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How IEDs Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know run House Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant's with me, etcetera, etcetera.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Stuffy should know. How you doing attention of people? In
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the blink of an eye, Yeah, this podcast would be over. Yeah,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Jerry's getting a lot more loose with the laughter. Have
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: you noticed. Yeah, she wants to be noticed. Either that
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: or her sense of humor has been ratcheted up. We're
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: gonna look one day she's like literally pulled up to
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: our downs with her chin on her hand, like, Hey, yeah,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: what are you guys do? Hey, nice shirt, Hey, thank you.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: You compliment the shirt every time I wear I know.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Let me set the scene. We're in our serial killer
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: like room and Josh is wearing his Mystery Science Theater shirt. Yeah,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that's the one, and it's got the guys there. It's
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a silhouette, the famous silhouette in the movie theater seats
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and it's just a great shirt. Yeah. Um one time you,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: me and I were at home watching it on I
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: don't know, the Internet or something like that, laugh and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: laugh and laughing, and uh, she had such a good
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: time that she got me this T shirt. You commemorate it.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: That's a great reason. So thanks a lot, mst three
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: K guys, Yeah, Emily does. I got a Dexter shirt.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I got a true Blood shirt. I got a Madman shirt.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You guys are laughing at Dexter parks and red shirt
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: every time, Children's hospital shirts on the way. I'm like
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: enough with the shirts exactly fun TV events, right, you
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: can just show what TV show you've watched recently by
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: wearing that T shirt. Well, do like Michael Stipe remember
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that ear He were like tin shirts at the vm as. No,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: he kept taking off his shirt for each award they won,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and it was another like a statement, political statement, you
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: know Stipe. Yeah, I found his best. Just let Stipe
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: do his thing. Let's Stipe be Stipe. Yeah, that's a shirt.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: You know. He's got a sculpture like right there, what
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: do you mean? He has a an outdoor sculpture at
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the next building over the Sovereign building in the back
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: really right next to the valet um, there's like six
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: seven eight like cute little larger than life foxes and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: he running around in a circle and it's Michael Stipe
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: did he do it or did he conceive it and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: then had some sculpture go do it. If he did,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: he's taking full credit for it. Okay, I mean I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: believe he did it. They're called the Stipe Boxes. I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: can't remember what it is, but it's got like or
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: what the name is, but it's got like a plaque
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: that says, you know who the artist is and give
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: some background and well look at that. Michael Stipe had
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: no idea yea, and it's pretty good too. I have
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to say, I'm gonna go check that out. You should
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: write it for them, Okay, Chuck, Yes, do you know
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: what an I E. D Is? I do. I bet
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: some folks might not, though you hear that where. It's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: one of those things you hear on the news a lot.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Some people might just sort of, you know, it gets
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: lodged in the brain is. I don't know what that is,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: but I hear it enough spell it out for him.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I the improvised explicit device, and that is the I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: believe still the leading cause of troop death in the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Middle East. Uh. Yeah, the mission in Iraq is over right,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: like we've totally drawn with drawn. Yeah, I strong about Afghanistan.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It remained then forever now the number one killer of
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: US troops in Iraq, and it still is now in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan as far as I know. Yes, I have a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: couple of stats here. Um, it is still the top threat.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: You're correct, killed a hundred four U. S troops compared
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: with one. That's a significant drop. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: getting better at fine, and we'll get to this of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: their methods of getting better at rooting them out with
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: machines and from what I gathered reading the stuff, just
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the soldiers being there, they just sort of get in
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that mind. They're just getting better at this, like sniffing out,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: sniffing them off the case. Yeah, these guerrilla tactics. You know,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: more you're there, the more you just understand the enemy.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: That article also though, said that that statistic reflects just
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: fewer troops to be attacked though as well. Um, but yeah,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: we definitely have gotten better, um as a military over
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the last decade or so. Yeah, like twelve years. I
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: guess wasn't a two thousand one that we invaded Afghanistan
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: or two to mission accomplished. Um, And we came face
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to face with I E. D. S pretty quickly. UM
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And really kind of had to learn what we were doing.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Like I remember the the soldiers were just driving around
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: in regular humpies and getting like blown to smitherreens from
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I E d S left and right. And it took
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: like a year or two before they had humpies that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: were armored enough to protect them against humpy blasts. Yeah.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Well it's sort of new though, because this article points
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: out at the beginning of the war they weren't as
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: popular and it was mainly gunfire. Mortars and grenades were
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the cause of the age because we were fighting a
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: non insurgent group. We're fighting the Iraqi military. We were fighting, um,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: but the Taliban, Well, yeah, you're right, they were Yeah, no,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I guess yeah, but yeah, in Iraq, we were definitely
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: fighting the Iraqi military, but then the insurgency came after that. Yeah,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: they definitely have realized how effective they can be. When
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: you can put it in a dead dog's carcass on
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the side of the road or a cow or something
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: like that, very scary stuff. You can hide it just
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: about anywhere. Um, And they're not new. The insurgents um
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: in Iraq in Afghanistan didn't invent I E d S.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: They go back at least into the Vietnam War, where
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the viet Cong figured out that a good way to
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: get American troops blown up is to put an I
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: D in like an old coke can or something, or
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: an old beer can't leaving along the side of the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: road where you knew they were going to be walking,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: because everyone knows that Americans like to kick cans down
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the road. And apparently all it took was one kick
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and then boom, the whole platoon was in danger. Yeah,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: that was an I E D. Yeah, the i R
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a Irish Republican Army obviously used those in the sixties
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and seventies. And then you know when you hear about
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the Boston bomber or the Centennial Park bomber, the d
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: s yeah, actually homemade bombs, right, it's an improvised explosive device,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: which basically the big distinction is you didn't buy it
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: from a from a commercial manufacturer, or it didn't come
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: from a commercial manufacturer like a pipe bomb. That's an
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: e D. Doesn't have to be in a rock or Afghanistan.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And like you said, I mean, the reason that they
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: are in use and man, they are in use um
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: is because they are an effective weapon against a larger,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: especially larger conventional army. Um. It's it's they're cheap, they're
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: easy to get the parts too, they're fairly easy to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: put together, and apparently there's a lot of information out
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: there about how to do it. Like the Times Square
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: bombing that was foiled a couple of years back. The
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: bomb that that guy had was virtually identical to the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: ones used in the Boston marathon bombing. So clearly there's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: some instruction out there that people who want to can
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: get to and make these things from just part you
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: buy at the store. Yeah, the internet, giveth in it
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: take it away for sure. Yeah right, all right, So
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about the basic parts of an
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I D. Yeah, there's five of them. You've got your
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: power supply um. You basically you're trigger in your detonator.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Need electricity um usually from like say a battery or
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: UM battery. Yeah, I mean it should be as simple
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: as like a flashlight battery. Yeah, so that's pretty scary.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: The trigger is, uh, the switch that sets the device off.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: It's usually like sometimes can be a trip wire, but
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: usually or a timer. But most times it's like a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: firing button where someone is watching that they actually press
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: or a radio signal from like say a cell phone
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, anything that can relay information that can
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: trigger an event to that trigger, like a garage store opener,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: cell phone, radio whatever. Um, that makes a pretty handy
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: trigger switch. That's right. So the detonator that is the uh,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the small charge that sets off the larger charge. I
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: don't know, we talked about this since something oh building
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: implosions exactly. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's kind of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the same thing. Yeah, you're taking a little charge because
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it doesn't take quite as much to set that one off,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: and then you use the energy, the force created from
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: that one to explode the larger charge, the main charge
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: of the primary charge. And um, you can actually use
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: conventional weapons, conventional bombs like an unexploded landline as um.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: The primary charge, right, fertilizer is very handy apparently. Um.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And then from the main charge, we move on to
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the container. That's the thing that holds everything together, whether
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it's a pressure cooker or an old washing machine or whatever.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: What did they do in Boston pressure cookers? Was that
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: what it was? Okay? But they snuck in and backpacks?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah? That is some scary stuff. It
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: really takes a lot to not be super freaked out
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: at any public event after something like that. You know,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it definitely takes a little while too for even the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: most rational stable person and say, no, I'm just gonna
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to this marathon and hang out and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: not worry about things. Yeah, I think it increases vigilance
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: for sure. Um, And then of course, like in the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: NFL this year, you know I got the Falcon season tickets,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: they sent out a statement to all the ticket holders
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that you can't like bring bags into the game anymore
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: unless they're those clear bags that like high school stud
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it's apt to use. Now, I didn't know you could
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: ever bring bags, Like you could bring a backpack into
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the game or something, or a purse or anything like.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: You can't bring any of that stuff in. You can't
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: bring a person any longer. No, it's got to be
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: like they have a size requirement. It's basically, you know,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a little small purse that can fet your I D
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and stuff. But yeah, they're putting the kih on that.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah I can figure I D, but not your I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: E D. That's right. Yeah, that should be their slogan,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: which I mean, I guess it's not much to give
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: up like a purse. Of course, I don't carry purses,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: so it's not a big inconvenience for me. But you know,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I mean to ensure that much more safety, yeah, that
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like enough. But it's also part of that
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: slippery slope where it's like, Okay, we made that concession,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and what's the next concession? Taking off your shoes and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: line at the airport? Not that big of a deal.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But when you add it together with all this other stuff,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're pretty much constantly thinking. There's
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: constantly an awareness of the threat that's out there. That's
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: probably good to a certain degree that anything. Yes, it is,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: but I think it's also a double edged sword where
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it's like you're maybe you're safer, but you're also more
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: stressed out right, you know. Yeah, And it certainly doesn't
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: limit the racial profiling and stuff like that, you know,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: after events like that and you're people are staring down
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: people of different colors and races and oh yeah, I'm
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: sure like the random pat down through like a T
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: S A line is pretty far from random. Yeah, you know. True.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: See our podcast on on No flight lists. Wright do
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: one on that, Yeah, I genuinely don't recall it. Give
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: yourself a break, buddy, Yeah, but I would think like
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I could remember any of them eventually if you said
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the title. Yeah, we did one on no fly lists,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: like how do you land yourself on a no fly list? Okay,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: on a government list of like no fly That was
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: my fault. I said the wrong title. That's why I
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't jogged. Yeah, we did one on like flying and stuff.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: All right, So there's there are other things packed inside
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: these devices as well, basically for use to shrapnel, um,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: anything from nails to ball bearings. Um. Sometimes it can
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: be toxic chemicals to cause fire. It can be all
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: sorts of nasty things, um. Yeah. And it could be
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: part of a dirty bomb. It can be like the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: means to get a dirty bomb exploded. Right, Well, Chuck,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: before we go any further, you want to do maybe
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a message break, I think so, Chuck. So we've talked
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: about what parts there are to a um an I e.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Ed Um, let's talk about how they fit together. And
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: obviously we're not going to give you any kind of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: instructional step by step, um, but there I mean, there's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: just general information about how how they fit together. So
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: you've got your power source, which we talked about, and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: that's going to give you the electricity that you need
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: to power the trigger and the detonator. So that's how
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: those fit together, right, Um. And then you've got the
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: trigger which activates the detonator, which also requires some sort
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of power um or also draws power from the power source. Uh.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: And the trigger can be it can be said on
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a timer like the old like sticks of dynamite with
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the clock. The timer that's an I E. D. I
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: suppose um the Yeah, it could be activated by a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: trip wire. Um, it could. There's all sorts of things
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: you can do. Somebody could be standing off in the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: distance watching and pressing a calling a phone. I remember
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: we talked about it before. I don't remember which one
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: it was, but we talked about supposedly a separatist, the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Chechen separatist. Maybe it was planning on bombing Red Square
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: in Moscow in the New Year's before last. And she
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: blew up because she got a text message from her
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: phone before she made it out of her apartment. She
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: got like a happy New Year message from the phone provider.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I never followed up to make sure that wasn't an
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: urban legend. But it is a heck of a story.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I do remember talking about that, and I believe it
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: you could just because why not, you know, why not? Uh?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: And then you've got, like I said, we got the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: detonator which provides the energy for the main one, and
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: then the main charge which sends a shock wave or
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a blast wave and shrapnel and fire or toxic chemicals
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: or whatever outward very fast. Yeah. And the big problem,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: like we said, with I E d s and with
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: combating I E d s, is you can make them
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: from so many different materials. There's all sorts of different
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: types of explosives you can use. Um, the parts you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: can get from just about anywhere. I know, in the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Boston bombings they used, um, the trigger was triggered via
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: an RC car part. They used regular like battery D
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: cell batteries. Um. You, so you can get this stuff
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: from anywhere. So, like, if you were really interested in
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: stopping i E d s from being produced and made
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: your supply lines, following supply lines is really difficult. Yeah,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: it's not like you can trace things. Yeah, and they're
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: just coming from so many different places. It's like we're
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: banning our c cars can't really do that. Yeah, I
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: did see where the government is UM trying to track
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: this stuff a little bit more. Um, they spent more
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: than two hundred million dollars to Pentagon has UH basically
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: just trying to get ahold of the problem altogether. But
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: they have something called the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Organization or JAI DID right and UM, I think they're
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: gonna get about two d and seventeen million dollars this year.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that they're trying to do
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: is track some of the stuff out of Pakistan. It
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: seems to be one of the main countries where things
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: like how see um ammonium nitrate or coming from fertilizer. Yeah,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: in Pakistan saying we kind of have an agricultural um
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: sector that needs fertilizer soon. We're not gonna stop making fertilizer.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: What part of the problem is that's also the main
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: source of explosive material being used in I E D S.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Shows you the problem. You're part of the problem at least. UM.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: The The other part of the problem is there's so
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: many different ways to deliver an I D. You can
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: just put it somewhere. They're very easily hid. Um and
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: say like a rubble or trash pile or like you said,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in the carcass of a dog or a cow or
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: something like that, to something that seems innocuous. They can
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: be buried. Um, they can be left in a car. Yeah,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: those are vehicle born I E. D. S and uh
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: that have you seen I'm really into these modern war movies.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Have you seen hurt Locker is one? I haven't seen
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: that one man So good and zero Dark thirty was
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the worst part of the movie. What part where the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: ladies like jumping up and down like yeah, my informants
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: coming for the car bomb. That's what happened though, dude,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and the other girls on the other aunt saying like,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: oh mg, I'm so excited for you. It's like their
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: characters suddenly just totally deteriorate, like into just these caricatures,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: like what happened at that part she was jumping up
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and down like yeah, I don't know, man, I think
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: she was probably pretty excited. Dude. I just thought it
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: was very weird so much so I'm like, what is
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the director trying to do here? Like what she's trying
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to say something that I'm not picking up on it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: It was just odd. But yes, it was a vehicle
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: born explosion, But you liked the movie aside from that.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Aside from that, yeah, that was pretty cool. Both those
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: were Katherine Bigelow by the way, right, but yeah, I
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: never saw hurt Locker. Hurt Locker is great. And then
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Green's On was another good one. The Matt Damon one.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Wasn't that like, um, the born identity for Isn't there
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of people called that? Really? Yeah, well that's
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: just silly, wasn't I by the same guy who directed
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: it too? Maybe I think it was Paul green Grass
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And yeah, but it was not. That's just silly. It
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: was because it was Matt Damon kicking but and Paul
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: green Grass. But it was a war movie, not a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: spy movie or whatever those Born movies were. Yeah. Um,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I'll take issue with that statement. Okay, um, all right,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: So let's talk a a little bit about the explosion itself.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I said that gas heats up expands rapidly, and how
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: rapidly Josh? Um, Well, if you're talking explosion, usually at
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: least ft per second four eight meters per second, which
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: is a lot that's your blast wave. If you're anywhere
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: near that, then you probably are not going to make
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: it out. And it um creates a lot of um
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: force measured in atmospheric pressure gez. Oh yeah, how many?
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Up to a thousand times the normal atmospheric pressure at
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: sea level. So you remember in the diving bell episode
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: we're talking about or no, it was the the ejection
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: seat episode, we talked about how when you eject from
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: a plane, you can be depending on how fast you're going,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you can be subjected up to twenty g s all
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of a sudden when you when your seat shoots out.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: This is a thousand gees. Alright, so that's gonna send
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that shrapnel at that same speed, which is gonna do
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: tons of damage. Their secondary shrapnel from stuff like windows
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and buildings that are going to be splintered and flying around. Uh,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: there's the fire itself, Uh secondary fires. And then this
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: one I didn't really think about though. The the vacuum. Yeah,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: apparently can it leaves a vacuum that can like cause
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: you to go blind or deaf, And well it blows
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it out so much that, yeah, it causes a partial vacuum,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and then the air rushes back in to fill it,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and it brings all that other debris that it's just
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: shot out right back into you. So you get it twice.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I guess if you're in the blast zone, and I
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: guess the atmosphere pressure is what can give you like concussions.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: That's the shock wave swelling of the brain, like, um,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: what what is it? A traumatic brain injury which is
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: so similar to PTSD. Oh yeah, um. And it also
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: points out to I'd never really would have thought about this,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: but air filled tissues and organs like your lungs and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: your bowels can actually be perforated with this pressure change. Yeah,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: that's just unbelievable. Yeah. Um. And like we said, if
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: you're close to one of these, you're probably not gonna
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: make it out alive. If you're a little further way
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: outside that primary blast radius, um, you're likely going to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: be injured. A lot of I think of wounds in
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan are still caused by I E. D S. So
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: while deaths are down, there's still a lot of guys
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and ladies being wounded. Yeah, you know, losing limbs, there's
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a lot. There's a huge increase in a rock and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan to lost limbs and brain traumatic brain injuries because
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: they're being protected from kevlar. Whereas before these these protections
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and the measures that that the military took to protect
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: soldiers um were instituted. Prior to that, they would have
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: just died, so they wouldn't have been chalked up to
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the casualty or the injured list. They would have been
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: chalked up to the dead list. Right. So now it's like, yeah,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: they're being protected, but they're also losing limbs. They're also
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: like they they have brain injuries. There's big problems that
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: they're carrying along with them as well, which is one
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: of the things that's made this war so expensive, um,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: not just financially but in like you know, human costs
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: as well. And of course civilians aren't protected at all,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: so they're dying at a rapid rate. So you've got
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I D S. They are out there. There's a problem.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: What have we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, Like, how
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: do you detect against the either use of I E
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: d S. Well, one thing that uses dogs to sniff
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: them out. I don't know. At some point we have
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a good article on war dogs that we might cover,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: but dogs is one way. Um, like I said, just
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: living in country and learning that. You know, every time
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: one of those goes off, they probably learn a new
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: method to add to the list, which is scary but
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: also great to be there and sort of get inside
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: their head a little bit. Paying attention and being suspicious
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: is another one. Yeah, Like there's an instance that's given
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: in this article about a marine spotter who noticed a
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: man outside of Habania, Iraq who is videotaping a convoy. Yeah,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: it's like that's kind of a dig giveaway that this
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: guy should be checked out. I guess they looked at
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: him and saw that he had a high powered rifle
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: on the seat next to him, and they shot and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: killed him and went over and apparently he had a
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: bunch of parts to make I E. D. S with.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: That's right, So I guess he was scouting or what
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: have you. And then not very surreptitiously either, like, um,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and he probably well you never know. I was going
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: to say he might have one of those video cameras
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: from like the eighties too. It's like set on, it's
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: not even a small one. Um. They do have some
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: new technology though, which is pretty cool, and it makes
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: sense because if you're using like a signal from a
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: cell phone, let's say, to set these things off. You
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: might think, hey, can they jam those things? And they can,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And they're trying to something terribly named UM device called
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the NERF and I r F which stands for neutralizing
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: improvised explosive devices. Oh no way? Yeah? Oh yeah? Is
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: that nerve? Isn't there a terrible acronym? So nerve with
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: radio frequency? Okay, sorry, give him the whole thing. Neutralized
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: neutralizing improvised explosive devices with radio frequency ner Yes, And
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that emits a high frequency pulse that basically just shorts
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: out all the electronics in the area. Yeah. They also
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: have devices that emit births of microwave radiation that fry
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the electronics anywhere around. So if you have an I E.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: D coming up and you shoot it with some microwaves,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: it probably isn't gonna work, that's right. And they have lasers,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the the libs, l ibs man the military and their
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: acronyms like everything. They love those. When I'm talking with
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: my brother in law, he's just like and he's so
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: used to saying what they are too, and it's just
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: like rapid fire. We'll say like LIBS laser and just
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: break down spectoc See I can't even say that that
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: spectroscopy well, the spect spectroscopy is a difficult word to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: say either way. That's what they call it LIBS. And
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: these detect I D explosives within about a hundred feet,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: which is pretty good because these things, you know, most
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of the time it's not like it's not a daisy cutter.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: You know, the explosion is large, but it's not you know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: if you're five yards away, it's not gonna have much
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: of an impact on you. And they um, the gun
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a lot better at detecting devices. Um. Apparently of I
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: E d s in Afghanistan were detected before they went off.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: And I think two thousand eleven, two thousand twelve. Um.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: And uh, did you hear about the guy who sold
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: fake bomb detectors like around the world. He's this British
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: guy named James McCormick, and for ten years he sold
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: this device called the a d E six fifty one,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: which stood for Advanced Detection Equipment And basically what it
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: was was a device called the gopher, which is used
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to find lost golf balls. And it actually doesn't work.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It doesn't even find lost golf balls. It has no
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: better no better chance than random chance to detect a
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: golf ball or anything else. This guy just repackaged these
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: things and sold them. He sold one to a government
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: for three grand. Apparently the Iraqi police fought six thousand
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: of them. They're still in use all over the country.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: They don't do anything. This guy means sixty million dollars
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: over ten years selling these things, and he's a total fraud.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Is he in jail or anything? Yeah, they got him
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: finally doing ten years in prison. Wow, and they took
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: his money. Yeah, but who knows how many people like Yeah, Yeah,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: it's pretty scary. They also have like you talked about
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: their the humpies and stuff were more armored now. But um,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: they also have things called mind resistant ambush Protected Vehicles
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: m wraps, and they have a flat undercarriage in the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: shape of a V which will supposedly divert the blast. Yeah,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: rather than flat, it's like it goes it comes to
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: a point. Yeah, it makes makes sense. It diverts it
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: away instead of just right up under the vehicle. So
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you just have to hope you're not standing next to
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the vehicle and the thing goes off because it's going
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to direct all that stuff towards straight out. And then
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: just today, um, we learned that a company called Ashkosh
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: not Ashkosh but no, but I wonder if they're related.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: The military Vehicle division of Oshkosh Bagosh in Wisconsin. Is
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Oshkosh Bagosh, Wisconsin? Yeah, is it really? Yeah? This Oshkosh
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: is probably a place there. Yeah, you think I believe
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: it is. All right, we'll look into that. Maybe they
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: make onesies and military vehicles. But in Washington, d C.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Right now, today's August. What today in DC? This week
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: they have a trade show and oshkos is an unveiling
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the Terra Max and the Terra not terror Terra is
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: in land. The Terra Max is um unmanned, which is
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: kind of cool, and it has counter I D payloads
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and uh, it's basically a little UM a TV that
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I guess is remote controlled or it says it can
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: run UM in a supervised autonomous mode remote control? Is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that what that is? It's just the way I think moment. Yeah,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: they should just say RV man UM. Yeah. So that's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. So they're they're definitely spending money at the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: rate of about two hundred and two twenty million a
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: year to try and combat desk. Ye. Well, and that's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: all I got. That's all I got too. Um. If
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: you're interested in this, you can also another way of
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: delivering an I D is via suicide bomber. And we
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: did an entire episode on suicide bombers, did we not?
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: We did? Okay, so you might want to check that
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: out as well. Uh. And if you want to learn
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: more about I E d s and how to combat them,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: you can type I E D into the search bar
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And since I said
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: search bar, it's time for a message break, all right, chuckers,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: how about listener mail? All right? This is called I've
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: worked with a hyperbolic chamber? Uh Jeric hyperbaric? Would I
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: say hyperbolic? The guys like it's the largest chamber in
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the world. It's so full of hyperbole. Um, thanks for
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: catching that. By the way, I just finished listening to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the how does a Diving Bell Work? And I couldn't
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: help but think about a guy. I think about a lot.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I used to live on a Caribbean island called Utilla.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: It's in Honduras. Utila or Utila is known for backpackers
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: learning to dive whilst traveling around Central America as a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: scuba instructor on the island and also drove the hyperbaric
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: chamber or hyperbolic chamber set up and funded by small
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the charge to all divers, although we treated locals for
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: three um all of us non Hondurans learned to dive
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: as safely as possible. But the locals will go for lobster.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: They called them bugs. Had horrific diving conditions. They would
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: have a guy in about a couple of dive tanks
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: without pressure gauges attached along hoses that the fishermen would
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: use to breathe. They knew that they were running out
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: of air when it became hard to breathe. Once they
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: realized they were running out of air, they would surface quickly,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: but stay in the water, drink a coke uh and
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: smoke a joint. It would be attached to a new
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: tank then and go down looking for more lobsters or
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: bugs of stuff in their sacks. This what's going down
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: down here. There's an article about um this industry and
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: in this way of getting lobsters in Mexico by hand
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: in harpers that people last month's Harpers or this month's
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: hard Yeah, it's like just like that, really really dangerous. Yeah,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: they're really cavalier and they get hurt a lot. Apparently
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: they smoke we'd while they're doing it. Uh. This one
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: guy came into the chamber room in pain and twisted up.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: We were pretty sure he wouldn't walk again. He gave
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: him a couple of rides in the chamber over a
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: couple of days. This entailed trips down to the equivalent
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of sixty only to be slowly brought back to the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: surface quote unquote uh sorry quote surface end quote over
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: a few hours time. Um. We also did some hydrotherapy
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: on our small pool. Because he wasn't getting any better,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: we had to fly him off the island to the mainland.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Keep the plane just above the water so it's not
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to elevate them much higher than sea level. After leaving
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: him at the hospital, I never saw I heard about
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: him again. He was a husband and father of two
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and I was twelve years ago and I think about
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: him often. That's from James, Thanks James. I thought that
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: was a pretty great email too. Yeah. Um, and he
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: sent a picture the hyperbolic hyperferic change. Yeah, it was
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah he said it was a bad picture.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: If that was great, Yeah, it seems fine. Your heart
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: on yourself, James, let yourself up. Uh. If you want
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to send us a picture of something cool that you operate,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: we'd like to see that. Um. You can tweek to
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: it how Stuff Works dot com