Gorilla’s Guides

Let me count the ways - Part 1

Question: What do you do if you’re President of The USA, you want to start a war, and you have an increasingly demented chimpanzee sitting in your office?

Answer: You get your flunkeys to ‘ phone the New York Times and speak to their Cheney Presidency Resident ShillChief Military Correspondent Michael Gordon.

It’s not as if it hasn’t worked before. Gordon together with that other kneepad enthusiast of ill-repute Judy Miller wrote the notorious aluminium tubes story publishe on September 8th, 2002, falsely identifying the tubes as equipment used by the Iraqi government in its non-existent nuclear weapons programme. Late last year, he hyped one administration anonymous briefing after the other to whip up support for the ’surge’. Now, having wiped his chin, he’s back from his latest series of seedy encounters with Cheney Administration US government officials eager to tell us all about the “deadly new bombs” being supplied by the molten mullahs of Qom to their fellow sand niggers in Iraq.

In his eagerness to please Gordon (known affectionately as “Gulp” to spinmeisters throughout the Cheney Administration) decided not to mention a few facts to his American readership, amongst them the fact that bombs made using a technology that’s been in use since the 1780s can hardly be described as “new.”

Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says

By MICHAEL R. GORDON WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran. The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete. [snip] The focus of American concern is known as an “explosively formed penetrator,” a particularly deadly type of roadside bomb being used by Shiite groups in attacks on American troops in Iraq. Attacks using the device have doubled in the past year, and have prompted increasing concern among military officers. In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military officials say. Because the weapon can be fired from roadsides and is favored by Shiite militias, it has become a serious threat in Baghdad. Only a small fraction of the roadside bombs used in Iraq are explosively formed penetrators. But the device produces more casualties per attack than other types of roadside bombs. … … … Read in full: Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says - New York Times

Evidently Gulp has been reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning. How nice. How has he mislead thee? Let me count the ways: The first fact which Michael “Gulp” Gordon blithely ignores is that the people who’re doing pretty much all of the killing of the American invasion forces currently trying unsuccessfully to annex Iraq for the empire are not Shia but Sunni. The idea that they’re being supplied by Iran is so ludicrous as not to need refuting. Secondly the idea that a shaped charge bomb which the American Military insist on calling an ‘explosively-formed penetrator’ (EFP) in an attempt to gull the American public is something new is not only ludicrous, but also nothing more than mixing a miniscule amount of truth with a pack of lies, to make the lies, stronger. Yes these bombs are deadly, no they’re not new, a bomb using technology that dates back to 1780s can hardly be described as new.

What Is A Shaped Charge?

A shaped charge is a way of controlling an explosion in a such a way that most of the explosive force released travels in a straight line towards the target. The technology employed is quite old and involves controlling the explosion in such a way that a conical or concave piece of metal referred to as the “liner” is compressed and squeezed forward in a jet the tip of which may travel as fast as 10 kilometers per second. The technology involved is simple, unsophisticated, very readily available, and very old.

Not New At All:

Shaped charges were first developed after World War I to penetrate tanks and other armored equipment. They use a principle first used by miners in Alsace and Lorraine in the 1780s and formally documented in 1888 by the inventor of smokeless powder the distinguished American chemist Charles Edward Monroe who at the time was working at the Naval Torpedo Station, Goat Island, Newport, Rhode Island.

Development of the weapon

The Germans did some research on shaped charges just before World War I but research didn’t really take off until after that war. The reason for this is that WWI was the first war in which the use of tanks was widespread and their usefulness made a big impression on military planners. But it wasn’t just government military researchers who thought these new weapons were the bees knees. The IRA used early versions of shaped charge anti-Armoured vehicle bombs during the Irish war of independence thereby ending effectively the usefulness of the crossley tender (an early Armoured Personnel Carrier) which greatly hastened the departure of the British occupiers. The most effective early shaped charge bombs were produced in Switzerland in the 1930s. While the modern bazooka projectiles which also use the effect date from USA research carried out immediately after World War II. Modern Light Anti-Tank Weapons (LAWs) are their direct descendants as are many RPGs, artillery shells, and anti-tank landmines all of which were manufactured in profusion in Iraq prior to the American invasion.

How A Shaped Charge Bomb Works

• A “conventional” shaped charge bomb consists of:
  1. A cylinder with one open end. Ideally the cylinder is made of metal.The metal can be a cheap and readily available metal such as copper, (although garden piping will do at a pinch.)The most effective shaped charge bombs however use a strong and light alloy such as that used in oil pipelines and refineries. Iraq is plentifully supplied with such pipes.
  2. Explosive material and a detonator.
  3. A cone shaped piece of metal such as a funnel.
• The explosive detonator and cone are packed into the pipe.
• The open end of the cone faces the target.
• When the detonator sets off the main explosive material the following events take place:
  1. A shockwave is produced as is a considerable amount of heat.
  2. Most of the shockwave is forced towards the open end of the cylinder.
  3. The shockwave hits the metal cone which collapses.
  4. The heat melts the cone.
• The effect of 3 and 4 above is that of an extremely hot blowtorch jet that carries with it a slug of molten metal.
• It is this blowtorch jet and slug that penetrates armour.
• Spalling, shrapnel, and flame together with the side blast are desirable side-effects but no more than that. It ill behoves the US forces whose casually brutal dismissal of civilian deaths when they use high-explosive weapons to complain as they do of the collateral damage caused.
• Depending on how the bomb is constructed, the materials and the explosives used, it is entirely possible easily construct a bomb that will cut through more than a metre of steel armour.
• The only thing that is “new” or “different” about the bombs now being used are:
  1. They use their materials more efficiently. This indicates that the bomb builders are becoming more experienced.
  2. They use copper bowls such as those shown below which can be bought for

     
     the equivalent of about 50 US cents in any market in Iraq.

• As the resistance to the American invaders intensifies and becomes:
  1. Militarily more experienced.
  2. Militarily more sophisticiated.
  3. Militarily more coordinated.

  The sophistication and deadliness of these weapons will increase.

Moreover as I have repeatedly said it takes about two years to train a trainer to the level of proficiency where they can easily pass on the technical skills required to build more efficient and sophisticated shaped charge bombs. The American invaders have been attempting to subjugate for rather longer than that without success by now. In part 2 of this briefing which I will post tomorrow I will discuss the increasing frequency of these attacks, the likely sources of supply, and the implications of the American failure at Al Qaqaa.

markfromireland