Security

Countering Baghdad's 'Lob Bombs'

U.S. troops are scrambling to come up with tactics for defeating the new Improvised Rocket-Assisted Mortars, or "lob bombs," that have appeared in Baghdad in recent months. IRAMs mate crude gas-canister warheads with rocket motors to create "flying IEDs," or improvised explosive devices, and are often launched in salvos from the backs of trucks. Danger […]

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U.S. troops are scrambling to come up with tactics for defeating the new Improvised Rocket-Assisted Mortars, or "lob bombs," that have appeared in Baghdad in recent months.

IRAMs mate crude gas-canister warheads with rocket motors to create "flying IEDs," or improvised explosive devices, and are often launched in salvos from the backs of trucks. Danger Room first reported on the devices in June.

"It's mobile, it's concealable.... In the right place, at the right time, it can be very lethal," Lt. Col. John Digiambattista, operations officer for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, told The Washington Times. "Our biggest challenge is to keep it out of an area where it can do the most damage."

For starters, U.S. troops patrol a perimeter around U.S. bases that is just outside IRAMs' estimated range. But that range keeps growing.

"Right now, we assess the distance as 500 meters," Maj. Geoff
Greene, of the 68th Armored Regiment, said. "At first, we estimated it at 300 meters, but they have gotten better at it. I suspect the enemy will improve upon them even more."

Now the Army is going after IRAM factories, Greene said. "If we find a large amount of tubes threaded at one end, wheels to position the tubes to position the rockets, combined with a Bongo truck or other large truck, those are the characteristics of finding an
IRAM. To find them all together is either a coincidence, or people are building an IRAM."

IRAMs' crude design makes them dangerous for the bad guys, too. In one incident in Baghdad in June, a truck fitted with IRAMs exploded when one of the rockets went off prematurely (pictured), killing two Special Groups fighters and 16 civilians.

Photo: via The Long War Journal

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