Standing Well Back
1940-1950

The Russian IED connection

Last year I wrote two important blog pieces. The first was about the Russian IED expert Ilya Starinov – certainly the most important person in the history of explosive sabotage.  The second post was about the Russian F-10 radio controlled demolition device, used successfully by Starinov in WW2.

Since than I have been digging to find more details of Starinov’s devices, which I have finally successfully done, and there are some very interesting findings.    I’ve also uncovered other anecdotal stuff about Starinov and indeed about the broader history of IEDs which I’ll post in coming days and weeks.  I also have more technical detail on the F-10 to discuss in future posts.

Now, firstly, a caution. Some of the material I have found regarding the construction and design of certain IEDs could be abused by people with ill-intent. All the material I am going to post is unclassified, but I’m going to obscure parts of it and discuss things in some vague terms  to make it much less useful to those with criminal intent.  If you want to know the source and you know me or can prove you have a legitimate need to see the sources I am using, then get in touch. Otherwise I make no apology for being deliberately non-specific about some of this material. Now, I found the source of this material on line, and others may be able too, but I am going to limit my helpfulness towards those who shouldn’t have this detail.  If you want to challenge my assessments and why I draw the conclusions I reach below, I’m very happy to do this off-line.  This means, perhaps, you are going to have to trust me on some of my assessments. Or not!  Finally I should also point out, sadly, that there is no shortage of detailed technical instructions for miscreants to find how to make bigger and better IEDs then these here discussed in an openly available 70-year-old document, discussing devices from the Eastern Front in 1942.  The horse of IED knowledge bolted a long time ago.  Close the stable door if you can – I can’t.

The document I found was developed not from Russian sources, but from US sources, who clearly in the immediate post-war period of 1945-1950 had access to German Wehrmacht engineers reports. These engineers had conducted thousands of successful EOD operations. By gleaning reports of Soviet demolition activity, dealt with by the German engineers in WW2, the US military tried to gain a greater understanding of Soviet capabilities in the 1950s. So this was real technical intelligence on Soviet explosive technology, and explosive sabotage tactics, as the Cold War span up.  So here we have, in 2020, the opportunity to examine 1950s US military technical intelligence, derived from Nazi German technical intelligence from the period 1940-1945, about Russian explosive devices.  So this isn’t exactly a primary source.  But some of the detail I’m going to show you makes me convinced this is worthwhile, valuable historical material, and there are certain aspects which surprised me.

Firstly to remind you of the context. It is apparent that the Soviet soldier of WW2 was pretty familiar with improvising explosives charges, either using his own munitions or captured German munitions. The Germans state that the Russian soldier is “particularly ingenious in installing improvised mines and booby traps“. During the latter part of WW2, the Russian use of sabotage explosive devices went way beyond anything seen before or since. Furthermore partisans in Eastern European countries were trained to improvise yet further. Thousands of railway lines, trains and vehicles were attacked explosively by Russians or Russian sponsored partisans in eastern Europe. Much of this was coordinated by Ilya Starinov, who also designed explosive devices , trained the perpetrators and on many occasions planted key devices himself. Starinov survived numerous purges, and went on to develop spetzntaz units and tactics, and taught revolutionaries around the world in the 1950s and 1960s.

In this first post, I’m going to highlight some very interesting similarities between Soviet sabotage devices from WW2 and (get this) IRA devices of the 1970’s, 1980’s and even 1990’s.  These similarities go beyond just application of general explosive/sabitage principles – there are significant design similarities in aspects of the devices.  Here’s some examples, and a final, highly technical device that I won’t comment on too deeply.

  1. Firstly there is the use of specific component items.  In the 1970s and into the 1990s, many PIRA devices encountered in the UK had firing or arming switches as part of the circuitry. In the vast majority of cases, in what was termed “Time and Power Units” (TPUs) this switch consisted of an adapted wooden springed clothes peg help open with a wooden dowel. Here’s a demonstration circuit showing the “IRA technique”.
  2. The clothes peg was wired so that a switch closed when an insulator was removed from the jaws of the peg, arming this device. In the 1950 document I have found. German engineers describe this exact concept being found in Russian devices in the early 1940s. Here’s a pic:  

3. In the late 1980s, PIRA developed the “Mk 12” mortar as British Forces called it. This was followed in 1993 by the smaller “Mk16” Mortar. These were missiles that had a shaped charge in its front end, a hollow pipe behind it containing a fuze and tail fins to stabilise in flight.  This wasn’t really a mortar but a horizontally fired missile typically fired at vehicles. It had a shaped charge warhead and a fuze set in the hollow tube behind, with simple fns to stabilise  it in its short flight.  Here’s  a picture of a PIRA Mk 12 Mortar. disassembled:

4. In WW2 Russian partisans developed a device that is remarkably similar. Not tube-launched but built for a similar purpose and with almost identical design principles. Here’s the pic from the 1950 report:

5.  The Russians also concentrated significantly on additional circuits or mechanisms to booby trap charges. By introducing anti-handling and anti-lift charges, several of the devices used by the Soviets appear remarkably similar to what the British EOD community of the 1970’s refer to as “Castlerobin” devices. I’m not going to discuss this further here. But clearly there is a thought-process going on to prevent the render safe of devices, and target the EOD operator. The parallels in design are clear.

6. The creation of devices which target EOD activities went a step further with the introduction of a RF sensitive switch designed to initiate an explosive device when certain mine detection equipment was used. This was fielded in December 1943.  Some of this equipment was captured by the Wehrmacht in January 1944, and rapidly exploited.  70 years later , technology which is triggered by the RF signature of certain EOD equipments would be regarded as a very high threat indeed – yet, here the Russians were in the early 1940s developing such technology. The device responded to a frequency of 800-2000Hz at short range, emitted by German EOD equipment. What is more, the Germans recognised the importance of such an advance, examined the Russian technology, identified some flaws, and developed their own version of the equipment. They also developed technical solutions to the threat.   I find that remarkable, and some of you will share my surprise for reasons we won’t go into. Here’s an excerpt from the report showing the circuit to prove it is what I say it is – (I have obscured part of it for reasons explained earlier).

To be clear in my assessments: I’m not saying that the IRA devices of the late twentieth century were designed by the Russians – just that there are some odd parallels, that may be coincidences. Direct influence is possible but so, theoretically, is the potential for the IRA to have got hold of the American report written in the 1950s. It’s not secret.  But we shouldn’t underestimate the fact that Starinov was training revolutionaries from around the world. I do think that these parallels once again highlight the importance of understanding the history of IEDs.  The fact that Russian devices were so focused on countering EOD action is interesting and significant and deserves wider understanding.  The general under-appreciation of the extensive, WW2 Russian sabotage campaigns using improvised explosive devices is barely recognised and deserves a much greater level of attention. Frankly it makes the efforts of the British SOE or American OSS look very paltry in comparison.

In future blogs related to all this I will address the following:

  1. Some Russian devices designed specifically for targeting railways – further to my series in the subject. Some were designed by Starinov himself.
  2. More technical details of the Russian F-10 radio controlled device.
  3. Some more details and photographs of Ilya Starinov, and an interesting story about the F-10 radio-controlled devices he deployed to assassinate German General General Braun in Kharkov in November 1941, and the role of a young commissar called Krushchev (yes, that one) in the operation, protecting Starinov from being arrested by Beria’s agents and “purged” before the device was detonated.
  4. An odd and fascinating series of parallels between this 1950s American report and another American report written in 1865 showing almost identical devices. History repeating itself again. Some of the Russian devices of WW2 are identical to Russian devices of the 1850s, and some other Russian devices of WW2 are very similar to American revolutionary devices of 1778.

All in all, this document is a bit of a treasure trove when put within the larger context of the history of IEDs over several centuries.

 

Railway IEDs

US Army Deployed Railroad VBIED

In a number of previous posts I have discussed the use of railways to deliver VBIEDs. These have included:

a. The Provisional IRA attack in 1992 on the Border post using a road vehicle converted to run on rails carrying a large explosive charge.

b. The Soviet partisan attack using a rail vehicle as a VBIED  against Nazi German forces in Ukraine in 1943 (discussed with the one above).

b. The Boer and the British attacks using trains as delivery VBIEDs at Mafeking around 1900.

c. The Boer train VBIED attack on Okiep in 1902.

d.  The Mexican train IEDs 1912/1913.

I’ve now found an attack by the US military in 1944, using an IED with significant similarities to the IRA device of 1992.  It is mentioned in Ian Jones’s excellent book “Malice Aforethought” which anyone finding this blog interesting will find full of useful stuff. Highly recommended.

Here’s an excerpt about the incident:

As the US 6th Armored Division were advancing towards Brest they indulged in a little extra military activity. The 9th Armoured Infantry Battalion purchased a truck which they modified to run remotely along a railway line. The “Doodlebug”, as it was called, was loaded with 750 lbs of captured explosive and fitted with a crude improvised crush switch attached to the front bumper. It was set off one night under its own power at 25 mph to cross the thinly manned front line to intercept a nightly German re-supply train. At about 23:00 hours a terrific explosion was heard from about 3 miles behind the German lines. Unfortunately it never proved possible for the 9th Armored to check the results of their work.

I think the use of IEDs by all sides in WW2 was quite extensive, often forgotten. Mostly these were perhaps “defensive” in nature left behind by withdrawing forces, so this “offensive” ingenious VBIED is something of an exception.  The unusual nature of the device here also makes it difficult to categorise in terms of initiation. Victim operated? Timed? Command? Take your pick.

Ship-Borne IEDs

The Operation Chariot IED

Sometimes doing historical research on IEDs, you get stuck finding out technical detail and the post dies. Just occasionally the subject matter is really interesting and deserves telling anyway – but with some caveats. This is one such incident but there’s a fair bit of speculation from me on some technical matters.  I’m very happy (as always) to be corrected, and happy if more technical details surrounding this incident come out – and then I’ll update.  I’m very grateful for Norman B and Ian J for their valuable inputs on technical matters – there’s no-one who knows more about explosive  devices of this time than these two gentlemen.

I’ve written before about a fascinating historical trend of ship-borne IEDs used in ports on the Northern coast of Europe since the 1580’s – follow the link in the connections on the right hands side of the page to ship-borne IEDs.  One I have mentioned, if only in passing, was the most recent – The St Nazaire Raid – Operation Chariot – that took place in 1942.  This is an interesting story and if some of the details are a little grey, then that’s the way it is.

If you don’t know the story of “the greatest raid” you should google it and get your head around this audacious operation – designed to prevent the Tirpitz from using the Atlantic, by taking out the huge “Normandie” dry dock in the German-held port of St Nazaire.  The characters involved all have individual tales that are quite remarkable, but this is a blog about explosive devices, so I’m going to concentrate on that.    The crucial part of that raid was a large IED hidden deep within the hull of “HMS Campbeltown” which literally was rammed into the gates of the huge dry dock at the St Nazaire Naval Base.

Once the ship was lodged in the gates, the stern of the ship was flooded to prevent the Germans perhaps pulling the ship out from the gates, and so the stern was stuck and the ship, for the time being, was going nowhere.  The occupants of the ship either died in the approach action or fought their way ashore, many of them with missions to blow-up the dry dock infrastructure. Unknown to the German forces though, the fuzes in the ship had been set, and in a few hours the explosive device would indeed detonate to destroy the dry dock gates.  So let’s explore what that device consisted of, and here are the caveats:

  • We can’t be sure exactly how the device was fuzed, because the man who perhaps designed it and who set the fuzes died. Or alternatively the secrecy procedures of the time simply kept it all under wraps and it wasn’t discussed and recorded as we’d hope.
  • Most of my sources, at this stage are not primary sources, so I’m left scrabbling for odd unreferenced mentions relating to the device that I can’t fully confirm. These are open to interpretive filters by those “swinging the lamp”.
  • Some of the limited technical details about the device and its components vary between sources.
  • Even if I had all the facts of the device design some of the reasoning behind the design is going to be open to interpretation anyway.

So, despite all that, here’s what I think may have been the idea. I suspect the design of the device was a collaborative affair. Lt Nigel Tibbits DSC RN was the naval officer detailed by the captain to oversee it, and he probably had the key role in deciding where the main charge was placed, and the concept of its use. I’m unsure as to his level of expertise – some sources describe him as an explosives expert and others that he was the ship’s navigator. I think he was maybe unlikely to be both.  I suspect he had some form of assistance from two Royal Engineer demolition officers who are vaguely referenced, and also I suspect, from the SOE, who provided, perhaps/maybe/probably, some of the fuzes and possibly some ideas regarding concealment of the components.  The device itself seems to have some of the characteristic fingerprints of an SOE sabotage device in terms of its components and its concealment.   I suspect Tibbits came up with the idea of placing the device in the fuel tank, and the demolitions officers placed the charges and initiation system, and the SOE may have provided advice on concealing the initiation system and provided some key components.

Lt Tibbits DSC RN

The main charge was to consist of 24 Mk VII depth charges, each containing 132Kg of Amatol, giving a total of over 3000 kg.   Amatol was a commonly used explosive in the first part of WW2, and in crude terms was a mix of TNT and Ammonium Nitrate. It’s a reasonably stable, quite effective, explosive, better than straight TNT because the “oxygen deficiency” of TNT is made up with Oxygen ions in the Ammonium Nitrate.

To give you an idea of scale, here’s a single Mk VII depth charge being lifted:

 

The remainder of the explosive components used were from a stock probably delivered to the ship before the operation, I think from the SOE and detailed in one report as follows:

  • 10 x 2.5-hour waterproof delays
  • 20 x 2.5-hour pencil delays
  • 10 x underwater initiators for Cordtex leads
  • 20 x 8.5-hour AC delays
  • 20 x Bickford fuses.

I believe that quite significant attempts were made to disguise and conceal the presence of this large device.  On HMS Campbeltown a main fuel tank is located deep in the hull, behind the forward gun, just forward of the bridge super-structure and about 12 feet down under the main deck, under the Petty Officers’ Wardroom. The top part of this fuel tank was sectioned off to create a compartment. Into this the depth charges were placed in 4 columns, front to back, of six each.  The spaces between were then filled with concrete, and a steel lid with (disguised?) access holes placed on top.  I assume that the holes was accessed from the deck of the petty officers wardroom.  I think any reasonable explosives specialist would fit a cordtex ring main around at least the central depth charges if that were possible.

The device was carefully constructed before the operation and I have found the attached photograph of the ship at this time of preparation, in Devonport.

A few things strike me about this photo.  This was taken during the preparation for the operation – additional bolt-on armoured shielding is being put in place.  But there are several other interesting things in this picture which shows the key deck space above the charge (between the superstructure and the forward gun). Firstly, I think those cylinders at the feet of the seaman are Mk VII depth charges – just at the moment of being loaded aboard – I think I can see six. So that’s interesting. Secondly, so are two of the characters on the picture. Just behind the seaman and the officer are two men dressed in civilian clothes – trilbies and overcoats.  They can’t be dockyard workers, as such clothing would be inappropriate. I wonder if they are SOE explosives specialists visiting the preparation to advise on device construction, which one assumes is going on below.   Forgive me a little speculation on that!  The SOE had a department, at the time called “ISRB” (Inter Services Research Bureau) who conducted research and development of some of the stranger weapons of war. ISRB supported SOE directly but also, and significantly, they supported “Combined Operations” the organisation, under Mountbatten, who coordinated and planned Operation Chariot.  ISRB played a key role in developing the AC Time delays, time pencils, sand underwater initiators, so the “shopping list” of components listed earlier looks like they were from ISRB. So I think it’s reasonable for us to assess that the firing system had very significant input from ISRB, who also where masters at disguising and concealing devices.    A number of the central depth charges were under the access holes, allowing the charge to be primed.  There was a variant of the MkVII depth charge, that had a built in detonator adaptor to allow initiation from a detonator or cordtex , but it’s not clear if this was available to this mission, or indeed if it was developed as a result of this mission’s requirements.

The fuzing of the system is where we have to make a few speculative assumptions, and where there are only a few facts. What follows is a bit of a ramble through the technical aspects.

  1. The charge had at least two separate initiation systems, and it is very likely indeed that some of these were duplicated to ensure detonation.
  2. Both the primary and back-up initiation systems employed time delay switches. The challenge here is that many sources contradict each other on the lengths of time delays available, and then after that they are all dependent to a greater or lesser degree on the temperature. I’m conscious that in discussing some of the timings, there are queries over the “2.5” hour time pencil delays and “8.5” hour AC time delays that I have not resolved completely because of conflicting information.
  3. The primary initiation system was designed to function some time after the ship had been evacuated, probably 2.5 hours after the crew “disembarked”. It probably used at least one (and probably/almost certainly more than one) 2.5 hour pencil delays.
  4. The planned time between disembarkation and detonation was the reason that the device needed to be concealed.
  5. I have found one reference (not all that well sourced) that suggests that the primary ignition system (the 2.5 hour time pencils) were hidden, somehow, in the leg of a wardroom table.  I’m going to assume that this is the wardroom above the main charge, and that from the time pencil (or much more likely, multiple time pencils) was a detonator(s) and then an explosive link of cordtex that went down the table leg, through the deck below, and into the main charge.  But it is possible that the time pencil was connected to Bickford fuse and that the detonator was at the end of this, perhaps inside the false fuel tank attached to cordtex ring main.
  6. The 2.5 hour time pencils had a white-coloured safety strip.  Now 2.5 hours seems like a long time to me, but I think this was because of the other explosive demolition operations planned for the pumping house and other dock facilities – these would explode first, the commandos clear the area, and then the main charge in the Campbeltown would destroy the gates. Exploding the Campbeltown first may have compromised the ability to destroy all the supporting mechanisms.  So the concept of operation assumed that the device would be undiscovered for 2.5 hours – (in the middle of the night, during a battle, with raiding parties all around so not unreasonable). The main part of the raid was expected to take no more than 2 hours.
  7. Now, time pencils are a bit fiddly. They need some inspection during the process of initiating them, involving checking in sight holes, crushing a copper vial, crimping on safety fuze or detonator, inspecting again, and then removing the safety pin.  So the hidden compartment would need to allow fairly easy access. We know nothing more of this concealment. I sense the hand of ISRB in this concealment design. It is also possible that they fitted some sort of mechanism to aid the ease of initiation of the time pencils to reduce the fiddly process at the height of battle. here’s a pic of the the pencil:
  8. I suspect that the plan was for Tibbitts or one of the Royal Engineers to set these immediately after ramming the dock gates.  It would have been sensible to assign back up personnel to this task given the expected battle.
  9. The “back up” initiation system seems to have involved the use of “AC” delay devices.  These involved acetone dissolving a celluloid barrier, and different concentrations of acetone varied the timing.  Here’s a picture:

And a photo of one:

 

9. The delay is varied in these igniters by inserting different coloured ampoules of acetone. They are set by removing the safety pins then screwing the top in to break the ampoules   The ones supplied to the Campbeltown were supposedly “8.5 hour” delays, but other convincing sources don’t offer that as an available time delay. So that’s an anomaly I haven’t resolved. These, attached to a detonator, were embedded in the main charge or a ring main (I suspect there may have been a booster of some sort or some cordtex in the mix there to ensure the explosive train).  This 8.5 hour timer (if that is what it was) then has the consequence that the charges needed to be set several hours before the final stages of the operation commenced. But there’s some interesting maths here and some challenges.

10. The operation planned for the Campbeltown to ram the dock gates at 0130 hrs. (it did so 4 minutes late, at 0134 hrs.) .  The plan must(?) have been for the main delay mechanism. in the wardroom table leg, to be set at that point – with a 2.5 hour delay then the explosion was to have been at 0400.  The back up initiation system, to coincide with that, should therefore have been set, theoretically, at 1930hrs the previous evening.   Given that that was long before the approach to St Nazaire, and these fuses were known to have reliability issues, I think they would have been set later – hence the delay in initiation until next morning.  Added into all of this the AC fuses were known to have quite a range of variation in timing – by as much as 20% due to variables such as the temperature, and also variables in the concentration of the acetone due to poor quality control during manufacture. So some leeway would be given, as well as a fudge factor.  As it was , I understand from one source that the AC delays were “set” at 2330 hrs – but I can’t be sure what time zone that’s in – “British” or “local”.  Either way, at some point in the night, during passage towards St Nazaire,  Lt Tibbits (if it was him) set the AC time delays, I think by reaching somehow through the wardroom floor/deck, setting the devices, (remove the pin, screw the head in) then concealing the access hole with a wooden bung.

11. Then of course battle ensued and things went wrong, as they always do in battle. At some point during the attack, the wardroom was struck by a German shell. Fire ensued, and brave attempts were made to extinguish it.  In this picture, taken after the ramming but just before the ship exploded, I think you can see the resultant fire damage to the hull on the outside of the wardroom, just under the forward gun.  If you look carefully perhaps you can see a hole where the shell hit.

12. It was probably due to this shell that the primary initiation system was damaged and un-usable. It must also be luck that the device wasn’t initiated at this time, early.    So then the attack was relying on the back up AC delays deep in the hidden compartment. The hit on the wardroom also probably made a compete mess of the interior of the wardroom and perhaps added to the reasons why the charge was not found in the ensuing hours. But imagine crewing this ship, sat above (literally) a 3 ton explosive charge, knowing that there’s been a hit and a consequent fire around the initiating systems. Wow.  Encouragement to get off as soon as possible I think.  Here’s another picture showing how the sea cocks had been opened at the stern to prevent a rapid tow away by German forces.

13. The AC delays finally caused initiation, the main charge having been undetected, at about 10.30 am, perhaps 10 or 11 hours after the 8.5 hour delay (if that’s what they were) had been set.   40 senior German officers and civilians who were on a tour of what they supposed was the captured Campbeltown were killed.  Hundreds of others in the dock nearby were also killed or injured.  The charge, as you can see from the photo above, was probably 12 – 15ft behind the dock gates, which were blown apart by the explosion. The dock remained unusable until 1947.    What remained of the Campbeltown came to rest in the dry dock itself.

I think this photo (taken after the war, I think when the dock was being repaired) shows the immense scale of the Normandie Dry dock, with the little Campbeltown‘s remains occupying the space that would otherwise have held the mighty Tirpitz.

I have taken some liberties here with my sourcing and interpretation of the device design, and I’m very happy to be corrected. some of my assessments contradict some sources. (for instance one source suggests that the device was to be initiated  at 4.30 am, others after 0500 am). I put some of this down to the confusion of battle and also confusion over time zones.  I think I’d make the following points in summary:

  1. This attack has so much in common with a number of earlier ship-borne IEDs that occurred on the Channel or Atlantic coasts in the previous 400 years.
  2. It was fortunate it succeeded, particularly in terms of the enemy fire hitting the place where the primary initiation system was hidden.
  3. Disguise of the device was clearly a major factor in its construction. The disguise and concealment worked. If one regards this “ship IED” as essentially a large vehicle-borne IED, the key features of a VBIED are all here – mobility, disguise, speed, size of container.  As others in history worked out for themselves, (and as you can read on other pages of this blog), as vehicle-borne IEDs go, there are none bigger than ships.
  4. Exploring the “tactical design” of any IED attack is always fascinating, and the same is true here in spades.  Too little time is spent understanding this process (both by perpetrators and by investigators). That complex interrelationship of the mission, and the way that technical resources can be moulded to fit the mission, or the mission tweaked to take account of the technicalities of device design and construction is fascinating.  If you were in Tibbits’s shoes, how many back-ups would you have? How would you protect them, from enemy fire and from discovery?  What alternatives can you envisage? What other resources did he have available?  Complex attacks sometimes require complex devices. Simplicity usually works.  For simple, routine sabotage type operations the availability of explosive components leads to the design of the mission.  But for complex operations such as this, the components have to be adapted to suit the required characteristics, and that can pose challenges.  For those developing components for use by saboteurs, such as ISRB, they have to cover all angles they have to allow as much flexibility as possible and you can see that in the range of timers and initiation types available. There are some interesting parallels, as ever, with modern terrorism.
  5. The reliance on somewhat unreliable time delay devices is perhaps surprising in modern terms. The whole concept of operation screams for a mechanical rather than chemical timer, or in modern terms an electronic timer.
  6. We’ll probably never know the actual design, or if there were additional fallback initiation systems.
  7. IEDs are not always the sole provenance of the enemy. Often viewed with disdain, sometimes depending on your perspective, their use can be heroic. What a strange phenomena they are. Of course you may not regard this as an IED at all, but I do.
  8. Checking out a large vehicle or ship for hidden explosives is damned difficult if the device is well hidden.
  9. Bloody hell, it was a close run thing.

I think most of all about the challenge faced by Lt Tibbits. As the Campbeltown approached St Nazaire docks, its guns blazing , under heavy fire from everything the Germans could muster, he replaced two helmsmen, both killed by incoming enemy fire, and he was at the wheel, the skipper by his side, as it rammed the dock gates at full speed trailing the royal ensign that had replaced the ruse de guerre of a German flag minutes before.  He knew his primary initiation was gone – so he may have felt significant pressure to somehow ensure detonation.  Dare he rely on the back up charges?   Given the decks were strewn with injured, that would have restricted his options.  Would the device be discovered?  What choices were open to him? In any event he was cut down by machine gun fire a few seconds after disembarking and he died there on the dockside and that, I’m afraid, was that for Lt Tibbits.

In future, I may do a similar piece on the WW1 Zeebrugge raid which has a lot of similarities, including another big IED. If I can get enough facts together. One wonders too, that if earlier in the war Operation Lucid had succeeded, would the Germans have paid more attention to the likelihood of explosive charges. Or if they had access to the history of explosive ships along this European coast would they have dug a little deeper into the hull of HMS Campbeltown.

Radio Controlled IED

German WW2 use of ROVs to deliver explosives

In recent years various terrorist groups and others have used land, sea or air ROVs to deliver explosive payloads to targets.  As usual, people view these things as new and innovative threats. But as readers of this blog site will know,  that usually isn’t the case and I have more details here of some interesting early use of such devices from WW2, although they go much further back.  Some of these may be classed as “improvised” but others are clearly formally developed systems – but let’s not get hung up on definitions, because the concept is what is interesting   There are several aspects to this – one is the technology that is used, and another is the tactical employment. Many of the implementations of this concept were unsuccessful but the reasons for this are also interesting and indeed are being repeated in modern terrorist use of ROV technology.  I won’t go into that aspect in too much detail for obvious reasons.   So here goes with a few interesting  German “land based” example ROVs from WW2.

I’ve written before about the WW2 German “Goliath” remote controlled mine, a small tracked vehicle not too different in scale from modern EOD ROVs.   Following the fall of France in WW2, the Germans captured  a prototype French ROVs used for explosive charge delivery which seemed to inspire the development of the Goliath. This vehicle had been “hidden” in the River Seine, but the Germans got to hear of it and salvaged it for technical exploitation and reverse engineering. (Readers may recall a similar reverse engineering operation from a “purchased” French speed boat just before WW1, that I discussed in an earlier post).

 

Captured German Goliath ROVs after D-Day

While there has been some attention on the Goliath tracked vehicle, used to deliver demolition charges to targets, perhaps just as significant for us looking at history was the German Borgward B remote tracked vehicle. A contract was let by the Wehrmacht to the Carl Borgward engineering company in Bremen for 50 tracked vehicles in 1939. It’s not quite clear if the Borgward B was developed originally to deliver demolition charges or for other purposes such as towing mine clearance tools or as an ammunition carriers.  One suggestion is that during the German invasion of France, German engineers found an operational need and had been converting, in an improvised way, standard German tanks to operate remotely for certain tasks. The theory goes that as a result of after-action reports from this campaign the Borgward B was converted to fulfil this role. But it’s war and it’s a little confusing as to which came first, the chicken or the egg.    In any event,  Blaupunkt, the radio manufacturer developed a radio controlled system for the vehicle. These vehicles and their sub-systems were gradually improved in following years resulting in several “versions” as both their use and requirements changed.  A variety of vehicles were used as “control” vehicles as the war progressed. The radio control unit was very “modern” in appearance, using a joystick control and shared many of the features of the Linsen boats control systems.  The key features of the Borgward B was firstly that it could deliver a large charge, (typically 45o – 550kg), and secondly it could drop off the charge and retreat, thus in principle being a re-usable vehicle, unlike the smaller and disposable Goliath.

Here’s a pic of the Borgward B. The driver would drive the vehicle “normally” until it was a “tactical bound” away from the target, then he would get out and the vehicle would then be controlled by radio remotely. It looks like a fun  drive, (unless you are told to drive it to the Eastern Front).

 

The Borgward B wasn’t a huge success. it was unreliable and quite vulnerable to enemy fire.  Some reports suggest that some versions were equipped with smoke units to lay smoke screens or just to hide its own approach, but I’m not sure how it would then be controlled if surrounded by its own smoke screen. Perhaps this version was simply used to lay smoke screen and move laterally across the battlefield.  I have found a report that a single Borgward B was fitted with a TV camera as an observation vehicle during the fall of Berlin, perhaps a prototype but in the main the later use of these vehicles, in theory was to deliver and drop demolition charges.  The explosive charge, when dropped, had a timer initiation system that after a short period caused the charge to detonate.   The charge was released with the help of gravity after explosive retaining bolts were fired by the operator. I’m cautious about this and think it could have been a lever actuator.   It appears that there was an adjustable safety mechanism that armed the charge only after a certain distance (not time) had been covered, so for instance an operator would set the safety distance to 100m as he exited the vehicle, and the charge would only become “armed” after the vehicle had covered that distance. That’s logical, but I’m not sure how it was achieved.  These vehicles were less suited, of course, to defensive operations than offensive, where their utilisation against defended structures was optimised. I’m led to believe that over a thousand Borgward Bs were produced (compared to many thousand Goliath vehicles).

Here’s a great pic of the explosive charge after being “dropped off” by the vehicle. You can see it slides off the front plate where it is held in a “shoe”.

I think it’s worth thinking about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Borgward B and the Goliath.  The Borgward B could be moved into its tactical launch position by one man, but the Goliath needed a small team of men.  Perhaps that’s why the Goliath was used in defensive positions like the beaches of Normandy, where it was prepositioned in shrapnel proof hides, (but it wasn’t particularly effective). The Borgward B was larger and therefore more vulnerable, but delivered a much bigger charge than the Goliath more suitable to taking on defensive positions. The Borgward B was more expensive but in theory was reusable. In the main the Borgward B was radio controlled and this offered some flexibility but also posed some reliability problems with the technology of the day. The cable system principally used by the Goliath was more reliable but vulnerable to shrapnel damage.

There was an attempt at a “middle ground” the NSU “Springer” ROV developed in 1943/1944. This was smaller than the Borgward B, bigger than the Goliath, but was driven into launch position by a driver. About 50 were made, I think. Here’s a picture showing its scale and size. They seem to have limited operational use. I don’t have a handle on their control system.

 

I think it’s fascinating that the Germans also used vehicles captured  from the British and French and convert to ROVs. It seems that the German engineers saw potential in particular from the British Bren Gun carrier and the Belgian “utility tractor” (a British built tracked vehicle made by Vickers, who also made a proportion of the British Bren carriers).

Here’s a pic of both in “normal use”

A Belgian Vickers Utility tractor

Bren Carrier

A number of both these vehicles were converted to be cable-controlled demolition vehicles, each with a 1.2 km cable.  That’s quite a distance, and one imagines that control of vehicle at such range was tricky, based on distant observation.  A total of 60 were sent to the Crimea in 1941.  The German Crimean campaign of 1941 is interesting because I think it was used as a testing ground for range of innovative German technologies.  I’m currently exploring the use of an advanced prototype German fuel air explosive weapon in this campaign, to clear bunkers and defence structures, and it appears that these converted Belgian and British ROVs were used against the same targets to deliver relatively large explosive charges. I have also seen reports of Borgward B vehicles used in the Crimea at this time.  It appears that the majority of the 60 vehicles were deployed with mixed results – some destroyed by mines before they reached the targets, some destroyed by enemy fire, some failed and some functioned as intended destroying Russian defensive positions.  I can find no specifics over the amount of explosives carried by either vehicle, nor any specifics on the control mechanisms fitted.   It appears that the ROVs were “controlled” from a “mother” command tank.  The Germans complained that there were no spare parts for the captured ROVs and recommended development of indigenous vehicles accordingly.  Other feedback included the suggestion that they would be better employed in flatter, desert conditions, such as North Africa, rather than the complex urban defence environments of Sebastopol, and indeed at least one Bren carrier, captured at El Alamein was so converted.   While this effort to convert enemy tracked vehicles to wire guided demolition use wasn’t really repeated , it’s clear it had some success and more importantly allowed the Germans to develop tactics and concepts of operation. . I think too, given the large amounts of “enemy” vehicles abandoned in Europe at Dunkirk and elsewhere, it made economic sense to utilise them, and the Germans had no qualms about recovering, and using, where possible, quite a range of enemy equipment.

This picture is, it is claimed, a captured Bren carrier (complete with German Cross) fitted with explosives being deployed on the Eastern front. The vehicle in the distance is Borgward B, I think, so it seems very likely.

I think it’s fair to say that the Goliath and the Borgward B ROVs were less effective than the Germans had hoped in normal operations on the Eastern and Western fronts. But it’s worth looking more closely at their deployment in the tight urban environments of cities. There are notable reports of Goliaths being deployed into the Warsaw Ghetto in responding to the Warsaw uprising in 1943.  If ever there was a historic precedent to the urban destruction seen in modern day Syria, the destruction of the ghetto by the German in 1943 is it.    Goliath were used to target buildings, and of course with only small arms the defenders had little defence against these ROVs, unlike formal military units.  I also see parallels with modern anti-tank missiles being used against defensive positions in Syria, of which we are seeing many. Yes these aren’t as fast as those missiles but the targets and tactics are quite similar.

Here’s the remains of a burnt out Borgward B vehicle, I think destroyed by fire after it had dropped off its charge in Kilińskiego Street in Warsaw in August 1944. The explosion reportedly killed 200 residents. The story of this attack is dramatic and a desperately sad tragedy. Essentially the vehicle had been captured by Polish troops as the Germans attempted to deploy it towards a road block and was being paraded around Warsaw by cheering locals. Someone pulled a lever which caused the deployable explosive charge to slide off, and as we know there was a timer started by this activation which the crowds did not understand.  The charge detonated shortly after.  There is more detail here if you are interested. It is possible of course that this was a “Trojan horse” attack, and a number of sources claim this but I suspect that it was just accidental.

Here’s some pics of the Goliath systems being deployed in Warsaw.

This is the effect of a Goliath on a building in Warsaw

I think the German forces of WW2 had, in their ROVs, some interesting tools for offensive operations, and for the built up environments of  Warsaw and heavily prepared defensive environments off Sebastopol they were of some use.  But for German defensive operations, they were less suited. Fundamental unreliability was a major issue, it seems, with all the systems they used, and that’s both in terms of motive power and in terms of the control systems. Modern technology perhaps allows for more reliance on the systems used by terrorists and others. In a battle there is perhaps more of an issue of unit cost – whereas modern ROVs are cheaper, and not being deployed, in general, in battle conditions are doubly attractive. Modern ROVs have more precise controls including reliable and usable video components that makes control easier and more attractive. More accurate control also leads to the potential to reduce charge size and so allow the vehicle to be smaller. I think this aspect of modern ROV weapons is not yet widely understood.  Improved batteries for electric vehicles also increases range.  The issue of logistic support is somewhat useful in understanding use of ROVs for delivering explosives and again modern terrorist use changes the impact of that logistic support and is maybe less crucial in terms of systems.  What is inescapable now and in the past is that ROVs offer an aggressor a safe way of delivering explosives, with the size of the explosive charge required having, of course, an impact on the vehicles that might be suitable.  The key difference today is that technology has improved reliability of control systems, and also that technology is broadly available.  However it is susceptible to technical counter-measures.  In particular radio control systems are now consumer items and not limited to government enterprises.  There are also some other parallels in terms of utilisation of captured weapons systems – and here I’m thinking of the way some Syrian jihadists have adapted captured armoured vehicles for suicide VBIEDS.

I recommend thinking in terms of tactical design – the systems outlined above all approached the target to a “control” point. From there the mode of control switches – and remote control takes over.  It’s worth, as with any attack system, particularly terrorist attack using radio or other command systems, having a hard think about what defines that “control point”.  What are the characteristics of that change over point that are needed, are chosen and utilised? Understanding those will help you develop some counter-measures. Modern day control points are perhaps less clearly defined than these WW2 examples, but the principle remains. Another thought that comes to mind is the importance of Technical Intelligence to the EOD operator. Put yourself on the shoes of an EOD tech 75 years ago – what would you want to know about the command and initiation system before you dealt with such an object? It may have no relevance today but as a “process” it’s useful to think through how you, a modern EOD operator, would deal with such things in a variety of situations – it’ll get your brain thinking, and that’s the best use for a brain.

Most of you will be aware of the command driven vehicles used by modern terrorist groups – various Jihadi ones, ETA, FARC and the IRA have all use such systems and others too are in the back pages of this blog site. But most importantly don’t be then thinking remotely driven vehicles delivering explosives are anything new – they are more than a century old and there are lessons to be learned still. From a historical perspective I’m intrigued by the German campaign in Crimea and the manner in which they used innovative weapons systems there – I’ll be digging further as it’s not a part of WW2 that I’m all that familiar with and instinct is telling there’s some interesting history. I have one wild reference to an ROV being used underground there which I’m trying to track down, and of course Russian defence of Sebastopol in the century before has been a subject of previous blogs. It’s strange how the patterns of explosive use over the centuries return to the same places. Sebastopol, Antwerp, London…

 

20th Century

German Explosive Remote-Control speedboats of WW1 and WW2

Apologies, it has been some time since my last blog – I have been distracted on other projects.
This blog is an interesting addition, I think, and opened my eyes once again to matters of historical technology that have been forgotten by many. It concerns German remote-controlled, explosively-laden boats in WW1 and WW2 used in the English Channel and the north European coastline. Given current interest in drone technology it is tempting to start by putting it in that context, but I think I’m going to start by putting it in the context of the boat and ship-borne IEDs that have been something of a theme of this blog in recent years.  To remind you the North European coast from the Netherlands, through Belgium, the English Channel and round the French coast beyond St Nazaire have seen repeated use of the concept of a ship or boat loaded with explosives and sent to or placed next to a target for many centuries.  You can see my blogs on these by following the “ship-Borne IED” tag on the right hands column,   In rough historical order, these are:
  • The Hoop, Antwerp, 1584
  • A floating IED designed by Fulton, use against the French in 1620s by the British Royal Navy
  • Benbow’s Vesuvius of 1693, St Malo
  • Captain Dundas’s “machine vessel”, used against Dieppe and others used against Dunkirk, 1694
  • Meister’s ship IEDs of 1695
  • A catamaran IED used against the French by the Royal Navy in 1804
  • Cochrane’s Infernals of 1809 used at the Aix Roads, and a  larger vessel built in 1812
  • The Zebrugge raid of 1918
  • Operation Lucid, 1940
  • Operation chariot , St Nazaire, 1942
So all of these attacks used boats or ships loaded with explosives to attack ports and shipping.  In that context the use by the Germans of the same concept in WW1 and WW2 shouldn’t be a surprise but I have only just become aware of them.

WW1.

 Below is a picture of a WW1 weapons used by the Germans in the English channel in WW1. It’s called the “Fernlenkboot” (“remote control boat”), sometimes abbreviated to FL-boot.  The vessel was 17m long, and carried 700kg (1,500lbs) of explosive.   The concept was to use these against British Royal Naval vessels operating off the coast of Flanders – right in the traditional area for such attacks over the centuries. The control concept was quite complicated. Each boat had a spool of wire 20km long to provide control signals.  Observation was by aircraft which flew above and sent radio messages to a control station about steering directions.  The boat had a powerful petrol engine and could achieve speeds of 30 knots.  I have found some inconsistent but intruiging suggestions that as well as the cable controlled versions, radio control systems may also have been developed. Certainly some seem to have been equipped with antennae.
The commands available included
  • System test
  • Engine start, engine stop
  • Set Rudder position
  • Turn on a light, to enable the boat to be tracked at night
  • Detonate the warhead, to prevent capture of the boat if it missed its target
In later systems there was an auto destruct mechanism added that functioned after a time period.
The vessels were not used that often but one did hit HMS Erebus in October 1917 which was damaged but not sunk.
The provenance of this weapon is worthy of exploring. The system was built by “Siemens-Shuckert” and seems to have had its genesis in an idea that Werner Siemens the late 19th century engineer developed in 1871. I have blogged about Werner Siemens and his port defence command initiated IEDs before here.  In 1905 his son Wilhelm resurrected his father’s ideas for remote controlled boat weapon. It appears that Siemens developed the idea of an remote controlled , explosively laden boat some time before Tesla, who had a similar idea some 20 or 30 years later. Siemens really does play an important part in the history of explosive systems. The development of such technology of course parallels the development of modern torpedo technology. The advantage of a surface system is that it can be actively seen and steered by the user – the disadvantage is that the system can also be seen by the target, (stating the obvious here).    By 1914 the Siemens-Shuckert firm had continued to develop its technology and an interesting event occurred. There was a “power boat competition” in Monaco and a hi-tech French powerboat with an innovative engine was expected to be the winner. Just before the race, the boat was withdrawn by the French competitor and the boat disappeared – to turn up later in the Siemens- Shuckert research facility in Berlin, being reverse engineered. There was a French government investigation into the acquisition by the Germans of this technology. It appears that a man called Schmidt, who “pretended to be Russian” had bought the speedboat for hard cash. He was working with the German company Bosch, who were in return working for Siemens. This is the motor that appeared in the FL-boot in the war.  So some very interesting German technical espionage and industrial technology acquisition was going on before WW1.

WW2

In WW2, the Germans develop a similar concept called “Linsen” – high speed boats filled with explosives.  The concept was somewhat simpler – the boats had a crew (eventually of one person) who got the system within a distance of a target and then they “bailed out” jumping overboard. Then a control boat with an operator steered the Linsen craft to its target at high speed. this control boat in theory then picked up the original crew.  Like other systems, there were quite a few variants. Maximum speed from its Ford petrol engine was 31 knots. The boats carried a charge of 300kg.  A contact fuse in the bow caused the bow to blow off but the main charge (and engine) in the stern then sank, and detonated at a depth under the target, thus increasing the explosive effect. Clever.  Radio control from the support vessel was by ultra-short wave radio on the 7m band, a Blaupunkt, using various transmitted “tones” decoded into commands.  The receiver filtered the tones into relays and actuators.   The controls possible were:
  • Actuate starboard rudder
  • Actuate port rudder
  • Stop engine
  • Start engine
  • Slow ahead
  • Go faster
  • Detonate  the boat, if the attack was a failure.
  There is a suggestion that the control mechanism was also used in some of the Goliath tracked vehicles that I have blogged about here.
The control units, incorporating a very modern looking chest rig and joy stick look remarkably modern.
The Linsen boats were small, fast and worked in pairs.
The Linsen were used with very  limited success against Allied vessels off the coast of Normandy in the summer of 1944.   In one of those neat historical coincidences , later in 1944, Linsen explosive boats were used against Allied vessels trying to use the port of Antwerp in Belgium – some 360  years after the Hoop explosive vessel had been used near Antwerp to attack the Spanish invaders. Some things are never new…    Of course, other nations produced similar concepts in WW2, including the Italians, the Japanese (who used “swarm tactics” in high speed craft not unlike that envisaged by Iranian craft in the Gulf).  I may write about these in the future.    Small fast moving vessels containing explosives is a concept still very much in vogue, but largely the tactics remain similar, and the technology has advanced a little – but there’s really not much new, as ever!
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