Noah's Next Step: Into the Danger Room

So here's the scoop: I've started a new blog for Wired. It's called DANGER ROOM. And it'll cover "what's next in national security," from new gear to new strategies. All the familiar faces from Defense Tech will be contributing: David Axe, Sharon Weinberger, David Hambling, you name 'em.

The site doesn't officially launch until Wednesday morning. But since you've managed to make your way over here, I'll slip you a sneak peak.

If you're an RSS type, you can get the new feed here. And you can stay on top of what's going down in the DANGER ROOM by signing up for my e-mail list here.

Navy Grows Land Forces

With the Army and Marine Corps stretched to breaking in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Navy is scrambling for ways to contribute more to inland fights. One result is a new river boat squadron, second of its type, stood up two weeks ago. Riverine Squadron Two and its sister, Ron One, are part of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, which gathers all the Navy's coastal and land forces under one banner and adds brand new capabilities.

NECC -- based alongside patrol boats (pics!) and amphibious ships at Little Creek, Virginia -- includes construction battalions, logistics troops, harbor patrol units, ordnance disposal teams and the new riverine squadrons, and is the subject of a story in the current issue of Defense Technology International.

"It was definitely the ongoing war that created the idea," says Captain Robert McKenna, NECC's 44-year-old training officer. "We realized that the Army and Marine Corps were nearing capacity and that there was more to be done. We were looking for ways for the Navy to contribute more. Then we started looking out and said, the Navy really is contributing. And the sailors contributing the most in theater are the ones wearing this uniform."

He gestures to his green and brown fatigues, the same ones worn by the Navy's 16,000 Seabees, 3,000 port cargo handlers and hundreds of Explosive Ordnance Disposal experts -- all of whom have been busy abroad in recent years. "They had no type command that took care of their Title X functions: training, equipping, manning."

"We saw a need to put them into a coherent structure and better equip them," adds NECC commander Rear Admiral Donald Bullard, 55. "And then, all of the sudden, we began to look at other capabilities" including Navy civil affairs and riverine.

Riverine forces in nimble, heavily-armed boats played a huge role in the Vietnam War, but were run down after the evacuation of that country as the Navy shifted focus on deterring the Soviet Navy. In Iraq, a country crisscrossed by large rivers, canals and marshes, the U.S. and British militaries (pictured) found themselves chasing down waterborne smugglers and insurgents in jerry-rigged engineer boats until specialized forces could be reconstituted.

Continue reading "Navy Grows Land Forces"

Britain's new nuke debate

The conventional Trident may be dead, but nuclear Tridents have sparked a heated debate over the future of the UK's nuclear weapons.

Submarine-launched Trident missiles have been Britain's only nuclear option for almost a decade – the UK never had independent ground-launch capabilities, and all the British air-delivered nuclear weapons were dismantled by 1998. The missiles are built, maintained, and serviced in the U.S., but Britain insists that it maintains operational independence.

Today, the British Tridents are based on four Vanguard-class submarines, which are aging and due to be decommissioned in the 2020s. Since the government believes that new subs will take 17 years to design and build, a decision needs to be made. If Britain does not build new subs, it will lose its independent nuclear deterrent force.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's government could have made the decision on its own, but opted instead to open the issue for debate and let Parliament decide – a vote is scheduled for March 2007.

Supporters of renewing the Trident say that 1) no other nuclear states are considering eliminating their arsenals, 2) the number of nuclear states is increasing, 3) the world is a risky place, 4) it is impossible to predict whether the Tridents will be needed, so it is better to retain them. These arguments together seem to say, essentially, that in an uncertain, dangerous world, it is better to have nukes than not (shhh – don't tell Iran!).

Opponents argue that the weapons are 1) unnecessary (Britain's role in the world no longer requires nukes), 2) ineffective (deterrence is an "unproven theory" that is "essentially flawed," especially when it comes to terror), 3) expensive (roughly £20 billion that could be better spent elsewhere), 4) illegal (in violation of Article VI of the Nonproliferation Treaty, which obligates each signatory to work towards nuclear disarmament), and 5) immoral.

The Scots have been particularly virulent in their criticisms – this is partially tied up in British regional politics but also stems from the fact that the Trident submarines' only base is located in Scotland. Scottish officials have drafted two provocative but doomed-to-fail bills: one would criminalize "supporting the threat of the UK’s nuclear deterrent;" the other would charge the British government £1 billion (almost $2 billion) for each nuclear warhead transported through Scottish territory.

Churches and NGOs across the country have voiced their opposition, as well, and polls consistently show a majority of the British public opposed to Trident renewal. Blair has only offered minor concessions – he "wants to" reduce the number of subs and warheads slightly but says the issue needs more study.

If the Trident debate remains binary – renewal vs. no renewal – Blair has more than enough votes to push his proposal through Parliament. There may be a third option, though: delay the decision. U.S. nuclear experts Dick Garwin, Philip E. Coyle (disclosure: my boss), Theodore A. Postol, and Frank von Hippel recently argued that the Vanguard subs can last up to 15 years longer than the government said, with refurbishments and light use. They argue that putting the decision off would be the best way to maintain "a variety of options." It is unclear whether the government is interested in this option, but over 100 MPs (out of 646) have called for the decision to be delayed.

This will be a debate to watch – if the disarmament advocates succeed, Britain may become the first of the big five nuclear powers to give up its weapons. It looks unlikely in the near future, though.

-- Eric Hundman

Researching Tomorrow's Chem-Bio Defense

This is part three of my investigation of the DOD Chemical Biological Defense Program (CBDP) budget for FY2008. Today, we invade the lair of the research and development community. Sixty-one percent of the R&D budget for next year ($610 million) is in budget activities 6.1 through 6.3, what is called science and technology or the tech base. Not much happens in here other than applied research into potential technologies that might develop into a practical application - someday. And that pays for a lot of scientists' salaries. The other 39 percent is advanced development (about $380 million), budget activities 6.4 and 6.5. These funds are used to prove that prototypes work and that a given project is ready for manufacture and fielding.

I'm going to talk about the advanced development funds first, because it's easier to explain. The medics will develop biological vaccines to counter plague and botulinum toxin ($40 million and $19 million respectively). We might see a fielded plague vaccine in 2010 - maybe. Don't count on a bot tox vaccine prior to 2015. Nearly $70 million is going to the Transformational Medical Technologies Initiative (TMTI). Although the project is supposed to be focused on far future "silver bullets" for BW threats, for some reason, DOD will start spending advanced development funds next year. On what, I have no idea, since the investigational part has barely started in the tech base. I'm not sure DOD knows what they'll be doing either - it's been more of a "here, take this $2 billion and put it to work with industry" kind of affair. Ready, fire, aim.

Medical chemical research funding is about one fourth of that of med bio research funding. The $36 million is being split nearly equally on an advanced anticonvulsant system, a nerve agent bioscavenger, and an improved nerve agent treatment system. There's about $7 million being spent at AFRRI for medical radiological countermeasures. This is a new area - previous to 2007, the CBDP really didn't want to do med rad countermeasures. Then Dale Klein (from DOE) decided that the CBDP might want to think about being a CBRN Defense Program. Hasn't completely happened yet, in part because the Air Force and Navy really don't want to do joint radiological programs, and there is so much medical radiological research already going on outside of the program.

The tech base for medical accounts for 42 percent of the R&D budget. There's nearly $250 million being spent in the TMTI program, $85.7 million spent on biological defense research, and $62 million being spent on chemical defense research. Don't ask me what they spend it on. Lots of drug discovery efforts, studies on how things work in the body, potential pre- and post-treatment therapies. I'm not a medical guy, and tech base is frankly a lot of small, high risk projects, many of which aren't successful. It's not DARPA-like, but it's not uncommon to see a project go for 3-4 years before being terminated if it isn't leading anywhere.

On the non-medical side, about 13 percent of the R&D funds goes to advanced development projects. Detection projects make up 4.5 percent ($45 million) of the R&D funds. In biodetection, most funds are going to the development of critical reagents for biological detection ($10 million) and development of a tactical (man-portable) biological agent detector ($3 million). I'm not enamored of a Joint Biological Tactical Detector System (JBTDS). The warfighters want a bio equivalent to the automatic chemical detectors, refusing to listen to the analysts quietly pointing out that chemical hazards are somewhat different acting than biological hazards. The requirements guys have ignored the challenge of managing the analysis of thousands of liquid samples every week if this system were to be fielded.

On the chemical detection side, DOD is spending $12 million on continued R&D for the Joint Chemical Agent Detector (yes, even as it is being fielded, there's still significant R&D tweaking going on). About the same is being spent on the joint reconnaissance systems, probably tests and evaluations. A few million being spent on the agent water monitor system. There's really not a lot of new R&D being spent in CB detection, largely in part that we've got good systems out there, and there are few potential future technologies to reach out toward.

Individual protection R&D, funded at $12.5 million, is addressing the Joint Service Aircrew Mask, probably for final testing and approval prior to production. No R&D going to new suits or masks for the first time in a while, and is not expected for several years more (other than in the tech base). In part this is because (again) we have pretty good suits and masks, and there are no great leaps forward in this area. Also, the CBDP is being lazy and not really searching for what ought to be the next big idea in individual protection. We're stuck with hot suits and rubber masks. If something comes up, they'll move the money.

Collective protection has just one R&D project, the Joint Expeditionary Collective Protection project. This effort will field mobile field shelters and expedient shelters replacing... well, there is nothing out there right now for troops other than medics. There's $14 million going to that project, which is really a realigned effort from a former CP shelter project that crashed and burned when the users wouldn't back off their unrealistic demands on technology and engineering (we want it much smaller, with air conditioning, easy to transport... whine, whine). So we're trying again, and maybe we'll see some shelters in 3-4 years.

Decontamination projects have a big $9 million going to three sensitive decontamination projects: the sensitive equipment decon system, a platform interior decon system, and a human remains decon system. As I mentioned yesterday, the sensitive equipment decon project may be ready in 2010, and the interior decon (for inside vehicles) won't be ready prior to 2012. Right now, the only option to handle contaminated electronic equipment is to junk it. The last project, human remains decon, is a "special demand" by the medics and quartermasters. OSD wants to have the capability to decon contaminated corpses in such a manner that the bodies can 1) come home to Mom and Dad, and 2) be viewed in an open casket funeral. Really unreasonable demands, considering the bodies were formerly contaminated with CB warfare agents, but who ever said OSD leadership was reasonable? So the CBDP will buy some commercial technology and test it, field it in an effort to shut them up.

Information systems are actually getting the most R&D funds (after medical) at $48 million (nearly 5% of the R&D budget), going to the three projects mentioned yesterday - JEM, JOEF, and JWARN. The great thing about software projects is that they can always spend R&D funds to tweak their products, even after they've been fielded (as Microsoft can tell us). Nothing really sexy - it's the usual stuff. Improve the accuracy of how models demonstrate how CB hazards act in the real world, display the information on military communication systems, and include more medical and environmental data in the models. The tough part is, as ever, integrating CB hazard data into battlefield data without stalling communications.

Tech base for the nonmedical efforts are funded at $186 million - about half that of medical tech base (thanks to TMTI). I don't get much details from the tech base - again, it pays for 3-4 year long science projects that investigate various ways to improve the above capabilities. Standoff and point detection science gets the most (more than $40 million in 2008), with information systems getting $30 million and protection (individual and collective) getting $25 million. Decon sciences get less than $10 million, because there aren't a lot of new technologies there. Maybe $30 million for various science research projects aimed at finding out more about threat agents and other innovative research efforts.

The test and evaluation money ($67 million, a bit under 7 percent of the advanced R&D) is just going to building capabilities (buying equipment, outfitting buildings) to modernize the DOD's ability to... test and evaluate CB defense equipment (duh). Lots of money for Dugway, Edgewood, and a few other small T&E sites - special equipment, development of test methods, etc etc. Yawn. Has to be done, I guess, to ensure the equipment works as advertised.

That's about it. Not really sexy like the Missile Defense Agency. But then again, they have a few billion - several billion actually - more than the CBDP does. Again, more information on these R&D projects can be found in the OSD annual report to Congress on CB defense.

-- Jason Sigger, crossposted at Armchair Generalist

Taking on LockMart

Coast Guard commandant Admiral Thad Allen has all but surrendered to critics who’ve been saying that the service’s sprawling $24-billion Deepwater modernization program is fatally flawed and rife with corruption, according to The New York Times:

“We have been running some parts of the Coast Guard like a small business when we are a Fortune 500 company,” Admiral Allen said in a speech on Tuesday to several hundred Coast Guard officials. “We need to evolve with changing times.” A new deputy commandant for mission support will oversee the design, acquisition and construction of new ships and aircraft and the maintenance of the fleet once they are built, functions that are now managed separately.

That will allow the Coast Guard to avoid giving so much authority for design and construction choices to contractors, like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which renovated the first eight trouble-plagued ships in the Deepwater program.

The boats in question are the 123-foot Island-class patrol boats first fielded more than 15 years ago. Last year, former Lockheed Martin engineer Mike DeKort called out the firm for allegedly botching improvements to the boats’ communications. A report from the Coast Guard Inspector General this week confirms some of the flaws, including bad wiring and leaky system security.

The eight boats were withdrawn from service a couple months ago, causing a minor panic in a service that was already short of patrol boats as it awaits the introduction of two classes of brand-new boats over the next decade.

In an email on Tuesday, DeKort declared victory:

The ICGS [partnership between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman] parties involved have demonstrated themselves to be incompetent and ethically, technically and professionally bankrupt. Also – the IG told me very clearly that the CG and LM were not cooperating with their investigation. They could not get data they asked for or run re-tests they asked for.

Continue reading "Taking on LockMart"

Rapid Fire 02/14/07

* Centcom targets bloggers

* Blogger arrested for terrorist ties

* Google Earth, Iraqi lifesaver

* Bad turn in Beirut

* 222 "chipped"

* Atmospheric comms field-tested

* Roger Morris vs. Rummy

* WWI's "Tin Noses Shop"

* The "Circus of Detention"

* Joel Johnson 1, gadget geeks 0

* Flipper to the rescue

* Quantum 'puter demo

* Nick testifies

* Raptors break Axe's heart

(Big ups: BP, RC, AT)

Real E.F.P.: Pocket-Sized Tank Killer

The pictures released last week of Iraqi high-tech explosives surprised me. These special 'superbombs' that have caused so many US casualties -- they look like they had been assembled in someone's garage.

These bombs belong to a class known as EFP --'Explosively Formed Projectile' or 'Explosively Formed Penetrator,' depending on who you're talking to. They compress a metal liner into a slug and fire it at the target some distance away.

The picture shows what a real EFP munition looks like. This is M2 Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM). It's small enough to put in your pocket and weighs a couple of pounds.

This version has been used by US Special Forces for the last 15 years or so. As GlobalSecurity.org describes it, SLAM is versatile, too:

It will be used to support hit-and-run, ambush, and harassing, and urban warface missions. SLAM will also be employed by Light Combat Engineers and Rangers where missions warrant the use of such a device....SLAM is lightweight, lethal, easily emplaced, and can be carried in the quantity necessary to neutralize a broad range of targets.

Different modes allow SLAM to be triggered by the heat or magnetic signature of a passing vehicle or by a timer -- or it can be set off by a human operator. It can be emplaced in seconds and spits out a lethal slug which can punch through 40mm of steel armor at a range of 25 feet. You can leave it on the ground covered in dirt to attack a vehicle's belly, or conceal it beside a road for side attack.

No doubt the Russians and Chinese have their own versions of SLAM, and these have probably been copied too. So you might expect a rougher, cheaper copy to appear in Iraq if it was supplied from the outside.

But as has been observed here, anyone can make crude and simple EFP munitions in a basic workshop. All you need is a lump of plastic explosive and a piece of copper. Shape the copper into a saucer, put the explosive under it, and you're there. Obviously this will be a lot less efficient, accurate and reliable than something like SLAM (optimal design of the the metal 'lens' is an art requiring a lot of computer power), but you can compensate by making it ten times bigger if you need to.

Maybe the insurgents should be given some credit for being able to build their own gear, or maybe there's more intelligence we don't know. But if EFP mines were being supplied by an outside source, you might expect to see somethng a lot slicker.

UPDATE 11:37: Speaking of surprises, Centcom commander Adm. Fox Fallon doesn't agree that the Iranian government has been supplying Iraq's EFPs. He's not alone. Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Peter Pace, on the other hand, seemed to back away from his previous, doubting statements -- at least a little. More here.

UPDATE 01:20: The bombs aren't the only issue, of course. According to the Telegraph, Iranian-supplied sniper rifles are also making their way into Iraq.

UPDATE 02:24: Bush has no doubt.

UPDATE 15/02/07: Steyr, the Austrian makers of those .50 cal sniper rifles say there's no proof they came from Iran - and that they might not even be Steyr-made rifles at all.

-- David Hambling

Buying Next Year's Chem-Bio Gear

Following up yesterday's post on the new budget, let's see what chem-bio defense equipment the Defense Department is planning to buy. The top line items include (unsurprisingly) CB detection gear, individual protection equipment, and vaccines. About 36 percent of procurement dollars are going to buy specialized CB defense vehicles for the Army and CB detectors for the services. Nearly 24 percent is going to individual protective equipment - mostly masks and suits. The rest is seven percent for collective protection systems, five percent for decon systems, less than three percent for information systems, and nine percent for biological vaccines. Last, 16 percent for installation protection equipment, largely paying for hazmat gear and exercises.

The CB Defense Program (CBDP) is buying 28 M31E2 Biological Integrated Detection System (BIDS) for the Army next year, each costing about $3.4 million. These feature the Joint Biological Point Detection System (JBPDS) as the heart of the system. Most of these BIDS platoons were justified as homeland security capabilities, and we're going to be buying them for several more years. The Navy's getting eleven JBPDS for their ships, for about $330,000 each. DOD will be buying 25,000 biological assay tickets at $50 a pop as the first phase of its Joint CBR Agent Water Monitor.  All the rest of biodetection funds is in R&D (tomorrow).

On the chemical side, the Army will get 13 Strykers modified with point and standoff chemical detectors (the Joint Service Lightweight Standoff Chemical Agent Detector) and other equipment (the vehicle designated as the NBC Recon Vehicle). Each one cost $7-8 million each, over twice what the older M93A1 NBCRS "Fox" cost (which it is replacing). We're buying nearly 7000 Joint Chemical Agent Detectors, and more each year through the POM at about $4000 each. The CBDP spent years and more than $100 million developing BAE's ChemSentry to be the JCAD before they gave up and went to Smith Detection's Lightweight Chemical Detector as the candidate. Finally, the Joint "Light" NBC Recon System (it's actually very heavy) is finally rolling out after a four-year delay. Seven Heavy HMMWVs and six LAVs will have the new equipment. Yes, it's duplicative of the Stryker NBCRV but the Strykers can get built faster.

In individual protective equipment, lots of masks - 7122 Joint Service Aircrew Masks (JSAM) costing about $3000 each, and 18,248 disposable Joint Service Chemical Environment Survivability Mask (JSCESM)costing $130 each. The JSAM are for all fixed wing pilots, while the Air Force decided that the program needed to buy them a second mask (instead of using O&M funds as it should). The main program buy is 176,007 Joint Service General Purpose Masks (JSGPM), which will replace both the M40 and the older MCU2/P masks at a cost of $170 each. Overall, there isn't a large improvement in capability, but it is slightly better than the two predecessor masks and it will offer one standard mask for all ground combatants.

Now the CBDP isn't supposed to buy consumable items, but the services bullied OSD into ignoring the public law and buying them lots of JSLIST protective suits, boots and gloves ($39 million worth) and Joint Protective Aircrew Ensembles (JPACE). The ground suits cost about $250 a pop, while the aviator version cost twice that. That's because aviators have to look good in protective suits, and they need pockets for their pens and sunglasses. In the vaccine area, the CBDP is procuring 1.43 million anthrax vaccine doses at about $26 each and 1.25 million smallpox vaccine doses at about $4 each. In a few years, DoD will be buying plague vaccine as well. It's starting to get really expensive to buy these doses for the total force every year, and some are suggesting DOD procure vaccine doses for military dependents as well.

In the information systems, there are three products - Joint Effects Model (hazard prediction), Joint Warning and Reporting Network (the communication backbone), and Joint Operational Effects Federation (for data management). Most of the procurement funds are going to make CDs to send the first products out to the field. It's amazingly small amounts of money ($14 million across all three products) for a "network-centric" military. Bottom line, the old-time CBDP people still focus on detectors and protective suits as the favored children over hazard prediction models.

The CBDP is continuing to buy Karcher decon systems as its Joint Service Transportable Decon System (Small Scale) - 338 systems at $24,ooo each, plus DF200 decontaminants. After the Army's government-produced system M21/M22 Modular Decon System wasn't accepted (and not deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom), it turned to industry for the solution. Again. In 2009, we might see the first buys of the Joint Service Sensitive Equipment Decon System - 52 systems at $80,000 a pop. These systems are way, way overdue, but critical if we're ever to clean up after a CB warfare event.

The medics wanted collective protection for their field hospitals and forward aid stations, so they're getting the Chemical Protective Deployable Medical System (CP DEPMEDS) for about $1.5 million each. The CB Protective System (CBPS), which is installed in medical HMMWVs, costs about $1.2 million each - we're getting 21 systems in 2008. The Navy convinced OSD to give it money back in the late 1990s to install collective protection systems in its amphibious ships and hospital ships. Next year, the USS Makin Island will get its collective protection for only $10.5 million. The Navy keeps getting money for this purpose (for which it ought to be paying for itself) through FY 2009. No one else seems to value collective protection for fixed and semi-permenant sites, strangely enough.

I'm going on too long, but let me just note the PM Guardian's fine efforts for installation protection. For the past year (and this year going through next year), the program's been buying gear for the installation response teams. Each base gets eight DFU-200 air samplers, two chemical point detectors, three chemical agent monitors, six radiation detectors, and assorted other gear. In 2006, 50 bases received this gear. In 2007 they plan to drop this at 17 sites, and in 2008, at 15 sites more. So in 2008, we're going to see 15 sites get a limited amount of CB defense gear, some comm connectivity, and exercises for $86.4 million. Read the description in the P-forms, and you'd never know what an insufficient capability is actually being provided. This isn't a protection effort, it's augmenting the response capability.

Hell of a program. But no one said that passive defense was at the top of any priority lists. "Combating WMD" means air and missile defense, special operations, and interdiction missions. My personal observation - field grade officers are making poor procurement decisions to which the general/flag officers pay little attention, because it benefits their respective services to do so (and I include the Army in this). They're not going to change until there's an actual attack and people die from CB weapons, and that's the real shame of it all.

-- Jason Sigger, crossposted at Armchair Generalist

Navy Phone Bill: $4 Billion

And you thought your phone bill was high. The Navy is paying about $4 billion a year for calls, according to Defense News. And not surprisingly, there is a whole lot of padding in that tab.

A check of telephone bills in the Jacksonville, Fla., area “found that when we have a digital receipt for a phone bill in the area…we are being overcharged 30 percent,” deputy chief of naval operations Vice Adm. Mark Edwards told a group of military-industrial insiders at a recent conference.

Telephone service with no digital receipt showed overcharges of 18 percent, he added.

The Navy’s top IT official said he wasn’t accusing telephone companies, but he just might not let it slide. “What I’m saying is: It’s my money and I want it back. And we’re going to get it back,” he said, to some chuckles.

By recouping 30 percent of the $4 billion tab over the five-year defense plan, “we could build another carrier, just on the phone bill,” noted Edwards, a former ship and carrier battle group commander. “It won’t be quite that easy, but we’re working it.”
And it might not end there. Edwards wants the Navy to change course by replacing traditional landlines for VOIP, or “voice over IP,” communications, he said. “It would save us over 24 percent the first year” and 24 percent the second year, he estimated.

Nazi Roots for Iraq Super-Bombs

The debate these days is all about whether or not Tehran is supplying Iraq's armor-piercing bombs. But the roots of these explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs, goes all the way back to Hitler-era Germany, the Yorkshire Ranter notes. Military historian Larry Grupp explains.

Dr. Hubert Schardin was definitely not a Nazi. Nevertheless, he stood stiffly at attention in full Luftwaffe dress uniform at Gestapo headquarters in Budapest, Hungary. It was the spring of 1944 and Schardin, a brilliant German explosives physicist, needed assistance. Under direct orders from Adolf Hitler to develop new superweapons, he needed the Gestapo's help to locate a famous but reclusive Hungarian colonel named Misznay who could provide detailed information regarding the complex physics involved in shaped charge explosives.

Colonel Misznay was, by all historical indicators, so elusive that today we are even uncertain what his real first name was. In all probability, Misznay was either a double or perhaps even a triple agent. After World War II, he dropped out of sight in the Eastern Bloc. Yet his last name lives on as a result of a special explosive phenomenon he identified, called the Misznay-Schardin effect -- a phenomenon that recognizes that fragments can be thrown from the face of an explosive charge in a predictable pattern, much like a projectile from a rifle barrel.

It's that effect which forms the heart of the EFP's deadly power. These Pentagon documents. , obtained by ABC News, give the best public run-down I've seen so far on how lethal these bombs have been.

(Big ups: AT)