build up Iraq to the level of Saudi Arabia or Turkey - and what would you have. Well those two countries are - in Saudi's case, the nesting place for Islamic terrorism and in Turkey's case a country which democratically stopped our 4Th Division from opening up a Northern Front and shortening the war by half.


You can be a compassionate conservative but not a compassionate combatent.

[r9etb]

Great story! What I especially like is that this group of young enlisted guys have got so much influence -- it speaks very well of the quality of our soldiers, and also of their commanders.

[r9etb]

Have they tried the Israeli "work accident" method, where they use an EMP generator to induce a current in the detonator and just blow the thing up from a safe distance?

If they were, I doubt they'd advertise the fact. But I'd feel safe betting that they have used it.

[r9etb]

Heck, I might volunteer for that duty...sounds as exciting and a lot safer than bull-riding at the rodeo!

UNtil the day the bad guys figure out they need to use 21 lbs of TNT....

I'm very grateful to the young soldiers who brave that sort of stuff every day. Our country will be far better off when these guys eventually leave the military and rejoin civilian society.

[dsc]

"We must be proactive."

Johnson and MacNamara screwed up in Viet Nam by being too timid to take the fight home to the commie scumbags. Nixon understood that he had to get tough to bring them to the negotiating table, but by then it was too late to go for a complete victory--he had promised the American people a withdrawal.

It seems to me now that we are in danger of making a similar mistake. The two situations are different in many ways, not least being that the enemy is not centralized in a location as circumscribed as North Viet Nam.

I don't care what Bush says about Islam being a "religion of peace" (barf), Islam is at war with us. The enemy is somewhat amorphous in that it involves several countries, some of which have little in common but Islam and hatred for us. The situation is further complicated by the underground terrorist network, which seems to be able to operate anywhere, and by the infiltration and occupation of Christian countries by Mohammedan fifth columns.

I don't see any "peace process" as having a chance to succeed, except one: expel Mohammedans from Christian countries, kill astoundingly large numbers of Mohammedans in their own countries--in the process depriving them of the capacity to damage us--and then use whatever means are necessary to locate and kill the underground terrorists.

Like a doctor too squeamish to operate on a cancer, I very much doubt that Western Civilization has the stomach to do what is necessary to save itself. Next to sexism, racism, and aversion to sexual perverts, the greatest sin in the liberal lexicon of anathemas is genocide, and any country taking any effective measures to deprive Islam of its capability to attack Christendom would surely be accused of genocide.

I could be wrong, though. I have been saying for a couple of decades that the only way to suppress terrorism is to burn the wasp's nest, but that the US would never have the nerve. Bush proved me at least partly wrong on that one by thumping Hussein. But will he have the nerve to take the next step--Syria--and the one after that--Iran? Egypt is also a cesspool that needs flushing and a severe pruning of the gene pool.

Who will do it?

[SpinyNorman]

Hey!! Is one of those guys named Byrd?

[MainFrame65]

"We're not talking the Norden bomb sight here; I think they mean "potential bomb sites". Stars and Stripes should have caught this. For some reason the confusion of these two words seems to be getting very common."

This is an error that would easily pass both a spell check and a grammar/context check. It just demonstrates that there is no substitute for proofreading. But I still can't catch the instances where I have revised text and end up duplicating the last word of one line as the first word of the next line.

[wideminded]

Tplant that produced these: Lucas-Harold

Several years ago I was visiting someone at a hospital in Elmira, NY. An elderly man who was visiting his wife in the same room mentioned that the Norden bomb sight was manufactured locally. At the time the Elmira area was filled with abandoned plants so my thought was that if the Norden bomb sight was Elmira's last claim to fame, that said a lot about the depressed economic state of the area.

But as you point out Lucas-Harold was in Indianapolis. So perhaps the man I spoke with was not even correct.

[Elsie]

It could be right. I do not know the early history that well. I DO know that the stuff was made in the middle of the country, away from the range of the longest range bombers then in existance.