A mine plough. If the engineers can get one of these into action your life could be made a lot easier and safer. (Steve Dock © UK Crown Copyright, 2006, MOD)

The foot as a mine probe

What I am going to say here may sound a little callous and thoughtless but it is true and simply a fact of life. It was calculated by the people who do these things – they are not infantry soldiers – that more men are lost to gunfire while picking their way through a minefield than are lost to the mines themselves. So the boffins decided it would be a good idea if the infantry charged straight through a minefield to get at the enemy. There are lies, damn lies and statistics. I know for a fact the Russian tacticians employed this tactic. All I can say is that they can go first.

I have found myself in a position where we infantry were considered far less valuable than the armoured cars we were escorting. We were obliged to walk in front of the armour along the dirt roads looking for the mines... This too sharpens the concentration wonderfully. My soldier friends in various parts of the world have used the locals to locate mines as you can be sure they know where they are. And in Aden another friend used to make the local head-man ride on the front of his ferret scout car and shout out when there was a mine ahead. As far as I’m concerned my job is to keep myself and my men alive.

HOW IEDS AND BOOBY TRAPS WORK

The idea of a hidden bomb, in case it is not obvious to you, is that rather than dropping it from a plane or throwing it at you from a cannon or whatever, and risking being shot, the explosive can be placed in such a way that you will find your own way to it on foot or by vehicle and save the owner some trouble. Most hidden bombs in counter-insurgency operations are home-made affairs and referred to as IEDs – Improvised Explosive Devices.

When you have made your own way to the bomb it can be set off either by your standing on it or driving over it, in which case it is a landmine, someone watching from a distance can trigger it, in which case it is a command-detonated IED, or it can be set off by your own actions in which case it is still technically an IED but more usually referred to as a booby trap. Be aware, you do not have to be stupid or careless to trigger a booby trap – but if you are you will trigger one sooner. Depending on the theatre of operations and the technical skills of the locals you may come across more or less booby traps.

IED damage to a light armoured vehicle in Afghanistan. Happily the crew survived. (US Army)

Terrorist use of anti-personnel mines

As you already know, anti-personnel mines for conventional warfare are made to remove your foot, make you unhappy and leave you a trouble to your friends. This makes sense to the military planners in the West but not to terrorists by and large. What they want to do is make the biggest possible bang and hopefully kill a bunch of soldiers as this makes news headlines. To achieve this they often place an anti-personnel mine, which can be triggered by your foot, on top of one or two much larger anti-tank mines which your weight would not normally trigger, or old artillery shells or other explosive items. These additives make one hell of a bang when triggered by the anti-personnel mine and will often take out other members of the team if they are too close. So watch your spacing.

IED and booby trap charges

The explosive charge featuring in an IED or booby trap is not the most significant feature – oddly enough. The important part is how it is set off. The charge will usually be one or more mines, one or more artillery shells, or a big can full of home-made explosives as these are all far more easily available than shop-bought explosives. In any event, it makes little odds when they go off.

IED command detonation systems

Some of the following I must necessarily keep a little vague so as to avoid training our enemies but I can tell you enough that you will be able to understand and, to some extent, avoid the threat. Specialist Explosive Ordnance Disposal staff excuse my simplification. I couldn’t do your job.

The following are the most popular means of detonating an IED:

Current down a wire: Just like when you are using a Claymore Mine, a double wire is run from the charge to the place from where it will be detonated. This may be hundreds of metres. An electric detonator is attached to the wire at the bomb end and the detonator placed in the bomb. When the target approaches the bomb the ends of the wire are placed against the terminals of a battery and the detonator fires setting off the main charge.

Radio signal: If the insurgents can get the kit a radio signal is the easiest way to trigger an IED; but the right kit is a specific type of transmitter for the trigger end and receiver for the bomb end. As you may imagine, customs and transport companies watch out pretty carefully for where these are going and they are not on sale in Kabul High Street. Not openly anyway. A second best option is a rig similar to that used in radio-controlled models where the transmitter makes a little arm work called an actuator. A bit more work to set up but just as deadly. These toys are found all over the world.

REMEMBER:

If you are searching or visiting a suspect building and there is a landline telephone you should never answer unexpected calls. Why? Because if I wanted to get you I would place a huge charge in the house rigged to be fired by a call to a mobile phone then keep calling the landline from a long way away until you answered. Then, knowing you were within range I would call the mobile...

Mobile phone: In areas where there is a good mobile phone signal a mobile phone is rigged to trigger a detonator when the phone is called and the detonator and phone placed in the charge. As the target approaches the bomb the bomber calls the number of the phone with the bomb.

Detonation cord: You will recall we spoke of Velocity Of Detonation (VOD) earlier? There is a material used in demolition which is called Detonation Cord or Det Cord. I am not about to teach terrorists how to use it here. Det Cord looks like a flexible white washing line being smooth and about 3/8 of an inch in diameter but unlike washing line it is made of an explosive with a VOD in excess of 5,000 metres per second. To all intents and purposes, when one end of the cord is fired the other end explodes pretty soon after. And it explodes with plenty of force to detonate a main charge as I have seen small trees cut down and limbs removed from prisoners with one turn of Det Cord. The technique for use is pretty simple: a detonator is attached to either end of the Det Cord and one detonator is placed in the charge. The other detonator is fired to set off the Det Cord as the target reaches the bomb. The detonation then travels down the Det Cord and detonates the bomb in a tiny fraction of a second.

Booby trap detonation systems

The following tricks for triggering booby traps are by no means all there are, but sufficient, I think, to make you keep your eyes open and give you an idea of what to look for. As a general guide, pick nothing up, switch nothing on or off, don’t open or close anything, don’t step on anything and never answer a landline telephone call in a suspect building.

Trip wire: A wire string across a track or doorway can be easily rigged to pull the pin on a grenade or trigger a detonator.

Door opening: Opening or closing a door can be made to break or make an electrical contact thus firing a detonator.

Light switch: Switching an internal light on or off can be made to trigger a detonator in any one of a number of ways.