Standing Well Back
19th Century

IEDs in the Boer War

I’m currently digging in to instances of the British Army using IEDs in various campaigns. There’s a couple of interesting stories from the Siege of Mafeking (1899-1900). The British were surrounded at Mafeking and held out for quite a period against the Boers.   They were short of supplies, but led by Baden-Powell used all sorts of ingenious methods, including improvised explosive devices (and hoax explosive devices) to keep the Boers at bay. Certainly the Boers were intimidated by the threat of these improvised landmines (often placed in likely artillery positions). The Boers too made extensive use of IEDs at this time.

Other munitions were developed at a workshop in the railway yard.  There were a large number of improvised grenades made , using dynamite, a tin can and a burning fuze.   Other IEDs used Boer artillery shells that had failed to function, and indeed on more than one occasion using recovered Boer IEDs that and been rendered safe. Here’s the description of one such, by Baden-Powell the Garrison-Commander, talking about a forward Boer position that they abandoned:

Their somewhat noisy retirement made me suspicious, and two scouts were sent on to see if all was clear. They found some wires, quite newly laid, and a mine of nitro-glycerine, so something equally soothing, awaiting our entrance into the work. The wires were therefore cut and wound in for future use against the layers. And while we sang ‘God save the Queen,’ the Boers were probably touching the button at the other end of the wire with considerable impatience at their failure of their fireworks.

Seasoned “standingwellback” readers will recall that I have written before  about Boer railway line IEDs here.

The defenders too used electrically initiated IEDs – one here was awarded a “Mention in Dispatches” thus:

Koffyfontein Defence Force-Corporal H J Jellard (promoted Sergeant); on October 11, for exposing himself to heavy fire at 60 yards’ range when getting on to a debris heap to connect a wire from a battery to a mine, and also for holding an advanced position with assistance of one native

One particularly effective method of delivering improvised grenades to the target was drawn by Baden-Powell himself – no mean artist:

Sgt Page (other reports name him as Sgt Moffatt) used a fishing rod and line with the grenade attached to the end of the casting line. Apparently he could deliver the improvised grenade a distance of 100 yards with some precision.  Baden-Powell suggest that the fishing rod technique replaced a mechanical spring device which was less effective (a technique seen in recent years in Syria). The Baden-Powell sketch was then used as a basis for this image below, which also shows on the right an ingenious “dummy” to draw fire.

In one of those odd parallels, you may recall that I wrote about an improvised artillery piece used during the Boxer rebellion (1899) here, that had been dug up in a garden. Well there was also an improvised artillery piece art Mafeking also used in 1899. It too was dug up in a garden It is described here by Baden-Powell himself:

The third gun was one which Mr. Rowlands dug up from his garden: an old muzzle-loading ship’s gun with a history.  We had it cleaned up, sighted, and mounted on a carriage, and it did right good work. Owing to its ancient Naval connection the gun was named ‘Lord Nelson.’   It was made in 1770 and weighted 8 cwt. 2 qrs. 10 lbs. These figures 8.2.10 were inscribed upon it and led some people to suppose it was made on February 8, 1810. It also had the initials ‘B. P.’ Upon it, which might have led such people further to suppose that it belonged to me in former times. It didn’t really; those initials stood for Bailey, Pegg & Co., the makers, of Brierley Foundry, Staffordshire. The absence of the Royal Cypher showed that it had not been a Royal Navy gun but belonged to a privateer. According to local tradition two Germans brought it to Linchwe, a neighbouring chief, some forty years ago, and he sold it to the Baralongs for twenty-two oxen, to aid them in their defence against Boer freebooters.  It fired a 10-lb. shot, and carried 2,000 yards, though not with great accuracy. We found its sister-gun in Rustenburg, where in 1881 it had been used by the Boers to shell the British defence works. And a third gun of the same family was found by General Burn-Murdoch near Vryheid; while a fourth stands, I believe, at Brierley Hill, having been presented to the town by the makers.

How extraordinary that in two sieges in separate parts of the world, at the same time, they both used ancient cannon dug up from a garden.

Other artillery pieces were entirely improvised, here described by Baden-Powell again:

Our great gun was our home-made one, ‘The Wolf’ (my nickname from Matabeleland). This was made from a steampipe round which were lapped iron rods which were welded and turned till a good strong barrel was made. The breech and trunnions were bronze castings. The whole was built up by the railway workmen under Mr. Coghlan, the energetic and ingenious foreman, and under the general supervision of Major Panzera. The blast furnace for making the castings alone was a triumph of ingenuity made out of a water-tank lined with firebricks — the blast being introduced through a vacuum brake tube.

The “Wolf” is now held by the Royal Artillery Museum, due to open later this year.

Baden-Powell also mentions this IED attack – reminiscent of more recent IED attacks I have also blogged about here and here

The Boers sent a trolley loaded with dynamite rolling down the railway into Mafeking, but it luckily exploded before reaching us — about a mile outside.

 

Rather oddly Baden-Powell doesn’t mention that the British themselves used the same tactic. On 13th October, a British locomotive pushed TWO carriages full of dynamite out of Mafeking on the railway until they saw Boer’s in the distance. Fuzes were lit and the carriages rolled towards the Boer position – but were detonated by rifle fire from there Boers.
 It’s clear that the demands of the remote and isolated town of Mafeking demanded innovation and improvisation from the occupants – and many of the same pressures were prevalent on the Boer side. I’m struck by the leadership shown in reading Baden-Powell’s notes on his command during the siege. Quite remarkable. It also further highlights the prevalence of improvised munitions in history, and shows the same patterns, driven by tactics and tactical design as we still see today.
Update:   Here’s a pic of the Wolf howitzer, made in the railway workshops in Mafeking, and some improvised munitions for it.  Sometimes Pounder shells fired at the British by the Boers, but which failed to function were recovered, somehow re-fuzed and fired back.
And here’s a sketch of the “Nelson” in action:
16th Century

Execution by Gunpowder

A peculiar story. In Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1562, Hendrick Eemkens was sentenced to death by a court for the crime of being an Anabaptist, a form of radical Protestantism at the time.  He was ordered to be “executed by gunpowder” in the city square in front of a crowd of people.  To achieve this he was tied to a stake and a charge of gunpowder draped around his upper body and neck. I’m not sure of the size of this charge. Some reports suggest he was throttled first.  A fire was lit close by and the executioner, using a long pitchfork, lifted a bale of burning material into contact with the explosive charge. I’ve found two images, admittedly from over a century later, showing the execution.

The second is a little more explicit

The clergy behind the victim doesn’t look like he’s standing well enough back.  One report observed that the man’s hair was not singed in the explosion.

17th Century

An explosive device in Whitehall

Some more detail of an early IED attack attempt that I had heard about  but which I didn’t have much detail of until now.  I mentioned in my post a couple of years ago here (Bomb Alleys) about an assassination attempt on Oliver Cromwell, with a device designed to burn down Whitehall Palace and I’ve found a few more details in the transcripts of the trial in ” Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings etc Volume 5, pages 842-872″.    It seems this was a successful EOD operation as part of a complex counter-terrorism operation. What a curious world counter-terrorism was in those days – as it remains today.

Cromwell – the target of the assassination attempt

The counter-terrorism operation was run by Oliver Cromwell’s spymaster, John Thurloe.  The protagonist in this was one Miles Sindercombe, whose pseudonym was “Mr Fish”. Sindercombe appears to have been funded by a rebel puritan officer, Colonel Sexby, from the Netherlands.  After four plans to ambush Cromwell had failed, Sindercombe decided to burn down Whitehall Palace, where Cromwell was living, in the hope that it might kill him.  The device he used was constructed “by a man sent from overseas”.

The device was in a wicker basket, and contained, a gunpowder charge, and “tar, pitch and tow” and “brimstone” to add an incendiary component. It had two “slow match” burning fuses in parallel with an expected delay of about 6 hours. That’s quite a delay for a burning fuse. The device was left in a chapel in the Palace (now the site of the UK Ministry of Defence, and buildings in that area), which Sindercombe had reconnoitered by attending a service earlier. On 8th January 1657, Sindercombe and his accomplices gained entry via a back door into the chapel, and hid the device under a seat. They lit the fuze and left the premises. However Sindercombe’s cell had been penetrated by government agents working for Thurloe and the authorities were alerted.  The Palace Guard “found” the device and the Officer of the Guard rendered it safe by removing the burning fuzes.

Sindercombe was injured resisting arrest the following morning, and refused to co-operate. However all his co-conspirators did cooperate, gave testimony and Sindercombe was found guilty and sentenced to death a month later. He escaped the gallows by committing suicide by poisoning but suspicion remains he was killed to prevent a riotous public assembly at the execution. There are details of a rather bizarre post-mortem conducted some time after he had been buried beneath the gallows with a stake through his heart.

The details of his earlier assassination attempts on Cromwell are also intriguing. In one he hid an arquebus and pistols “in a viol case” (very 1920s…). In another, a purpose built firearm was to be used, described as a “strange device” that fires 12 bullets and a slug at the same time. Peculiar.

It’s surprising to me that this assassination attempt of the de facto head of state is little known about. Whitehall Palace – a mish-mash or architecture and complex passages , built mainly from wood did eventually burn down fifty years later. During the attempt to put out that fire in 1698 gunpowder charges were used to try to create firebreaks.

Here’s a useful pic of the Palace in 1680 – I’ve highlighted the chapel. It does indeed look like a warren of buildings. Those of you familiar with the area in modern day can orientate yourself with the Banqueting House and Horseguards

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…

 

Command IED

Command-Initiated IED – 1809 – Peninsula War

I’m finding lots of interesting use of explosives by both sides in the Peninsula War (1807 – 1814) particularly the French who clearly had developed extensive capabilities with explosives. These engineering capabilities and the use of explosives in both attack and defence were, I think, largely developed about a hundred and fifty years earlier by Vauban, the famous French military engineer. I should write about him more in the future, but his writing and ideas were used extensively by the French through the latter part of the the 17th century, through the entire 18th and on well into the 19th – I certainly see his influence in French actions in the Crimean war in the 1850s, some 200 wars after the start of Vauban’s career. But this post is about a command-pull IED.

But this particular device in this post is attributed to the Portuguese who fought as allies of the British. It’s also an interesting “Assault EOD operation” by the French, based on careful observation, planning and intelligence.  Alas I have no imagery but nonetheless a good description provided by a famous French engineer, Captain Pierre Bouchard. In May of 1809, the Portuguese were defending a key crossing, a bridge over the Tampa river near Amarante. This was, in military terms, a “reserve demolition“. The Portuguese were defending the bridge but if it came to it they were prepared to destroy the bridge to prevent the French crossing.  Captain Bouchard had spotted through his telescope where the Portuguese “mine” had been placed on the bridge. The initiation mechanism was not a burning fuze but Bouchard could see a line running from the covering Portuguese positions to a wooden box placed adjacent to barrels of powder under one of the arches of the bridge. He assessed, correctly as it turned out, that this was a “pull mechanism” with the cord attached to the trigger of a flintlock mechanism in the wooden box. This in turn would initiate an explosive chain which would explode the barrels of gunpowder.

Bouchard (reportedly) came up with a plan. His engineers under cover of thick fog surreptitiously moved a large charge of their own as close as they dared to the command pull cord. Bouchard believed his counter charge would break the or snap the pull cord without initiating the Portuguese main charge, or at least disorientate the Portuguese long enough for an immediate assault to take their position. And so it was. Three barrels were placed close to the Portuguese redoubt and a battalion of grenadiers stood by to make the assault backed up by an entire brigade of infantry. Bouchards’s charge was lit with a burning fuze 30m long.  Whether it actually broke the pull cord or not is perhaps in doubt but the assaulting grenadiers were so quick in taking the position, the demolition charge was not fired.  Bouchard led a company of his sappers on to the Bridge alongside the grenadiers and doused the Portuguese charge with buckets of water, as an initial “render safe procedure”

I understand that the Portuguese had a habit of using pull cords rather than burning fuzes because of the volume of fire often experienced in such battles – which they felt may have caused initiation of the explosive charge by a hit on an exposed fuze.  As an aside, Captain Bouchard was also responsible , in Napoleon’s Nile campaign, of finding the “Rosetta Stone” ten years earlier in 1799. Captain Bouchard had the distinction of being captured three times by the British during his military career and spent considerable time as a prisoner-of-war. Here’s a pic. Cheerful looking fella, for a sapper, ain’t he?

I’ve written before here, about the principles of using flintlock mechanisms to initiate explosive devices and you will see that this idea wasn’t that unusual, but it’s the only occasion I can find a record of it being used in this war.

Close Me
Looking for Something?
Search:
Post Categories: