Standing Well Back
15th Century

An innovative buried IED detection technology from 1400

I’m slowly researching a number of old military technology books (if I can describe them as that) written several hundred years ago. Every so often I come across something intriguing. Here’s today’s.

Conrad Kyeser lived between 1366 and about 1405. He was born in Eichstadt in Southern Germany but lived for a time in Prague. I have referenced his book “Bellifortis” in my last post. The book was written in (poor) Latin and contained many illustrations. Kyeser clearly copied a number of other military technology books, but there was also new material. It exists today with several versions. Some of the technology discussed is remarkable for the time of writing – paddle powered boats able to move against a current, diving suits with some form of stored air for breathing, and a variety of explosive devices, rockets and multi-barrelled revolving firearm systems.  The rocket discussion includes remarks on the need for a combustion chamber (described as a “seele” or hollow in the propellant), and that the rocket cylinder/case must be gas-tight.

But here’s something very interesting – a buried IED detection technology. Kyeser describes burning a resin to create a volume of dense thick smoke, contained under an inverted tub. Once a dense cloud is formed the tub is lifted off and the dense smoke allowed to spread across the ground of an area where a buried explosive device is suspected. Kyeser claims that if the smoke rises at any point, that is an indicator of disturbed earth, and the potential that an explosive device has been buried there.

Now that’s an interesting idea, but on the face of it, I don’t have any particular belief that it might work.  If a heavy gas rises it perhaps could be due to convection, but why would disturbed earth have convection , I assume associated with a thermal energy release from disturbed ground?  I can imagine certain theoretical scenarios where a dark soil is exposed as the device is buried and that causes slightly more solar energy to be absorbed, and then released, but that’s perhaps stretching it a bit. Maybe a buried barrel of gunpowder previously stored in a building would retain its heat long enough when compared to the cold earth in which it was buried and that could cause some convection for a short time.  I wonder how long….

I welcome any readers who might have a better explanation, email me at the email address explained above right.

19th Century

Discovering London’s bomb disposal facility from 1894

I have written before about the early British  EOD facility on Duck Island, a short distance from Downing Street, at the bottom end of St James’s Park, London. There, barely 100m from 10 Downing St is a small Island at the end of the lake, with a link to the road over a bridge.  The facility was established by Colonel Majendie and his assistant Dr DuPre in about 1894.  Col Majendie, had been working for the Home Office as Chief Inspector of Explosives for over 20 years by then having been first appointed in 1871.  During that time he had dealt with a wide variety of IEDs and associated investigations, and developed some C-IED procedures.  But the world was changing.  Following a visit to Paris that I discussed here and here,  he pushed hard for some similar facilities to the four French EOD facilities dotted around Paris at stratgic locations. The context at the time was an upsurge in anarchist bombings around the world. The 1890s were later described as “the decade of the bomb”. Majendie had undertaken overseas liaisons before, includng with the US authorities during the Fenian campaigns of the 1880s (many of the IEDs were made in the US and shipped to the UK, with US based support).  Majendie reviewed the French EOD techniques and liked what he saw.

Majendie recommended three such facilities be established in London, one on Duck Island to be adjacent to the seat of government, one in “The Gravel Pit” in Hyde Park, adjacent to the district of Oxford St and Mayfair, and one in the moat at the Tower of London, covering the banking district of the city.  Duck Island was the first and I believe that the Hyde Park facility may have existed as well, but I can find no evidence or suggestion that the Tower of London site was ever set up.  The facilities were housed in wooden sheds, (like in Paris) I believe with some form of earth mound in the manner of the French facilities. I understand that amongst the equipment  in Duck Island was a hydraulic press and a mercury bath contraption for lowering an IED into a mercury bath, dissolving the solder which held together some spherical-shelled anarchist devices.  Other devices were dealt with at Woolwich Arsenal Laboratories in some circumstances in a proofing lab there, which also had a blast proof cell.

The EOD facility at Duck Island (that’s my description, not Majendie’s) was operational from November 1894 and was still apparently in use in at least 1914 when some suffragette devices were taken there. IEDs were moved to the facility in the hand cart I described here or later in a specialist vehicle provided by the Army. I don’t know when it fell into disuse.  However in the 1980s the derelict wooden shacks were still there, hidden amongst rhododendron bushes and out of site, out of mind.

At this stage, for reasons that are unclear the Army was tasked with removing the facility, and that task fell to the Royal Engineers. A recce of the site was undertaken, and the remnants of the facilty (fundamentally a rotting wooden shed and its contents) was taken to Chatham and subsequently and regrettably lost or scrapped.  However in the last few days I have been given sight of some photos taken by the Royal Engineers on the recce, now held by the RE Museum .  Regrettably the Royal Engineer’s Museum own the photos and have not given me permission to republish them without a not insignificant licence fee. This website simply doesn’t have the budget for the license fee requested, so all I can say is that the photos appear to show what I believe is a hydraulic press, probably installed by Majendie in 1894. The photos are not too clear but the press appears to be somewhat more complex than the French version that I showed an image at the earlier link.  There appear to be a number of levers which may have been able to be adjusted remotely by attaching lines.  My assessment is that both the French and the British presses were used to “crack open” devices semi-remotely.  By this I mean set up with a specific action prepared, then activated from a distance by means of a rope or line on a lever, activating the press.  A typical anarchist device was contained in two halves of a metal sphere, soldered together.  It may be that a variety of other IED containers, such as tins and boxes could have been opened remotely by this method.  The lightweight wooden huts were cheap and easily repairable and the earth mounds would have been designed to stop shrapnel.

Without more detail, which I’m investigating, I cannot tell more, and I hope to persuade the RE Museum archive to allow me to reproduce the photos without the current expense they ask for.

The use of a hydraulic press is interesting. Majendie would have been very familiar with such presses, his role as Inspector of Explosives meant he investigated industrial explosive accidents and he developed much of the legal regulations surrounding explosives manufacture. Presses were used extensively in the explosive industry to press explosives into shape in gunpowder mills. Presses were also used for some explosive testing. As a former Superintendent of the Woolwich explosive laboratory, Majendie would have been familiar with their use.

By their nature presses are pretty resilient pieces of equipment  – take a look at the hydraulic press channel on YouTube for a feel of what they are capable of.

Some key points :

  1. The facility then was a copy of the French facility, to some degree, and the French EOD/C-IED methodology appears to have been utilised (with variantions) by Majendie and Dr DuPre from 1894.
  2. The site was operational for at least 20 years.
  3. The British and French were not the only EOD operators active in the 1890s in C-IED. See details of New York’s Owen Eagen here http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2012/1/14/the-eod-operator-who-dealt-with-more-ieds-than-anyone-else.html
  4. The facility remained derelict until the 1980s or 1990s but was then demolished and scrapped. The organisation sent to deal with it probably had no clue as to its historical importance.
1570-1580

EOD Equipment 1573 and 1971

I have finally found a picture of a wheeled EOD shield from 1971 – courtesy of RLC Museum. Compare these two largely similar tools, the first from 1573, and the second from 1971 – 402 years apart. I believe the shield was used operationally in Hong Kong in the sixties, and quickly went out of service after limited use in Ulster in the early seventies.


circa 1573

 

EOD-Equipment-1573-and-1971-1971
circa 1971

My earlier post on the subject of historical ROV’s is here.

20th Century

Techniques of Bomb Disposal 1942

Interesting film from 1942 showing Sapper EOD operations against air dropped munitions that end up buried deep. At the six minute point and 11 minute point you will hear the word “Wedges”. (hohoho!)  Instructional in nature, but you gotta love the brass band accompaniment at the beginning.   Also, if I’m allowed to make a poor joke, I see that the Royal Engineer Officer’s remedy for an unconscious sapper, poisoned by Carbon Monoxide is to turn him on to his front and massage his bottom (24.45).  Good to see that technique existed so long ago…

BFI Film archive – 1942 Bomb Disposal

19th Century

1894 Bomb Disposal Techniques

I have blogged before at an IED disposal system and associated organisation set up in Paris, France in the late part of the 19th century.  In my earlier blogs I have discussed the “containment vehicle” used to transport suspect IEDs to one of four disposal sites set up around Paris, and the use of hydraulic presses to dismantle IEDs once taken thefre.

I have recovered a little more detail about both, in some reports written by Colonel Majendie, the British explosives expert, who visited Paris in early 1894 and considered the techniques being used , adapting some for use in London.

Firstly the vehicle and containment system, originally material posted here.   Here now is Majendie’s description:

 

The bomb is deposited on a quantity of wood shavings or similar elastic material in the body of the phaeton….At one time the idea was entertained of constructing a bomb proof cart for this purpose – or at any rate a cart by which by mans of iron shields would prevent the lateral dispersion of fragments should the bomb unfortunately explode in transit. But the idea was abandoned in view of the fact that infernal machines in some cases contained very large charges of explosives (e.g the machine which exploded at the Rue de Clichy contained between 50 and 60 lbs), and of the considerations, 1st. that the cart which would resist the explosion of such a charge would be proportionally inconvenient to bring into action, besides attracting much attention… and that in the event of a bomb containing a charge in excess of what the cart was calculated to resist exploding therein, the iron and stout structure of the cart itself would probably seriously aggravate the effect.  

Majendie goes on to discuss that the presses available at each of the four disposal sites (which are pictured i the earlier post referenced above) which often succeeded in dismantling the IEDs without them exploding, but on occasion when an explosion did occur, its effect was usually “greatly diminished” by cracking of the outer shell.  Interestingly Majendie also reported three other techniques used during EOD operations:

a. Sometimes small dynamite charges were used to open the container of a bomb.

b. The French also used a mechanical device with three movable arms, or “holders” into which IEDs of different sizes can be fixed and lowered into a bath of mercury. Some devices were sealed with the use of solder and by immersing that part in mercury, for about 24 hours, caused the tin in the solder to dissolve breaking any soldered seal.

c. if the team attending the site of an incident felt it too dangerous to move they would “blow in place”. Majendie disagreed with this approach and recommended a degree of risk to avoid inadvertently seconding and supplementing the anarchist’s intentions.

As a result of the visit, Majendie developed the small, light handcart for transporting devices, that I showed in an earlier post here. The first of London’s disposal facilities was set up in 1894 on Duck Island , with others planned at Hyde Park, the Tower of London and in some circumstances a facility at Woolwich.   Later, in 1895, a truck was provided for transporting devices to the disposal facility by the War Office.  Two years later in 1896, the French authorities were using the first X-ray imaging systems to examine suspect IEDs.

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