Standing Well Back
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Russian command wire device – Crimean war, 1855

I have blogged a few times earlier this year about Russian”stay behind” devices and here.   In these earlier posts I also discussed some evidence that victim operated explosive devices were left behind when the Russians retreated from various places in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856.

I have just found a contemporary translation of a French report from the Crimean War detailing massive command-wire electrically initiated devices from that conflict, intended to target advancing French and British forces.  So it appears that the Russians were making significant use of both victim operated explosive devices as well as electrical command wire devices in this conflict. I don’t think that has been widely recognised by historians.  Bearing in mind electrically initiated explosive devices were still something of a novelty in the 1850s, this really shows that the Russians had grasped the potential of the use in warfare of such devices and had planned and probably succeeded to detonate several simultaneously. Although the length of the wires are not specified, I think they were fired from a considerable distance, from a central command post. I find the obvious parallels with this concept in 1855 and the F-10 “stay behind” devices used in WW2  by Russia, 90 or so years apart, detailed in my earlier post very interesting, as well as early adoption of this initiation technology. The fact that the command wire ran such a distance , and partly under the sea, and that there were a number of them shows significant technical, tactical and operational capability with this early use of the technology.

The use of the devices was in the Battle for Malakoff in September 1855, which was in the main a French effort, but British forces played a key role in the Battle for the Redoubt. It was a bloody battle, with 20-30,000 deaths and 19 generals killed.

Here is an excerpt from the translation.  Well done that sapper for cutting the command wire to the Malakoff redoubt with his axe!

I have the tale of another quite remarkable electrically initiated device from the 19th Century, from some new research I’ve been doing, up my sleeve, this time an American device that nearly sank a battleship. Watch this space.

Follow up:

I continue to find further hints and comments about the use of command wire IEDs by the Russians during the siege of Sebastopol.  For example this comment in a letter from General Charles Gordon discussing the aftermath in Sebastopol:

“We have traced voltaic wires to nearly every powder magazine in the place”

Also this photograph taken shortly after the battle. Although the image is not that clear the title is surprising. Here we have a Royal Engineer Search Team (REST) looking for an IED command wire, in 1855.

Carronade Battery, flanking the Ditch of the Redan. Sappers looking for Electric Wires communicating with the Powder Magazine

 

1830-1840

Command Wire Devices – Land, Sea and Air

I’ve written before how command-wire electrically-initiated explosive devices have been around for a couple of hundred years now. But I want to look at the subject again, obliquely, by highlighting the different environments in which these devices have been used. There are one or two fascinating diversions in this post.

Clearly, command wire devices on “land” have been around for centuries, derived originally from the “string” or “cord” pulled devices of the late 1500s such as the one discussed in an earlier post here.  Then in the early part of the late 1700s/early 1800s (started by Benjamin Franklin who was the first to electrically initiate an explosive (I think) they spread into broader use. See these earlier posts here and here.  In the 19th century, “minefields” were sometimes not  constructed from autonomous victim operated mines, but rather command initiated devices, controlled from some form of command post.  See this one below from the US Civil War era, showing an underground store from which “torpedoes” (buried mines) were initiated on the battlefield in front.

Today electrically initiated command wire land based explosive devices are pretty common as terrorist ambush devices, with the only issue being the potential visibility of the wire or the process of laying the wire between device and firing point.

Various engineers and inventors in the early decades of the 1800s refined electrical initiation and waterproofed systems to allow them to be used for command initiated defensive minefields on coasts or in rivers – these include the German, Siemens, the Prussian Schilling, the Russian Schilder and Pasley, the British Royal Engineer used such waterproofed electrically initiated charges for demolition purposes. By far the most interesting use, however and one which strangely receives scant attention (perhaps not so strangely given the secrecy of the project was Samuel Colt’s 1836 concept of an “Underwater Battery”).  This was an electrically initiated complex defensive array of underwater mines designed to protect ports and rivers.  They key part of this invention however was not the electrical initiation but Colt’s remarkable command system which I’m 99% certain used a “camera obscura” to project a live image of the area in which underwater mines had been carefully placed. The image was projected onto a “command panel” with electrical contacts built in so that when a ship approached the position of the mine the image of the ship was projected onto one of many metal contacts on the  “command panel” . All the operator had to do was to use an electrical cable from the battery stored underneath to the contact where the ship was displayed on the command panel when the live image of  the ship covered it and that device would be initiated.  Rather like a “magic wand” – touch the live image of the  ship you wish to destroy and it will explode  Such a remarkable integrated “augmented reality” observation and command system seems to be 200 years ahead of its time. I have written about the system before here. Someone needs to recreate one of these for a TV show.

Colt’s control panel. Note the convex mirror reflecting the image of the minefield from above.

Colt wrapped his invention in secrecy, but I think its pretty clear to me that his ingenious observation and control system was a first for initiating complex command wire minefields.  Interestingly, a few years later it appears the Austrians used such a system to protect Venice around 1860. How they got hold of Colt’s idea, I have no idea. Here’s how it was described:

Here’s an image of the Austrian command post.

 

I remain  fascinated by this system. A remote, visual, augmented-reality weapon system, invented by Samuel Colt in the 1830’s. Kept secret, then deployed by the Austrians in the 1860s then forgotten about. Wow!  And only a few years ago people were shocked when terrorists in Iraq used a video camera overlooking an IED to know when to initiate a device, but Colt beat them to it by 170 years on the Potomac!

So that’s land and sea, but what about air – surely command wire initiated explosive devices haven’t been used in the air ?  Well, actually they have, over 100 years ago. During the Salonika campaign in 1917, some balloons were used by British Forces as observation platforms.   German pilots decided to take on these balloons and shot down several, one pilot alone claiming 18 balloons .

A German aircraft attacking an observation balloon

Lt Finch of the British Army Ordnance Corps was asked to design a charge to be placed on a balloon, and this was to be detonated electrically when an enemy plane was close. He placed a 500 pound ammonal charge in a  60 gallon galvanised water tank and “the balloon went up” carrying the explosives connected to a 3000ft cable, on 28 November. As a German plane approached, piloted by Oberleutnant von Eschwege, it was exploded, and the enemy aircraft’s wings were blown off, killing him. Here’s some details of the aftermath which is interesting:

There was no celebrating, no cheering. The British official history states:

He came to his end as a result of a legitimate ruse of war, but there was no rejoicing among the pilots of the squadrons which had suffered from his activities. They would have preferred that he had gone down in fair combat.

Eschwege was given a burial with full military honors; six British pilots carried his coffin to the grave. A message was dropped over Drama airfield:

To the Bulgarian-German Flying Corps in Drama. The officers of the Royal Flying Corps regret to announce that Lt. von Eschwege was killed while attacking the captive balloon. His personal belongings will be dropped over the lines some time during the next few days.

The next day a German plane dropped a wreath and a message:

To the Royal Flying Corps, Monuhi. We thank you sincerely for your information regarding our comrade Lt. von Eschwege and request you permit the accompanying wreath and flag to be placed on his last resting place, Deutches Fliegerkommando.

A similar but unsuccessful device was used on the Western front.

So there we have electrically-initiated command-wire explosive devices on land, on sea, and in the air.

To close though, my favourite Salonika campaign story. Nothing to do with explosive devices!    The British army’s  efforts in the multi-national campaign in Salonkia did not go unnoticed. The Serbians, ostensibly the British Allies in the Macedonia  campaign, of which Salonika was a part, were most grateful for the arduous efforts of their allies.  They therefore proposed a glamorous medal be minted, something like “the Glowing and Glorious Order of the Serbian White Eagle”.  They proposed awarding 5000 of these medals to a random selection of the British forces who had taken part as a visible sign of their gratitude.  The superior Headquarters of British Forces in the Eastern Mediterranean was based in Cairo and an overworked staff officer in G1 was tasked with providing a list of the assigned honourees. Somewhere along the line the list was accidentally put in the wrong envelope. As a result, a list of 5000 soldiers across the Near East, many of whom had hardly even heard of Salonika but who “had not yet received a typhoid injection” were surprised to receive a flowery, ornate and shiny medal through the post – and 5000 hardened Salonika veterans probably got another typhoid jab.

Uncategorised

Tremble! – The Answer to the Mystery Device

A couple of weeks ago I set blog readers a challenge regarding this device, who made it, what the mystery component in the bottom right corner was, and who rendered it safe.

Well done to KH for his (close, but not perfect) answer. I’ll be buying him lunch soon.  It’s actually a pretty interesting story.  The device was found placed next to a telephone junction box under a manhole cover in a street in Arthur Square, Belfast, Northern Ireland, laid by the IRA , in 1922.  The fuel can “Pratts Perfection Spirit” contained a home made mix and two improvised igniters (not a detonators) in parallel. The EOD team (about more of which shortly) recovered a wooden box with a single slider switch on the outside. Inside was the timing circuit, which had failed. There was a 4 volt “Ever-Ready” battery, an American made clock with a soldered wire switch connection.  The improvised igniter design is quite intricate with a thin copper wire running through magnesium flash powder held in a glass tube, but with a spark gap. The can contained about 20lbs of home made incendiary mix, based on sodium chlorate, some scrap metal and  handful of bullets.  When testing the explosive, it burnt with an intense heat, but interestingly also proved in some circumstances to be “detonable”. I’m leaving out details of the mix for obvious reasons.

Here’s a circuit diagram , done in follow up investigation and analysis.

(This device did not work)

The mystery component is, I think, very interesting, but received scant attention at the time. It is described as a “trembler” but it would be wrong to think of it as an anti-handling trembler switch.  It is in fact an induction coil device for upping the voltage from the 4v Ever-Ready to sufficient voltage to cause the igniters to act as designed. It is actually a car component from a Ford Model T.  This component was known as a “trembler” or “buzzer coil”, and provided sufficient voltage for a car’s ignition system (several thousand volts).  Here’s a video explaining this component.

These trembler switches were popular with ham radio enthusiasts and early electronics hobbyists as an easily available and reliable component.

Finally we come to who rendered it safe. For many recent decades, the lead military agency for EOD in Northern ireland was the Royal Army Ordnance Corps who morphed in the 1990s to the Royal Logistic Corps. And very proud of it we were too!  But in the 1920s, it was the Royal Engineers who provided their expertise to deal with the device and many others.  I can hear my spiritual foundations shaking…

Other devices dealt by the Sappers near Armagh that year were cast into concrete to look like kerb-stones, a technique used more recently in Iraq. They were initiated by command-wire.

Update: Render Safe Procedure used in 1922

I have been asked about the Render Safe Procedure (RSP) used by the Royal Engineer EOD personnel  on this device in 1922. I don’t often discuss these things for obvious reasons but I think I’m OK with this one and its quite interesting.  Here’s what they did:

  1. Filled the manhole with water from a fire hose, submerging the device. Gave it a three hour “soak”.
  2. Removed the wooden box (which was in a sack) from the manhole, cut open the sack. There was a concern over a possible booby trap switch attached to the sacking but none was
  3. The external slider switch was cut off manually, leaving an open circuit
  4. The wooden box was pried open, and components separated after photographing
  5. The cap of the fuel can was removed manually  and the “sand like” HME observed, with the leads leading in.
  6. There was a small 1″ diameter hole in the base of the can covered with some sort of cover.  Apparently this concerned the operator as it may have indicated something clever included in the devices construction. Rather than pull the leads out through the cap, or open the tin with a tin opener or hammer and chisel, the explosive was carefully removed, through the bottom 1″ hole, bit by bit with a a long gouge to eventually reveal the igniters (at this stage assumed to be detonators/blasting caps). These were then cut out.
  7. A series of tests were conducted on the components, quite thoroughly.

 

Railway IEDs

A Missing Link – IED designs being passed through history

This is quite startling.  I have written before about Boer use of upturned-trigger-initiated IEDs used to attack British Railways in the Boer War, and more recently about how the same design of IED was used in the German East African Campaign

These devices were used again, exactly this same design, by the British against the Ottoman rail system in Arabia in 1917.  One of the issues in my mind was how “Bimbashi Garland”, the Arab Bureau’s explosives expert,  got to hear about Boer IEDs from an earlier war. In British eyes, this Boer design, then adopted by the Germans in 1915, became, by 1917, the “Garland mine” .  Thanks to the research of “JB” we have an answer as to how that happened and what an interesting answer it is. Bear with me as I explain

Here are parts of a letter sent from a relatively senior British Army officer with previous campaign experience in the Boer War. He sent a letter to the British Army in Egypt suggesting, specifically, that the Boer explosive device he had seen many years previously in South Africa be used to attack the Hejaz Railway in Arabia. Not only that, but he includes a detailed description of the device, which with minor variations is clearly the same device.

 

For comparison here’s a diagram of the device from one of my earlier posts

The correspondence is then passed from British HQ in Cairo to General Reginald Wingate whose headquarters was in Khartoum, with some comments from the Fortifications and Works Department.  Of particular note here is that they refer to the German use of such devices in East Africa, and comment that these devices have been effective. Here’s the comment from a Sgt in the Fortifications and Works department.

So that’s interesting… but it gets better. The original letter was dated October 1916. Herbert Garland, the former Ammunition Examiner NCO, now with a commission and on the staff of the Arab Bureau,  shortly afterwards began working “behind enemy lines” with the Arabs, and taking the advice/instruction of the letter writer , made his first attack on an Ottoman train in February 1917 – so the dates match up. Subsequently he trained the Arabs and other British officers on similar missions, including Lawrence of Arabia, to do the same. So we have a nice link between the Boer War, the German East African Campaign in WW1 and now the Arab revolt of 1917, all using the same design of IEDs, now called the “Garland Mine”.

What is perhaps even more interesting for historians is the identity of the original letter-writer, that at first I confess I didn’t notice.  It is written by Colonel Sir Mark Sykes…    Sykes is perhaps the key personality in terms of strategic influence on British activity in the Middle East, way beyond Lawrence.   Sykes, with the French diplomat Picot, was responsible for the “Sykes -Picot” agreement which divided the Middle East, and specifically the Ottoman Empire,  between the British and French, and this strategic diplomatic activity was going on at the same time as the letter was written – so this is so much more than a retired Army officer pontificating about how what he learned fighting against the Boers could have application in “modern war”.  This is the lead British strategic diplomat in the Middle East politely and diplomatically directing that an IED campaign using this specific explosive device be used to disintegrate the key aspect of the Ottoman empire’s strategic hold on Arabia. In the usual history books the strategic direction of the Arab Revolt is sometimes credited to the “Arab Bureau” but there were bigger cogs turning and directions being given to them. The Bureau’s efforts were at the operational level in this regard.  Here we can see history was being made in the Middle East and with these specific IEDs and with strategic thought. And not for the last time.

(Apologies for the racism displayed in the Sykes letter, but it is important to see, and perhaps adds to our understanding of his thought processes and how they may have impacted his strategic efforts)

Command IED

Command initiated explosive device from 1582

I’m steadily working my way through more military handbooks from the late 1500s when there appears to have been a lot of revolutionary thought going into military technology and explosive device development in particular. My previous post on a grenade was dated 1578, you may recall that Giambelli’s ship explosive device was 1584, and I’ve written before about a postal device in the city of Pskov in 1581.  I’ve also written before how “gun-locks” were used as initiating devices for explosives over a 250 year period.

On that latter point I’ve just found a gun lock (in this case a wheel-lock) drawn in a manuscript from Germany, dated 1582. The drawing is here and as you can see the design is very clear.

 

The wheel-lock was a progenitor of the flintlock which came in a few years later, in about 1600. In a wheel-lock a spring-loaded wheel spins against some pyrites held in the cock.  Here you can see how the gun lock has been removed from a firearm and fastened to a frame. A string is attached to the trigger, led around a pulley and away to the person initiating the device. When the target presents itself, the person pulls the string, which pulls the trigger. On pulling the trigger a spring mechanism spins the steel wheel against the pyrites held in the cock. This causes sparks which ignites the fuse. The fuse leads to a barrel of gunpowder hidden nearby.  In a post a few years ago I have an image showing a multiple IED attacks against a military convoy employing these exact devices, so it’s good to corroborate the attack with a contemporary IED design.

So, this is another example of how explosive device design appears to have developed rapidly at this peculiar point in history, across Europe. I think it is the publication of these handbooks and manuals of military science that seems to be helping – bu I’m afraid I’m not a good enough historian to identify other causes of this bubble of ideas. Comments from proper historians welcome!

A couple of follow-up thoughts:

1. The “pull string” could of course be adapted to a trip string, turning the command-initiated device into a victim-operated booby trap.

2. One possibility of the sudden uptick in apparent use of explosive devices at this point in history is manufacturing technology.  I wonder of clock-making saw similar technological leaps at this time.  Wheel-locks were invented in the early part of the century but are quite complex in design from an engineering and manufacturing perspective. Perhaps clock making manufacture and design took parallel leaps at this time and the transfer of ideas to wheel locks (essentially a clockwork mechanism, with a wheel powered by a spring) enabled cheaper device components and they became more commonly available rather than the early wheel locks which were the weapons of the rich.  I’ve just read that coiled carbon steel spring (essential for wheel locks) was first made possible in the early 1500s – perhaps manufacture became easier in the 1570s, allowing them to be more easily and cheaply manufactured, and hence available for regular soldier’s weapons and “one-time use” in explosive devices. Perhaps the wheel lock mechanisms, like in the diagram above, were separated from the main charge and were thus in theory recoverable after the event.

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