Standing Well Back

1850-1860

Chinese River IED of 1857

Here’s an interesting story about a failed IED attack on a British Naval vessel in 1857. Britain was at war with the city of Canton in China in what was called the “Opium War”. Two British naval vessels, the “Niger” and the “Encounter” were patrolling the Pearl River. A couple of months earlier two small boats had exploded next to the Niger, so a strict policy of look-outs and challenges was being enforced to keep small boats at bay.  At 4 am on 7th January 1857, a look-out on the Encounter spotted a man in a small boat sculling towards the ships. He challenged him and on not getting the appropriate response, shot him dead.  A ship’s boat was launched and they recovered two large explosive charges, each with over a half a ton of explosives. The charges consisted of sealed wooden barrels weighed down with stone so that they only just floated. Protruding from the barrel was a gunpowder filled tube to a small platform on which glowing embers were placed. The embers were kept separate from the gunpowder in the tube by a metal tray or slide attached to a piece of string. The render safe procedure used was to splash water onto the embers.  The plan was that the two barrels linked by rope would float down and the rope fastening them together would catch the bow of the Encounter, then pushing the barrels close either side of the ship. Then the boatman would pull the string to pull out the slides on each barrel, causing the glowing embers to ignite the gunpowder.

Here’s a picture of one of the two charges:

The tactical design has great similarities to British IED attacks in 1804 on the French, although the initiation system is somewhat exotic.

20th Century

The Ingenious Bombs of Harry Orchard

A colleague put me on the trail of some interesting devices used in Colorado at the turn of the last century and I’ve found some interesting details about some very unusual IEDs.  In balancing the interests of readers and my natural disinclination to inspire any bomb makers I’m going to be a little vague about certain aspects of the design, so bear with me.

The perpetrator of the attacks was a man who called himself “Harry Orchard” but he had an awful lot of other aliases.  Orchard was involved in what are now called the Colorado Labor Wars, a struggle between mine owners and miners in Colorado in 1903 and 1904.

The dispute became more and more violent, and in that time and in that industry explosives and knowledge about their use was easily available.   Harry Orchard first became embroiled with this as a striker and then as a bodyguard to the miner’s leadership. He was a man with few scruples at the time.

IEDs had been used prior to 1903 by both sides – the mine owners had blown up the offices if a “Private Assay Office’ which catered for miners taking gold out of the mine for private sale – a practice called “high grading”.  And a mine workers association had blown up a mill in 1899. There were other incidents using explosives.

Orchard may have worked for both sides of the dispute – planting and laying IEDs in support of miners and also, for pay, for the mine owners as provocative acts.  In one attack Orchard assassinated the former Governor of Idaho, Frank Steuenberg.  There are a few sources about the various attacks that readers can find but for this post will concentrate on his IEDs.   The IEDs were constructed in a way that makes me think he was not an experienced “blaster, with experience from the mines.  In principle most of his devices used a very unusual and dangerous initiation system.  This largely involved using a bottle of acid, placed on its side over a sensitive component in an explosive train.  The acid bottle had a cork in it, and the cork was attached to fishing line.  Orchard then created a number of mechanisms to “pull” the cork, releasing the acid, which caused the explosion.

  • To create a command-initiated device, he ran the fishing line to a safe spot, and waited for his target to approach, then physically pulled the line, puling the cork from the bottle.
  • To create a booby trap, victim-operated device, he stretched the fishing line across the likely path of a victim, leaving the IED hidden beside the path.
  • To create a timed IED he attached the fishing line to the “key” at the rear of an alarm clock. When the alarm sounded (Orchard removed the bell) the key which wound the alarm element rotated, and wound the fishing line in, eventually puling out the cork from the acid bottle.

Orchard had a couple of other designs:

  • One used a pistol, aimed at explosives with fishing line attached to the trigger – for both a command pull and for a booby trap.
  • Another device was  a handful of blasting caps wrapped in burlap and then pitch so it eventually looked like a lump of coal, then the device was thrown onto the coal bunkers.

Here are some pictures of IEDs which he re-created as part of his confession.

 

This was the device used in the Steuenberg attack – but Orchard adapted it to operate by tripwire, leaving the clock element unused.

 

Orchard’s confession is available online –if you’d like details of where to find it let me know – but because it has detailed description of how he constructed the devices I won’t post it publicly.

Victim Operated IED

Bombs in bodies – cross post on IMSL Insights

I’ve posted a piece about recent bombs in bodies of dead terrorist victims on Insights.

1850-1860

Weapon Technical Intelligence in 1855

I’ve found a very interesting print of a Russian Infernal Machine (i.e. an “IED”) from 1855 from the Crimea, with an interesting back story, demonstrating once again that technical exploitation of IEDs as part of “Weapons Technical Intelligence” in nothing new.

The print is shown below.  It was drawn by a British Naval artist, Oswald Walter Brierly who was attached to the British Naval fleet at Crimea as an artist in residence.

In May 1855 British forces, assisted by Turkish and French contingents, conducted a large scale raid to seize the Russian held port of Kertch.  They destroyed several magazines, seized weapons and found this IED in the Dockyard.  The Dockyard was clearly being used to manufacture a number of devices, ammunition and other munitions.  The device was recovered and examined carefully along with other material.

From a military perspective the raid turned into something of an embarrassment – although it achieved its aims, the behaviour of the Turkish and British troops was appalling as they committed rape, pillaged the town and destroyed everything they saw.   From a technical perspective the device is interesting as it shows, I believe, an evolution from the designs of Immanuel Nobel and Professor Jacobi found in the Baltic and seized earlier by the British

a. The Jacobi Fuze (designed, I believe, by Immanuel Nobel, father of Alfred Nobel

b. Improvised Sea mines from the Baltic – 1854

c. American WTI in the Crimean War 

From a separate source I have the following description of the device shown in the image above, which consisted of six of the charges shown, operating in a chain:

It consisted of six vessels of wood, shaped like two cones placed base to base, each 21/2 feet long by 11/2 feet in diameter at the base, and of several similar vessels of a conical form, and of equal dimensions, loaded to float with the apex downward, the base being provided with a cover to fall on a prepared fuse and ignite the charge upon contact with any floating object.  These vessels were attached to each other by wires, and hen placed in the water would look like a line of buoy; but the wires were carried to the poles of a galvanic battery within the Russian magazine on shore.

The diagram above shows an electrical initiator in the upper part of the device and describes a “gutta percha” seal system to protect it from water ingress.

I think this then is an evolution of the devices seen before – using a “Jacobi fuze” as a contact initiator in the same manner as the devices described in the links above, but having a secondary, electrical initiation system as an alternate. Thus, they are one step more sophisticated in combing the two.

1830-1840

Parisian Infernal Machines from about the time of Les Miserables

I’ve posted articles before about IED attacks on Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 and on Emperor Napoleon III, in 1858, both attacks on their carriages as they went to the opera, along predictable routes in Paris.

There was however another famous “terrorist” attack between these dates on the French King Louis-Philippe, on 28 July 1835, but on his way to a parade in Paris, and not with an IED – here’s the story and the device used to attack him.

The attack occurred on the Boulevard de Temple in Paris. It was mounted by a Corsican terrorist/criminal/rebel, Giuseppe Mario Fieschi.  The device that he built with two accomplices from the Société des Droits de l’Homme is interesting. Reports at the time called the device a “machine infernale” which is the phrase often used to describe IEDs of the time. But this was no IED.  An image of the actual device, now in a french museum is shown below.  It consists of 25 gun barrels mounted on a wooden frame with the 25 barrels pointing slightly downward . The “machine’ was placed at the open window overlooking the route to be taken by the King and fellow dignitaries as they went to inspect a parade of troops.

The barrels were over charged with powder and it is thought up to three musket balls per barrel. As a result there were a number of cases of the breech exploding during the attack – I think you can see this on barrels 2, 14 and 20, numbered from the left.  One of these caused injury to Fieschi as he initiated the device.  I’m not sure of the exact initiation technique, probably Fieschi using a naked flame and swiping across the fire holes at the rear of each barrel. The injured Fieshci was arrested as he fled the scene, his wounds tended, and then after his trial his wounded head was removed from his body by the infamous guillotine.

In terms of target effect, the King was not killed but only slightly wounded. However the 75 musket balls caused carnage and 18 people were killed including Marshall Mortier.  Reports of the time make much of the dastardly deed and the ingenious machine (note that there were seven other plots against the king discovered that year alone – however it was not perhaps such an innovative attack as it might first appear. There are many references to multi barrel firearms going back to the 14th Century.  Around 1500 Leonardo da Vinci had designed similar systems for use in battle, and they were used on a number of occasions in the 17th century. They are referred to as an “orgue” – or organ, given the similarity to the multi-barrel and an organ.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s designs for multi barrel weapons

Close Me
Looking for Something?
Search:
Post Categories: