EOD X-Ray Training

As a U.S. Marine (MOS 2336) and U.S. Army (MOS 89D40) Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD) I have used all types of different x-ray systems from old school wet film to the newest digital systems. I have been part of classroom and hands on training with these x-ray systems and typically we built the devices that we conducted x-ray training on. It was always some kind of box or container with the IED wired inside. Each part of the IED was separated so when you x-rayed it the Render Safe Procedure (RSP) was very simple. When I look back on that training and compare the devices we built to the actual devices the terrorist are using today, I can see that we were not training realistically. In this article I am going to explain how we might even still be training on x-ray in a very unrealistic manner and how we can correct that deficiency to improve capability.

In the above image I show 2 types of IED's that I was able to find on a basic google search. The 1st set are real deal terrorist IED's and the second set are utter junk that are not realistic technically nor match what the terrorist are using. When you google "IED's" online what you will see is a ton of Hollywood style IED's and what is really sad is I see these same hookie dooakie devices being used as training aids in x-ray training. Even when you google "IED x-ray" all you really see are devices that are all laid out nice and neat with no clutter.

Terrorist love to use fragmentation in their devices and when they do they use as much as they can fit into the container (not just a few nails). They also layer it uniformly most times and the frag creates dense metal barrier and it can take any of the devices above and drastically change the complexity of the problem. They also typically build the devices in a holistic configuration (everything is together) and not all laid out nice and neat like you see in the above IED's.

We seem to be stuck in this mode of making IED's that fit into the Hollywood version of a IED and not based on terrorist known designs. The pristine layout IED for x-ray appears to have become the norm and even from a technical perspective we are geared toward improving based on a component based IED configuration. The below image is from the Sandia XTC software and is touted as the best thing since sliced bread. The image is a tool box with each of the IED components all laid out nice and neat and of course the tool box has no tools or clutter. The software seems to be awesome in this scenario but what happens when we add tools (clutter) and the IED components are put together in a holistic configuration vs are nicely separated?

You want to impress me with your software? Stop using devices that are all laid out nice and neat and have zero clutter. Show me a software that can help me as a bomb technician with a cluttered image and the IED is not all nicely laid out and I will be impressed. You can have all the pixels in the world but when you have a holistic IED (what terrorist do) and you add fragmentation or clutter, your 1 zillion pixel resolution just got negated. So why are we training like each and every IED we might encounter is going to be laid out nice and neat with no blocking material? There are a bunch of "reasons" but how we can correct this is more important. It starts with building devices that match what the terrorist are doing. To do this you just need to research current terrorist IED designed and much of this info is open sourced and not classified.

There are a ton of references out there that are open source and you can see what the terrorist are using to build IED's. I am going to list a few of them below but it seems that most EOD guys are not aware that this information is public and open source. I have to scratch my head sometimes when I see guys blowing a gasket when they see something they think is classified. The reality is that if something is open source and you do not know about as a subject matter expert (SME) you are not doing your due diligence and being up on current threats/trends. The below are just a few open source documents that detail the different type of devices and firing systems the terrorist are using. You need to be aware of this information and start training based on current bad guy tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). The "everything is classified" bus is not going to just drop by and give you all of this info and 90% of the time it is us good guys learning from the bad guys and not the other way around. For those of you that do not spend time searching on the internet your heads are probably going to explode with your see the below.

Source 1: IED Trigger Recognition Guide:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/IED_Trigger_Recognition_Guide.pdf

Source 2: Counter IED smart Book: https://info.publicintelligence.net/MNC-ICounterIEDSmartBookSeptember2008.pdf

Source 3: Public Intelligence: Tons of stuff on this site : https://publicintelligence.net/?s=IED

Source 4: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/IEDIdentificationUpdateJul2006.pdf

When you research just those sites (there are tons more) and see what the bad guys are using, you next need to compare those devices to the devices that you are building and training on at your unit. When it comes to x-ray training many of these devices that are referenced in these publications are built in such a way that they are what we call a holistic IED configuration vs a component based IED. What does that mean? It means that IED's are that in a component based layout are very easy to see all of the parts and pieces but in a holistic layout it is much harder to identifying everything. What I typically witness when I see x-ray training is component based IED's and ZERO background clutter in the package. These x-ray training scenarios are so easy to solve it is like playing basketball on my kids 3 foot high basketball hoop.

So why do we always make IED's that are all laid out perfectly, no clutter, and are at a angle that makes identifying the components basically a joke (empty pipes with no powder too)? The big problem with this method of training is when we train to this very simplistic level and you get a real device that is not all laid out nice and neat in a package with clutter, you are going to be hurting trying to figure it all out. The entire scenario becomes much more complex and not your simple run of the mill render safe.

Starting off with easy x-ray scenarios is fine to teach the basics but you need to make sure the complexity increases and is not always a perfectly laid out IED in a empty box. You also need to get on the net and start exploring what info is in the public domain. I am shocked at how many people have no clue what is out there and freak out when they see it. The stuff I listed is good guy sites and many of you will crap your pants when you see what the bad guys post. The last link is a terrorist publication that is open source and they put actual device design in this publication. The bad guys are not in the stone age people and this info is out there for anybody to see. If you do not know about it.....well.....your not keeping yourself in the real world loop. Train like you are going to fight and KNOW YOUR ENEMY.

The below is a bad guy publication that is open source: https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/inspire-magazine-17.pdf