Improvised Explosive Devices

The Paradigmatic Weapon of New Wars

James Revill

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783319338347
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book begins with an account of the evolution of improvised explosive devices using a number of micro case studies to explore how and why actors have initiated IED campaigns; how new and old technologies and expertise have been exploited and how ethical barriers to IED development and deployment have been dealt with. It proceeds to bring the evidence from the case studies together to identify themes and trends in IED development, before looking at what can realistically be done to mitigate the threat of IEDs in the new wars of the twenty first century. The book suggests that the advance and availability of a combination of technological factors, in conjunction with changes in the nature of contemporary conflicts, have led to the emergence of IEDs as the paradigmatic weapons of new wars. However their prevalence in contemporary and future conflicts is not inevitable, but rather depends on the willingness of multiple sets of actors at different levels to build a web of preventative measures to mitigate – if not eradicate–IED development and deployment.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

James RevillImprovised Explosive Devices 10.1007/978-3-319-33834-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. From the Gunpowder Revolution to Dynamite Terrorism

James Revill¹

(1)

University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Abstract

This chapter provides a short history of the early use of explosives in warfare beginning with the emergence of gunpowder and moving to the employment of dynamite, paying particular attention to the evolution of early improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the USA and Crimea.

Keywords

GunpowderDynamiteTorpedoesAmerican Civil WarCrimea

End Abstract

The use of fire or flame in warfare dates back to ancient times, with early accounts of the use of fire weapons in the Vedic Indian literature¹ and later records describing the use of flaming hemp arrows by the Persians in 480 BCE.² However, it was in 673 AD that “incendiaries entered a new phase” with the employment of “Greek Fire” as an early form of “flame thrower” by the Byzantine Empire.³ The details of Greek Fire remained a closely guarded secret which was subject to the official secrets act of the time; however, it is understood to have been primarily composed of Naphtha⁴ and argued to have contributed to the “successful defence, against attacks from all quarters, for the next 800 years”.⁵ Certainly, Mayor describes Greek Fire as the “ultimate weapon of its time”;⁶ and Partington describes Greek Fire as being regarded as an “old fashioned atomic bomb”.⁷ Such was the horror generated by Greek Fire that European leaders eschewed such incendiaries as a tool in warfare, prohibiting their use against humans as part of an agreement emerging from the Second Lateran Council in 1139,⁸ which was largely respected until the early twentieth century.

Over time, Greek Fire became replaced by gunpowder, the exact origins of which remain unknown,⁹ although it is widely understood to have been produced in China by the mid-ninth century AD, where its earliest use was in fireworks and incendiary weapons. Indeed, Joseph Needham’s seminal study of Science and Civilization in China suggests that low-nitrate gunpowder compositions intended to generate fire and flame rather than explosions predominated in the early military uses of gunpowder, where it was used as an incendiary in projectiles, such as yao chien: gunpowder carrying arrows, and huo phao: fire bombs hurled by trebuchets, which were designed with barbed hooks to attach the incendiary device to wooden structures or ship sails.¹⁰ According to Needham, the first use of brisant high-nitrate gunpowder to generate explosions occurred with the “thunderclap bomb”, which “became characteristic of the conflicts of the +12 century”.¹¹ The effect of such weapons was more likely to have been psychological than physical; the gunpowder contained within a bamboo casing would have made a loud noise upon detonation, but had limited casualty causing explosive force. Nevertheless, some accounts suggest that the sound of the bombs was not militarily insignificant, with reports of the explosions causing confusion and panic amongst troops and horses.¹²

By the thirteenth century, however, Needham suggests that brisant high-nitrate gunpowder was more commonly encased in iron to generate what are translated as “heaven shaking thunder crash bombs”, which appear to have been used in naval and land warfare with devastating effect.¹³ Over the course of the thirteenth century, the size of weapons grew steadily and diversified with the emergence of several forms of early land mine evident in the Chinese literature, including the “invincible ground thunder mine”, “self-trespassing mine”, and the “stone-cut explosive land mine”.¹⁴ These early forms of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were remarkable not only for their innovative employment of high-nitrate gunpowder, but also for the development of early improvised trigger mechanisms (albeit of dubious efficacy), with evidence of a form of victim-operated mine using flint and steel igniters dating back to the mid-fourteenth century.¹⁵

Gunpowder Goes West

Gunpowder is believed to have been introduced to Europe by Arab traders around 1240,¹⁶ with the first written European record of gunpowder appearing in the 1267 treatise of Roger Bacon.¹⁷ Accounts of the first use of gunpowder in European conflicts vary: Some commentators have suggested that gunpowder was used in Europe for the first time in 1262 in the siege of the city of Niebla, Spain.¹⁸ However, according to Brown, the first use of a form of explosive rocket device in warfare in the West occurred in the siege of Chioggia in 1380, and subsequently a number of gunpowder rockets emerged as an early and primitive alternative to trebuchets.¹⁹ Over time, gunpowder slowly became integrated into more and more state arsenals, to the extent that “by the fifteenth century, gunpowder was changing the relationship in the West between technology, the state, and war”,²⁰ and generating what some have termed a “military revolution” over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries²¹ with the emergence of early cannons, primitive portable firearms, mines, and military demolition technology.

Regarding mines, Mariano Taccola’s text De Machinis from circa 1430 provides drawings of a “gunpowder mine” designed for deployment in attacks on castles²²; however, the notion of mines did not gain significant traction until later with the work of the French Marshal, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, who is of particular note for his pioneering use of explosives in both offence and defence during siege warfare, including through the development of early forms of mines.²³ The use of gunpowder in devices that were arguably “improvised” became prominent in a number of conflicts. Examples include events such as the, albeit contested, reported use of (counter) mines in the defence of Belgrade in 1439²⁴; the employment of explosive mines by Pedro Navarro, a Spanish military engineer, in the destruction of the castle of Uovo in 1503²⁵; the destruction of the fortress of Godesberg and garrison in Kameyana in Japan in 1583²⁶; and the use of demolition mining in the wars of Dutch independence,²⁷ providing observable demonstrations of the potential of explosives in warfare.

Beyond cannons, firearms, and mines, gunpowder was also innovatively used from an early stage in a variety of early ship-borne IEDs and other devices, frequently drawn from contemporaneous developments in fields, such as clock-making, milling, gun-making, and precision engineering techniques.²⁸ Over time, such ideas began to spread into both the imagination and armamentarium of non-state actors, in part through the codification of ideas for “infernal machines” in a number of early texts. In addition to Taccola’s early illustrations, Wulff von Senftenberg’s 1568 work Von allerlei Kriegsgewehr und Geschütz refers to wagon-borne IEDs, clockwork IEDs, and victim-operated IEDs built into chests or boxes²⁹; Samuel Zimmerman’s text Dialogus is dated to 1573 and alludes to booby-trapped explosive chairs and explosive “purses of gold”³⁰; whereas Jean Appier’s 1630 text, La Pyrotechnie de Hanzelet … où sont représentez les plus rares & plus appreuuez secrets des machines & des feux artificiels propres pour assiéger battre surprendre & deffendre toutes places, includes a section on infernal machines that covers variously “an explosive basket of eggs … initiated by a wheel-lock gun mechanism”,³¹ an “explosive chest on a truck”, and “an explosive cask of wine”.³²

There is also ample evidence to suggest that some such devices began to be explored by certain violent extremist groups of the time. Particularly salient examples of what can be seen as early non-state actors’ use of gunpowder allegedly include—if one accepts the popular, established narrative³³—the failed gunpowder plot to blow up King James the First and Parliament in 1605 using 36 barrels of gunpowder. This plot, which is celebrated in many parts of the UK on November the 5th of each year, remains deeply engrained in British cultural memory and can perhaps be seen as a pioneering example of relig...