Standing Well Back
19th Century

Booby trap IED in Florida – “Naught but a dead opossum”

…..in 1840.

A post a couple of months ago gave details of the development of IEDs by Confederate officer Brigadier General Gabriel Raines in the American Civil War. I’ve now found a record of the same officer using IEDs even earlier, in the Second Seminole Indian War in Florida in 1840. Here’s the story:

In 1839 Raines was posted as a company commander in north central Florida. In May 1840 he became commander of a single unit holding Fort King as other forces responded to (insurgent) activity at other Forts (FOBs). The insurgent forces seeing Fort King undermanned started to exploit the situation and killed two soldiers within sight of the Fort.  Raines wanted to seize the initiative and deter such attacks so developed an IED, a buried shell, covered with military clothing, designed to function if the clothing was picked up on a simple pull mechanism.  After several days waiting the IED exploded and Raines, with 18 men, went to the explosion site, but found “naught but a dead opossum”.  However while investigating his own IED he was attacked by a group of 100 Taliban Seminoles. Although they were fought off, Raines suffered serious injury, and was not expected to survive. Even his obituary was published in a newspaper. However he recovered, was promoted, and commended for “Gallant and Courageous service”. He went on to place a second IED but later had to remove if because his own soldiers were scared of it.  Raines’s actions were not approved by many in the US military.  20 years later when he used IEDs against the Union, his “dastardly business” was again condemned by Union Brigadier General William Berry who had not forgotten Raines’ exploits in Florida.

Raines died in 1881 of medical conditions associated with his injuries sustained in 1840.

20th Century

Massive Explosion in New Jersey

….In 1916

Following the blog posts about Tunney and Eagan, a number of correspondents have asked for more detail about the German saboteur campaign in the US of the period. I’ve recently undertaken an analysis of this campaign (and one other from history) to compare current C-IED “Attack the Network” strategies with previous C-IED Attack the Network efforts.  The German saboteur campaign is fascinating not only for the parallels with modern terrorism and the lessons learned and since forgotten, but some very interesting operational aspects from both the enemy and friendly forces.

This campaign by German saboteurs saw a number of cells operating in the New York and New Jersey areas attack 47 factories, 43 ships and a number of docks and railway facilities over about a 2 year period from 1915- 1917. They used both explosive IEDs and incendiaries.  Many German ships were being blockaded in US ports by the British and the sailors provided ample human resources for the German authorities efforts to prevent the industrial might of the US from providing munitions for the French, British and Russians fighting Imperial Germany, before the US entered the war in 1917.

There were many interesting attacks which I will blog in the future. The biggest was an arson attack on the Black Tom munition loading facility on the New Jersey shoreline, right opposite The Statue of Liberty.  Incendiaries were set by German agents and there is strong evidence to suggest that some local watchman were paid to turn a blind eye, at the very least. Some time later the fire took hold and caused a detonation of 1000 tons of explosives. The Statue of Liberty was damaged, windows were broken across Manhattan and the explosion heard as far away as Philadelphia and Maryland. According to one source it was measured at 5.5 on the Richter scale. Remarkably few people were killed however.

 

 

After the war a reparations committee sat for many years and argued whether the Black Tom explosion was sabotage or not.  Eventually in 1939 the German government agreed to pay reparations – but WW2 intervened and a $50 million reparation was finally paid in 1979.

A memorial stone at the scene, within sight of lower Manhattan records the incident calling it “One of the worst acts of terrorism in American history”.

After the war the response to the German Saboteur threat was assessed in retrospect (leading eventually to the formation of the FBI under Hoover), and I rather like this quote from the former New York Police Commissioner, Tunney’s former boss:

“The lessons to America are clear as day. We must not again be caught napping with no adequate national intelligence organization. The several Federal bureaus should be welded together into one, and that one should be eternally and comprehensively vigilant.”

Arthur Woods, former Police Commissioner NYPD 1919

Command IED

Early history of command wire electrically initiated IEDs

In some of my previous blogs I wrote about the first command wire IEDs occurring in the US Civil War, then had to correct myself as I found earlier examples in the Crimean war and then again earlier incidences by both Immanuel Nobel and Samuel Colt.

Well, I keep finding other perhaps earlier references as I dig into this and follow this “historical alley” and it’s really quite interesting and clearly things go back further in time than I had appreciated.  Here’s some extracts from what I’ve been digging up.

It starts with some further exploration into the efforts of Samuel Colt, the American industrialist and arms inventor. Separate from his efforts developing small arms, Colt for many years attempted to get the US government interested in a system for defending the US coastline which he referred to as his “Submarine Battery” which were essentially water-borne command initiated sea mines.  I attempted to try and find the inspiration for Colt’s efforts and the science on which he based his submarine munition technology.

I have in earlier blogs discussed the parallel work of Immanuel Nobel (father of Alfred Nobel) who developed command initiated sea mines for the Russian Navy at about the same time. It would appear that another 19th century military industrialist, this time the German Werner von Siemens was also developing very similar technologies perhaps a few years later in 1848, compared to Colt and Nobel who worked on their versions in the early part of the same decade. What is unclear is if these three entrepreneurial military technology developers were aware of each other’s developments.  Siemens’s devices were used to protect Kiel from Danish naval attacks in 1848.

But pertinent to the subject of electrical initiation of IEDs is a letter written by Benjamin Franklin in 1751 to Mr Peter Collinson of the Royal Academy in England which states

I have not hear’d, that any of your European Electricians have hitherto been able to fire gunpowder by the Electric Flame. We do it here in this Manner.

A small Cartridge is filled with Dry powder, hard rammed, so as to bruise some of the Grains. Two pointed Wires are then thrust In, one at Each End, the points approaching each other in the Middle of the Cartridge, till within the distance of  half an Inch: Then the Cartridge being placed in the Circle (circuit), when the Four Jars (galvanic cells) are discharged the electric Flame leaping from the point of one Wire to the point of the other, within the Cartridge, among the powder, fires It, and the explosion of the powder is at the same Instant with the crack of the Discharge

I wonder if we can call this the first electrically initiated IED? Albeit manufactured with pure science in mind rather than as a weapon.

Inspired directly by Franklin, the Italian Allessandro Volta wrote to a colleague in 1777 describing how he had fired muskets, pistols and an under-water mine by means of his electrical piles. I suspect this was the first electrically initiated IED actually intended as a weapon.

Volta’s Italian compatriot, working on a telegraph, Tiberius Cavallo then took a step further in 1782 in the following manner

The attempts recently made to convey intelligence from one place to another at a great distance, with the utmost quickness, have induced me to publish the following experiments, which I made some years ago. The object for which those experiments were performed, was to fire gun-powder, or other combustible matter, from a great distance, by means of electricity. At first I made a circuit with a very long brass wire, the two ends of which returned to the same place, whilst the middle of the wire stood at a great distance. In this middle an interruption was made, in which a cartridge of gunpowder mixed with steel filings was placed. Then, by applying a charged Leyden phial to the two extremities of the wire, (viz. by touching one wire with the knob of the phial, whilst the other was connected with the outside coating) the cartridge was fired. In this manner I could fire gunpowder from the distance of three hundred feet and upwards.

I think this may effectively be the first command wire initiated IED.

The next issue to be dealt with was waterproofing electrical cable and a variety of attempts were made using a range of substances including india rubber, varnish and tarred hemp. The Russians appear on the scene. Baron Schilling Von Canstadt was a Russian diplomat in Bavaria who took great interest in scientific developments. On his return to St Petersburg in 1812 and driven by war with France, Schilling Von Canstadt developed electrically initiated charges that could be fired across a river, the cable running through the water, with a carbon arc initiator. These were demonstrated in 1812 but do not appear to have been adopted by the Russian Army. Later after the Russians entered Paris after Napoleon’s defeat he undertook a number of similar experiments crossing the Seine.   Here’s a description of him demonstrating a command wire IED to Tsar Alexander I

Once Baron Schilling had the honor to present a wire to the Emperor in his tent. He begged his Majesty to touch it with another wire, whilst looking through the door of the tent in the direction of a very far distant mine. A cloud of smoke rose from this exploding mine at the moment the Emperor, with his hands, made the contact. This caused great surprise, and provoked expressions of satisfaction and applause.

His successor, Tsar Nicholas I was fortunate to escape serious injury in 1837 when an electrically initiated charge was used on a demonstration to destroy a bridge but the demonstration went wrong and the charge detonated prematurely or with larger effect than expected.

The next on the scene were the British. Colonel Pasley of the Royal Engineers was inspired by a newspaper report of the accident in Russia and working with the electrical scientist Wheatstone developed insulated cables and platinum filament exploding detonators around 1839.

Also in the 1830s, American scientist Robert Hare developed “galvanic techniques” for quarry blasting.

Enough for now – some time in the future I’ll return to Colt’s submarine battery, but will state here that as a 15 year old boy in 1829 it appears he had his first success in initiating an explosive charge under water.

1880-1890

The Tsar and the suicide bomber

I have been promising for some time a blog post about the 1881 assassination of the Tsar by suicide bomber in St Petersburg, the site of which I visited a few month ago.  I think that this incident is particularly interesting for the following reasons:

  1. It was a suicide bombing by any definition and thus invites comparisons with modern suicide terrorism
  2. It seems to have sparked and inspired the revolutionaries of the time, demonstrating what was possible – for the next 25 years revolutionaries around the world sought to repeat the impact of the incident
  3. The design was enabled by the development of dynamite in the late 1860s and it would appear by Russian military experience of fusing from the sea mines I discussed last week

The late 1870s and early 1880s were politically a time of great drama. In Russia Anarchists and Nihilists were active and some sought the use of violence to achieve their goals in the light of poor harvests and industrial recession.  The Nihilists objected to the status quo of the ruling class and the capitalist control of the economy and in that at least there are some very modern echoes. One particular group, the Narodnaya Volya (The People’s Will) decided to target the Tsar.  One of this group’s early attempts to assassinate the Tsar was in Moscow in 1879  – the terrorists dug a tunnel from a house and planted three large command initiated IEDs under the railway on a track (by digging a tunnel under a road from a nearby house) that the Tsar was predicted to use. The attack failed as did an attempt a year later when explosives were planted in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg by an employee Stephan Khalturin who was able smuggle the explosives in bit by bit. The picture below shoes the aftermath.

 

I can’t find details of the construct of this device but I believe it was a timed IED. The Tsar delayed a reception dinner thus missing the explosion, but many people were killed or badly wounded in the incident. Amongst the dead were all the members of the Finnish Guard in a room below the intended victims.

In an early example of an “attack the Network” C-IED effort the Russian secret police, the Okrhana, was established in the light of the failed bomb attacks (along with the rise of left wing revolutionary groups) and they were the archetypal “secret police”, running double agents, agents provocateurs, surveillance and interception of communications. They also operated internationally.

On the 13 March the Tsar once again overruled the advice of his security staff and took his carriage on a well known and predictable route through St Petersburg from Michaelovsky Palace to the Winter Palace. Once again this is a story of terrorists exploiting the known and predictable routes of their target. An armed Cossack sat with the coach-driver and another six Cossacks followed on horseback. Behind them came a group of police officers in sledges.

All along the route he was watched by members of Narodnaya Volya, who had carefully planned a triple IED attack. On a street corner near the Catherine Canal a woman terrorist gave the signal to two of the conspirators to throw their bombs at the Tsar’s carriage. The bombs missed the carriage and instead landed amongst the Cossacks. The Tsar was unhurt but insisted on getting out of the carriage to check the condition of the injured men. While he was standing with the wounded Cossacks another terrorist, Elnikoff, stepped forward with a shout and threw his bomb on the ground between himself and the Tsar.

Alexander was mortally wounded and the explosion was so great that Elnikoff also died from the bomb blast.  The device used is quite interesting – he is a contemporary description and an image.

 

 The infernal machine used by Elnikoff was about 7 1/2, inches in height. Metal tubes (bb) filled with chlorate of potash, and enclosing glass tubes (cc) filled with sulphuric acid (commonly called oil of vitriol), intersect the cylinder. Around the glass tubes are rings of iron (dd) closely attached as weights. The construction is such that, no matter how the bomb falls, one of the glass tubes is sure to break. The chlorate of potash in that case, combining with the sulphuric acid, ignites at once, and the flames communicate over the fuse (ff) with the piston (c), filled with fulminate of silver. The concussion thus caused explodes the dynamite or “black jelly” (a) with which the cylinder is closely packed.

You will note some similarities, in principle, with parts of the initiating system from the Russian sea mines of the Crimean war that I posted last week.

In all, I think that this terrorist attack is one of the most significant in history – the first “suicide bombing” to gain international attention, and certainly an attack that inspired revolutionaries the world over.  My friend Greg Woolgar, who is about to publish a much needed book on the Victorian Bomb disposal expert and first proponent of IED exploitation and technical intelligence, Colonel Majendie, tells me that the good colonel visited St Petersburg in the aftermath to seek intelligence on the device.

19th Century

IEDs in the American Civil War

I’m enjoying a fascinating book about improvised munitions from the American Civil War. The book is a new edition of two period documents, firstly the “Rains Torpedo Book” written by an innovative Confederate officer , General Gabriel Rains and describing a significant number of ingenous IEDs that he designed and deployed.  At the time both land mines and sea/river mines were all known as “torpedoes”.  The second document, included in the book, is from the Federal perspective  “Notes Explaining Rebel Torpedoes and Ordnance” by Captain Peter S Michie. I’d recommend the book to anyone interested in Counter-IED for the unusual perspective it gives. Here’s a link to Amazon: Confederate Torpedoes

As an example there is a description of a triple IED attack mounted by Rains in  the aftermath of the Battle of Williamsburg in 1862.

Title – Sub –Terra Shell “ 115,000 men turned by 4 of these”

The day after the Battle of Willamsburg, Va, my brigade formed the rearguard of Genl. Johnston’s army, and we were employed at very hard work, in getting over a mud slosh in about 3 miles from that city toward Richmond our own artillery, and that taken from the enemy. Afterward I discovered that such was the nature of the place , from woods and the tortuous road, we could not bring a single piece of artillery to bear, and the enemy were coming on pursuing and shelling the road as they came. Not knowing how to protect our good soldiers, the sick and disabled, , which usually bring up the rear of an army in retreat, I involuntarily fell back and found in the road, in a mud hole a broken down caisson. On opening this, nothing was within except 5 shells of this size and shape., which I put in the hands of 5 soldiers, and proceeded with them to the rear , where our Confederate cavalry guard was stationed and under their supervision, the colonel being present we planted 4 of the shells in the road a little beyond a fallen tree, the first obstacle the enemy would find on their route. I put the three together about a yard part in a triangular form, and one a little to the left in a basket and with some sensitive primers, which I happened to have, after they were buried to their tops, I primed them, covering lightly with soil out of view, and then withdrew.  As the enemy approached the cavalry retired also.

There were twp explosions as the enemy’s cavalry came upon them, so the 3 shells planted near each other must have exploded as one , and the other separately.

 Lawyer’s A ‘s statement – “I was in Williamsburg at the time in the possession of the enemy, and such was the demoralizing effect, that for 3 days and nights they stopped and never moved a peg after hearing the reports” So these 4 shells checkmated the advance of 115,000 men under Gen McClellan and turned them from their line of march, for they never used the road afterward, supposing it thus armed though they advanced by the York River road finally.

 Other devices used are fascinating including the first electrical command wire initiated IEDs I have found – more to follow in future blogs.

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