Explosively Formed Penetrators

[eddo36 16]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-walk22jun22,0,4101603,full.story?coll=la-home-center

'EFPs' a big threat to U.S. forces in Iraq

Copper-plated explosives that pierce armored vehicles are proving so deadly that the military is advocating foot patrols instead.

By Julian E. Barnes

Times Staff Writer

June 22, 2007

BAGHDAD — U.S. troops working the streets of the capital fear one Iraqi weapon more than others — a copper-plated explosive that can penetrate armor and has proved devastating to Humvees and even capable of severely damaging tanks.

The power of what the military calls an EFP — for explosively formed penetrator, or projectile — to spray molten metal balls that punch through the armor on vehicles has some American troops rethinking their tactics. They are asking whether the U.S. should give up its reliance on making constant improvements to vehicle defenses.

Instead, these troops think, it is time to leave the armor behind — and get out and walk.

"In our area, the biggest threat for us is EFPs. When you are in the vehicles, you are a big target," said Army Staff Sgt. Cavin Moskwa, 33, of Hawaii, who patrols Baghdad's Zafraniya neighborhood with the Bravo Battery of the 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment. "But when you are dismounted … you are a lot safer."

In the last three days, 15 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, nine of them in two powerful roadside bomb blasts. The military does not publicly identify the kind of weapon used in improvised explosive attacks, but the deadly nature of the blasts Wednesday and Thursday suggested that EFPs may have been used.

The deaths brought to 3,545 the total number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq theater since the March 2003 American-led invasion, the U.S. military said. Hundreds of these troops have been killed by EFPs and other kinds of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. The Pentagon's most recent Iraq status report said EFP attacks were at an all-time high.

Foot patrols, of course, are not a fail-safe method. On city streets, snipers remain a threat. And bombs can still kill dismounted troops. But when blasts occur in the middle of a foot patrol, the number of casualties are generally lower because the troops are more spread out.

Before a foot patrol last week through a neighborhood next to Baghdad's Sadr City district, a private with Alpha Company of the Army's 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, began complaining about having to walk. But EFPs have claimed the lives of several soldiers in the unit, and Sgt. Leland Kidd, 28, of Gonzales, Texas, said the private should be thankful they were on foot.

"When I walk on my feet, I don't have to worry about being blown up," Kidd told the private. "In the vehicle, I have to."

Top commanders have been encouraging more such units in Baghdad to take just that tack.

A counterinsurgency guidance memo released last week by Army Lt. Gen Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day military operations, urges Iraqi and American troops to "get out and walk."

The memo argues that although Humvees offer protection, they also make units predictable and "insulate us from the Iraqi people we intend to secure."

The original draft of the memo, written by counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, goes further. It notes that EFP attacks on Humvees damage them heavily. "So we gain little in safety, but sacrifice much in effectiveness," the draft reads.

One reason for the increased number of troops victimized by roadside bombs is that there are more forces in Iraq now, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference Thursday. This month, the final additional American combat units arrived in Baghdad, as part of a counterinsurgency strategy announced by President Bush in January that has increased the U.S. military presence in Iraq by 28,500 troops.

"As we're taking the fight to the enemy with the additional troops, we can expect that there's going to be tough fighting ahead," Pace said. "So it is an expectation that this surge is going to result in more contact and therefore more casualties."

But another reason for the rising death toll is the ability of Iraq's militants to adapt to new U.S. military tactics.

During the 2003 invasion, most American Humvees were outfitted with flimsy canvas doors. When the first improvised explosive devices made from artillery shells appeared, the military scrambled to put stronger armor on the vehicles. Since then, the military has repeatedly upgraded Humvee armor as militants have made bigger and bigger bombs.

But the small and easily hidden EFPs, which often are powered by C-4 plastic explosives, are not just a more powerful IED. Military personnel experienced with the projectiles say that what makes the weapons so deadly is that they use the Americans' own armor against them. As the hot copper slug melts through the armor of a Humvee, it transforms the protective plating into shrapnel that sprays into the passenger cabin, they say.

"We joked about going back to canvas doors. That way, unless it hits you directly, you are OK," said Army Sgt. William Bowman, 31, of Fort Myers, Fla.

But to Moskwa, the staff sergeant from Hawaii, the question of armor is no joke. Moskwa, who served as an Army recruiter in Pasadena before deploying to Iraq, thinks armor on vehicles and body armor on troops are too restrictive, hampering a service member's ability to move quickly and agilely.

"I would rather go out without any armor or gear," he said. "If an EFP hits the vehicle, you are dead anyway no matter how much armor you have. It can take out an Abrams tank; these 1114 [armored Humvees] are nothing."

Army Staff Sgt. Shane Beckham, 26, of St. James City, Fla., a member of 1-8 Cavalry's Bravo Company, likes dismounted patrols but says going without any armor doesn't make sense.

"You still have snipers out here," he said.

Beckham said that although he had seen EFPs destroy a Bradley fighting vehicle, the vehicle nevertheless protected the soldiers inside.

"When those hunks of steel burned to the ground, they did what they were designed to do: They saved my guys," Beckham said.

The EFPs are most commonly used in poor Shiite Muslim districts, where they are the preferred weapon of militias aligned with radical cleric Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi militia. But the devices are also found throughout Iraq, and the military has accused Shiite-run Iran of supplying EFPs to Sunni Arab insurgents as well as Shiites.

The bombs have been found, for example, in Diyala province, where the military Thursday continued its offensive against Sunni insurgents who had taken over neighborhoods in Baqubah, the provincial capital. As part of the operation, military officials said, the U.S. had killed 41 militants and destroyed 25 roadside bombs and five homes rigged with explosives. Although the military is trying to break the power of Sunni insurgents in the province, the offensive is also part of a larger strategy to control the area around Baghdad and prevent the flow of EFPs and suicide bombers into the Iraqi capital.

Although U.S. officials have said EFPs were originally smuggled in from Iran, militants in Iraq have now learned how to make them. And the newer ones are even more powerful, troops said.

On Thursday, a roadside bomb in northeast Baghdad killed five U.S. soldiers. An Iraqi interpreter and three Iraqi civilians also were killed in the blast.

The IED destroyed the Humvee the soldiers were riding in, an Iraqi Information Ministry official said.

The military also announced that four soldiers were killed Wednesday in a roadside bombing attack in west Baghdad. And on Tuesday, two soldiers were killed and four wounded southwest of Baghdad in another roadside bombing, the military said Thursday, correcting an earlier report that said the attack had occurred Wednesday. The military previously announced another death Tuesday, that of Army Spc. Darryl W. Linder, 23, of Hickory, N.C., who was killed in a bombing in Baqubah.

The military also reported Thursday that two Marines were killed Wednesday west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province. In addition, the military announced the death of a soldier Thursday in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack in north Baghdad.

In violence against Iraqi civilians, 13 people were killed and 70 injured in a bombing in the northern town of Sulaiman Bek. Around Baghdad, 20 bodies were found, many probably victims of Shiite death squads. In Wasit province, southeast of the capital, an explosive device detonated near an Iraqi police vehicle, killing three officers.

U.S. troops say that, for now at least, most EFPs are placed a safe distance from where Iraqis live, on main roads and streets without many homes on them. In the Shiite neighborhoods of east Baghdad, when militants set off roadside bombs that kill residents, American troops commonly pass out leaflets blaming Sadr's Al Mahdi militia.

Those who have survived EFP attacks say the pressure from the blasts made their eyes bulge out of their heads, leaving them with headaches that lasted for days. Army Staff Sgt. Joseph De Wolf, 28, of Waco, Texas, suffered a concussion in an EFP strike.

"The projectile came under my seat, hit the battery box and missed me," De Wolf said. "I got lucky."

Army Sgt. Chris Wilson, 24, of Boston said that, relatively speaking, troops had grown accustomed to the threat of old-style improvised bombs and of snipers.

"EFPs are what we worry about every day," Wilson said. "That is what keeps us up at night."

[4 IN 1 0]

more annoying for me is that, given the correct tools and a bit of teaching, it is just as easy to creat an explosive devices, you dont even need a high school chem. lab to do this

[ran 0]

Nothing new there, there have been a few occurences of the use of such penetrators in the past. As pointed out before, no need to be a rocket scientist to create that kind of things (which is used in some of our own weapons and of which the basic method is taught to demo. specialists).

Taste of your own medicine if you wish.

[Ironsight 1]

more annoying for me is that, given the correct tools and a bit of teaching, it is just as easy to creat an explosive devices, you dont even need a high school chem. lab to do this

What I find annoying that it has been in the news so much. It's so easy to create, no need to spread information further. Now it can be picked up by anyone, not just Iraqi insurgents but other groups as well.

I am pretty sure not many people have ever heard of EFP's before it started to get in the news...

[Guest]

it is just as easy to creat an explosive devices, you dont even need a high school chem. lab to do this

people and factory producing ammo and weapons dont need that too (exept for nbc ...)

[BlackScorpion 0]

So... it's sort of a combo between a HEAT (shaped charge) warhead and a Claymore mine?

Sounds scary... not that it's possibly the most effective thing but sounds effective enough.

[walker 0]

Hi all

The article is full of factual and technical inacuracies an EFP can be maufactured by school kid in their back yard.

Kind Regards walker

[oyman 0]

This is nothing new, when I penetrate something I also explode.

[4 IN 1 0]

more annoying for me is that, given the correct tools and a bit of teaching, it is just as easy to creat an explosive devices, you dont even need a high school chem. lab to do this

What I find annoying that it has been in the news so much. It's so easy to create, no need to spread information further. Now it can be picked up by anyone, not just Iraqi insurgents but other groups as well.

I am pretty sure not many people have ever heard of EFP's before it started to get in the news...

thats true, but after all, all we get is to know how the mil call these little buggers

point is, all you need to know is the explosive you are using, and what you goin to do with it, there are no limit on how to make the thing as deadly as it can be

@walker

unless the kids is clever enought to understand how to mix things to creat explosives, you are quite right

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to 4 IN 1

Unfortunatley in Iraq after the invasion hundreds of thousands of tons of C4 and even better explosives were left in unguarded Ammo dumps for months untill it was stolen as we all remember.

So no need for anyone to make explosives there.

Interestingly this included explosives and chemical production facilities for making weapons that were given to Saddam by US companys when Donald Rumsfeld was shaking Saddams hand.

Source

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm

Any one can get hold of pipe chop it into sections then beat out a copper plate in to a dish and stick it on the front. The technology is the most simple there is.

The truth of the matter can be seen in the fact that they are being manufactured in backyard factories in Iraq as was proved by the dicovery of one of the factorys back in February of this year. In this case they did not even have to chop up pipe they just bought ready made PVC pipe connectors bought on the open market then made copper liners to fit them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007....emc=rss

Sadly walker

[Second 0]

So... it's sort of a combo between a HEAT (shaped charge) warhead and a Claymore mine?

Sounds scary... not that it's possibly the most effective thing but sounds effective enough.

Check both Kylkimiinat and pohjamiina at Defenceforces (mil.fi) equipments, engineer/explosives to be precise, but they are not just for engineers, but have big meaning on our AT- and guerilla-tactics over all

[Rustman 0]

So... it's sort of a combo between a HEAT (shaped charge) warhead and a Claymore mine?  

Sounds scary... not that it's possibly the most effective thing but sounds effective enough.

No...shape charges are completely different. Shape charge focuses the explosion on a single small point of the armor. It melts a hole with superheated gas, essentially....kind of like an extremely hot, fast moving blow torch. The EFP is a kinetic weapon. The explosion reshapes the copper plate into a big semi-solid slug traveling thousands of meters a second. It punches through on pure mass and speed..no chemical assistance needed. I was actually taking a class from a counter IED unit over here and they told me a story of one of these EFP that hit one of their trucks. The thing completely went through the up armored humvee..in one door and out the other side (thankfully it didn't hit any of the crew)..the slug kept going and took out a van of civilians 200 meters away. Vicious things those EFP's.

[walker 0]

Hi all

An Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) is totally solid, general belief is that there is no liquid phase involved. This is from looking at the temperature of the EFP during the the explosion. It never reaches the temperature at which the metals involved melt; though there may be a small secondary heating an d melting effect at the moment of impact and penetration of the target surface.

The explosion forms the penetrator into a long thin rod. In essence it is the same technological principal as an arrow or a spear or a needle. First the longer it is the more energy is held in it, as it has more mass. Second the thinner the arrow, the narrower the needle point that the arrow is applying all that energy and mass too.

The technology relies on the ductility of the metal. The purer the metal the more ductile it is. It is about the plasticity of the metal as a result of its ductility and the surface area of the explosion. The more ductile it is the easier and more likely it is to stretch into a long thin arrow so copper is good as it is used as it can be drawn into long thin wires.

Next the bigger the surface area of the explosion from which the penetrator absorbs the energy then the more easily it is transformed into a longer and thinner arrow. A bigger explosive area allows the maximum energy to transferred to the penetrator and increase the overall mass of the penetrator.

An EFP moves at speeds faster than that of even a depleted uranium sabot which relies on mass and the self sharpening effects of DU as well as its incendiary nature to achieve a kill.

Think of it for a second, all that energy, absorbed in to a 2 or 3 metre arrow moving at the kind speed micrometeorites move, and we are all aware of what one spec of sand moving at those speeds can do to a spaceship, and it is all transferred to a point no bigger than a penny.

The other major advantage an EFP has over the traditional IED is that it can be as much as 100s of metres from the target. So the person planting it does not have to be next to the road.

Kind Regards walker