Collier: The "Shaped Charge" Bogey Man
Military historian and former Green Beret Tom Collier writes:
' We have read recently in the press about "sophisticated shaped-charge" mines destroying Coalition vehicles in Iraq. They are described as new, deadly, and coming from Iran.
The truth is the shaped-charge effect was discovered in the 19th Century and first saw combat in the warhead of the U.S. Army's bazooka rocket in 1942. It has been used since by many nations in assorted anti-vehicle weapons. Furthermore, shaped-charge mines are easily made from scratch with #10 cans, dinner plates, and plastic explosive.
U.S. Army Special Forces have routinely made them so since the 1950s. Last year, "Newsweek" ["Unholy Allies," Sept 26, 2005] described Iraqi insurgents showing Hamza Sangari, a visiting Taliban fighter, how to make and use them. Maybe Coalition forces in Iraq have come across some new and "sophisticated" anti-vehicle weapon made in Iran, but until they show it to us I would bet that Iraqis are still making and using improved versions of the old bazooka. '
Tom Collier
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/28/2006 06:04:00 AM
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4 Comments:
I seem to recall the resistance claim using "cone shaped bombs" as early as 2004. Given that essentially a shaped charge is a sheath of metal in the shape of a cone lined with explosive, I would postulate that the "shaped charge" has been in Iraq for some time now.
Hi Juan,
Very interesting post. Thanks. I do wonder, though, if your colleague, Tom Collier, might cite where exactly he had "... read recently in the press about "sophisticated shaped-charge" mines..."
Thaks again.
Edd
Juan.....From the Nov. 8, 2004 U.S. news story entitled " A Mess of Missing Ordnance" By Kit R. Roane and Edward T. Pound
But secret Defense Intelligence Agency documents obtained by U.S. News confirm Kay's account of extensive looting at Iraqi weapons sites and indicate that the problem was much larger than the explosives taken from al Qaqaa. A DIA report dated Nov. 9, 2003, notes that the "[v]ast majority of explosives and ordnance used in anti-Coalition improvised explosive devices/IED s have come from pilfered Iraqi ammunition stockpiles and prewar established . . . caches."
"Shaped charges" is a coded phrase meaning "evil Muslim weaponry." We know these are evil Muslim tactics because we know the benevolent Israelis and their US proxy do not use shaped charges. They use cluster bombs instead. In this instance, concentrating the explosive effects is evil, indiscriminate use of explosives is benevolent.
There are instances where aiming is good and not aiming is bad. Hisbullah's rain of unguided missles, which killed fewer than 100 people, civilian or military, was evil. Israel's use of precision guided weaponry, so precise as to pierce the Red Cross on an ambulance roof, or precise enough to level entire apartment blocks and, regrettably, kill hundreds of child enemy combatants, is an example of a good or benevolenty use of munitions.
There will be no charge for this clarification.
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