Afghan Bombs Grow, Forcing Troops to Adapt

[tekisui]

Source: Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—Militants in Afghanistan are building bigger and bigger roadside bombs, eschewing the kinds of sophisticated munitions that were used in Iraq in favor of mammoth explosives capable of destroying any U.S. armored vehicle.

Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have become the signature weapon of the Afghan war, as they were in Iraq. The number of IED attacks in Afghanistan rose to more than 8,000 last year from 2,677 in 2007. They are the single biggest killer of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, accounting for 275 of the 449 coalition fatalities in Afghanistan in 2009. So far this year, Afghan IEDs have killed 68 NATO troops, including 39 Americans.

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The Afghan IEDs are at least twice as large as the bombs seen in Iraq, with some containing hundreds of pounds of homemade explosives. Bombs of that size are virtually guaranteed to cause injuries or deaths.

"A large quantity of explosives takes on a physics of its own," said Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, who runs the command devoted to studying and countering IEDs. "When you put enough munitions beneath the vehicle, you can essentially defeat any vehicle that's in our inventory and probably anything that we could design."

Militants continue to make bigger bombs. Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the top U.S. intelligence officer in Afghanistan, said in a recent PowerPoint presentation that in May of 2008 less than half of all IEDs in Afghanistan used 25 pounds or more of explosives. By November of last year, three-quarters of the bombs were that big.

The dangers posed by the large IEDs were driven home to many in the military by a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan 18 months ago that wiped out an entire squad of soldiers from the 5th Brigade of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division.

Early in the morning of Oct. 27, 2009, a heavily armored U.S. Stryker vehicle rolled over a bomb that had been buried in a dried-out riverbed in Kandahar Province. The force of the explosion blew a protective plate that had been attached to the bottom of the truck straight up through its roof, killing seven of the eight soldiers inside.

Military explosives experts who did a forensic examination of the blast site later estimated that the IED weighed more than 1,000 pounds, making it one of the largest makeshift bombs seen in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Since that blast, U.S. forces in Afghanistan have begun to routinely encounter 100-pound, 200-pound and 500-pound IEDs.

more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703523204575129601480620156.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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I apologize for the source. I found it very interesting to read what the troops are up against.

edit-thanks BeFree.

[BeFree]

1. War is hell

Gawd I feel awful for the guys and girls that have gone over there. Just awful. I wished it would end.

BTW: your line at the bottom makes the words run off screen,!

[tekisui]

2. kick