Synchronized C-IED strategy in Europe to counter the evolving IED threat


By Johann Fischer, Head of Unit Land & Logistics and Danny Heerlein, Project Officer C-IED – European Defence Agency

This article provides an overview of how the European Defence Agency (EDA) supports the continuous effort of our Member States with multiple C-IED projects, namely: the Joint Deployable Exploitation and Analysis Laboratory (JDEAL); the European Centre of Manual Neutralization Capabilities (ECMAN); the Military Search Capability Building (MSCB); Smart Future Counter Improvised Explosive Devices Field Laboratory (SF C-IED FL); and Bison Counter C-IED Exercises Capability Building (BC-EX). In addition to these projects, a three-dimensional model for categorising incidents involving EDs and two new technologies, whose added value for the C-IED sector will be tested, are presented. Finally, further considerations on the topic of C-IED are raised.

INTRODUCTION

The IED threat is constantly evolving due to technological progress, changing conflict parties and their corresponding intentions. Mitigating this threat and adequately preparing the troops for the scenarios of tomorrow requires a constant effort by the EU Member States (MS).

But what is an IED? How do you counter this threat, and when are your own capabilities sufficient to adequately counter the threat of tomorrow? Perhaps the first aspect of the question seems too obvious. Of course, each one of us knows what an IED is, but having discussions with other experts shows that reaching a standardised definition is a real challenge. However, if this definition is replaced by a model that provides a generally valid representation of the underlying aspects of the threat, incidents can be clearly categorised.

This article provides an overview of how the European Defence Agency (EDA) supports the continuous effort of our Member States with multiple C-IED projects – all coherent with the NATO C-IED approach. The focus is fixed on the land domain projects since the majority of IEDs have been found on land. As well as the introduction of a three- dimensional model for the categorisation of incidents with explosive devices, this article presents an overview of two new technologies whose added value will be tested in the field of C-IEDs.

NATO C-IED APPROACH

Figure 1: The C-IED approach with supporting pillars as described in NATO Standard AJP 3.15 (NATO, 2018)

According to (NATO, 2018) Figure 1 NATO, the process of mitigating the risks caused by IED activities to minimise the impact on own operations is like a building. Its roof is supported by three mutually supporting and complementary pillars standing on a strong foundation. Understanding and intelligence are the foundation for any operation, and it facilitates:

  • attacking the networks (Attack the Network, AtN),
  • enable defeating the device (Defeat the Device, DtD) and
  • support proper preparation of the force (Prepare the Forces, PtF).

DtD is a joint activity aiming at detecting, neutralizing and mitigating IEDs and IED events’ effects.” (NATO, 2018) to deliver freedom to manoeuvre, protecting the population and providing physical security.
“AtN is the proactive pillar of the C-IED approach and the prevent and pursue activities of the C-IED concept of operations.” (NATO, 2018) to defeat an improvised explosive device system.
“PtF is a joint task and comprises all measures required to prepare friendly forces” (NATO, 2018) to accomplish their mission under a permanent IED threat.
“Understanding and intelligence support all three pillars of the C-IED approach. “ (NATO, 2018)

A successful C-IED approach is, among others, tailored to the superior operations.

EDA C-IED APPROACH – PROJECT TEAM FOR C-IED AND SELECTED PROJECTS

In general, EDA supports the Member States in creating comprehensive and common conceptual approaches to reduce the capability shortfall of those Member States. In the context of C-IED, the different C-IED efforts can be understood as capabilities that can be combined based on the operational needs. The Project Team for C-IED (PT C-IED) supports Member States to further implement an effective C-IED strategy (EDA, 2023). The PT C-IED’s mission is establishing a network of European experts from the Member States dedicated to identifying, assessing and developing potential collaborative activities, projects pursuant to effective, coherent and technologically advanced C-IED and CBRNe capabilities within European Armed Forces.

Following is a brief introduction of the different programs and their objectives:

  • The Joint Deployable Exploitation And Analysis Laboratory (JDEAL) contributes to Understanding and Intelligence by exploitation of explosive devices, provides immediate information to prepare the forces on the current threat and delivers important information as baseline for attacking the enemy (IED) network (according to (JDEAL, 2024)).
  • The European Centre of Manual Neutralization Capabilities (ECMAN) empowers Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel up to the highest level of expertise. These “High Threat Operators” are a premium-quality capability in the line of “Defeat the Device” (according to (ECMAN, 2024)).
  • The Military Search Capability Building (MSCB) develops courses to further improve Member States’ capabilities in the field of search and detect IEDs. This contributes to the “Prepare the Force” pillar and therefore creates the baseline for later efforts in the context of “Defeat the Device”.
  • Within the Smart Future Counter Improvised Explosive Devices Field Laboratory (SF C-IED FL), new technologies and their military usage in context of C-IED are explored to ensure that the used techniques are keeping pace with the development.

The center of gravity for the PT C-IED are these capability development projects. As of today, 19 MS are participating in Land & Logistics’ C-IED program, (as in Figure 2).

Figure 2: Participating Member States and third countries grouped by Land & Logistics’ C-IED projects.

FREQUENT VALIDATION OF THE CAPABILITIES AND THEIR INTERACTION

Figure 3.

Every two years, the EDA Project Bison Counter C-IED Exercises Capability Building (BC-EX, 2024) offers the opportunity to validate newly developed or improved capabilities, tactics, techniques and procedures in two ways. Firstly, the capabilities themselves can be tested – largely in isolation – in a realistic scenario. Secondly, it is also possible to verify how this further developed capability fits into the structure of the other C-IED enablers in order to counter an IED threat in a complex environment.

BC 2023, the latest executed, multinational, live exercise under BC-EX was hosted by the Spanish Armed Forces and mobilized more than 1,000 personnel from 16 Member States and third countries, either actively in different trainings or as observers. More than 270 scenarios were conducted between two exercise sites – land based and maritime environment.

BC23 C-IED concept was based on a full-spectrum, multilevel and multidomain approach, integrating the intelligence cycle which allows interconnection among all levels. Figure 3, and the assigned C-IED enabler illustrates the understanding of this.

It is assumed, that during an operation an IED was suspected by the involved forces. This suspected IED can be confirmed in various ways, including Route Clearance (RC), usage of Military Working Dogs (K9) and Underwater Work (UW), capabilities that are amongst others also developed and improved within MSCB.

Once the IED is confirmed, the (C-IED) Task Force decides how to eliminate this threat. The common approach is tasking Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD).

In some cases, the use of EOD may be inappropriate or the risk of exploding a device is unacceptable (i.e. direct threat to human life, recovery of an intact device is of interest for exploitation etc.). Therefore, manual neutralization is required. This highest level of skill and training can be achieved by courses delivered under the ECMAN.

After eliminating the threat, collection of evidence for further investigation is attempted. This is usually done by a Weapon Intelligence Team (WIT) or similar capabilities (Level 1 exploitation). The collected pieces of evidence are forwarded to Level 2 Exploitation, a capability provided by JDEAL. The results provide information on enemy Techniques, Tactics, and Procedures (TTP), which can be used in further operational planning and thus contribute directly to the preparation of the forces (PtF).

The different iterations of BC-EX proved that the capability shortfall in context of C-IED has been reduced by continuous EDA projects. This assessment is also supported by the latest version of the Capability Development Plan (CDP) in 2023. Nevertheless, the following chapter illustrates that there is still a great need for the afore-mentioned projects to support Member States in improving this operational capability, to maintain this advantage and further expand it. In addition, two currently planned efforts under the SF C-IED FL and their expected benefit in the field of C-IED are introduced.

REFLECTION OF THE IED DEFINITION

In the context of C-IED, the technical and tactical categorisation of IED related incidents are described by the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO). Many Member States refer to this categori- sation and have made it as quasi-standard.

Figure 4: Categories of Improvised Weapons (JIDO, 2017).

JIDO (JIDO, 2017) defines Improvised Weapons as following: “Improvised Weapons include modified weapons and munitions, IEDs and improvised CBRN, are typically employed by non-state actors, and can include chemical, biological, or radiological enhancements. These weapons incorporate destructive payloads and fillers designed to kill, destroy, incapacitate, harass, or distract. Improvised weapons can incorporate military ordnance but are normally made from a combination of military ordnance and non-military components.” Phrases like “typically”, “can include” and “normally made from” have not been sufficient even in the past to define all forms of incidents or clearly distinguish between IEDs and CM (Conventional Munitions)1.

Figure 5 provides two examples of Anti-Tank Missiles documented in Ukraine. Whereas the switch/ trigger/launching mechanism of the right ATM was modified, the ATM on the left side was not modified at all, but the manner of delivery was improvised.

Figure 5: Example of Anti-Tank Missiles (ATM), that have been documented in the UKRAINE (Centre C-IED BWJFOCOM).

This example supports the assessment that the current crisis has increased the issues of an insufficient IED definition. Fine tuning in the existing definitions is no longer the right approach. Instead, a rethink from scratch seems to be required towards a comprehensive definition. Therefore, Member States agreed to address this issue under the PT C-IED. The following proposal must be understood as a baseline for this discussion. Based on the current definition of Improvised Weapons (JIDO, 2017), a three-dimensional model to categorise the incident instead of the explosive device was developed, where the dimensions correspond to following criteria and subcategories:

  • Type of Actor: Regular Forces, Private Military Contractors (PMC), Irregular Forces.
  • Type of Main Charge: Military, Commercial, Improvised.
  • Type of Delivery: According to the doctrine, improvised manner.

Figure 6 gives an example of this model, together with the following visual interpretations:

  • Each incident can be described as triple of Force, Main Charge, and Means of Delivery.
  • The origin of the model, interpreted as “Regular Forces, use Military Main Charge according to their doctrines”, describes conventional warfare.
  • The most expanded combination, described as “Irregular Forces, use improvised Main Charge in an improvised manner”, describes irregular warfare and what we had in mind when saying IED in AFGHANISTAN.
  • All combinations in between can be understood as hybrid warfare and the “distance” to the origin of the model is a measurement for “how improvised” the enemies’ TTPs are.

Figure 6: Three-dimensional model to categorize incidents with explosive devices. Left image should be understood as intermediate step to develop the model on the right (Heerlein, 2024).

Based on the following examples the opportunity to intuitively categorize incidents with explosive devices with this model are shown:

  1. Regular forces deploy several Anti-Tank Mines as mine field.
  2. Regular forces, deploy one Anti-Tank Missile by a UAV.
  3. Private Military Contractors (PMC) attack infrastructure with mortar
  4. A Terrorist Armed Group (TAG) use commercial/civilian explosives against a radio mast
  5. A TAG uses Home Made Explosives (HME) to attack a military convoy.

This model promises the following advantages, which have to be verified or extended in further discussion within the EDA framework:

  • Providing a measurement for “How far away from regular warfare” / “how improvised are the enemy’s TTPs”,
  • Providing criteria to decide which level of EOD to get deployed,
  • Prioritisation of post blast investigation (WIT),
  • Prioritisation of evidence collection & exploitation,
  • Document and assess the generation of enemy’sTTPs,
  • Compare enemy’s TTPs of different areas,
  • Develop profiles of TTPs and estimate future threat.

 

Figure 7: Assignment of the provided examples of incidents with ED to the combination options in the three-dimensional model (Heerlein, 2024).

ENHANCED POST BLAST INVESTIGATION
As reviewed under the Chapter Frequent validation of the capabilities and their Interaction, and in accordance to the NATO doctrine, Annex A-5 (NATO, 2018), post blast exploitation is described as “Tactical on-site exploitation that records the details of an IED event and preserves, describes and recovers physical, technical and forensic materials”. This task is usually conducted by a weapons intelligence team (WIT) after the site has been rendered safe by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) and secured by Force Protection (FP). To the best of our knowledge, most Member States limit the time for this exploitation to a maximum of one hour. As a result, the time authorised for this post-blast investigation and the quality of the results are always in competition with each other. In a war such as the one taking place in Ukraine, this competition is further exacerbated by the increased time pressure resulting from the dynamic battles.
Based on the archived results of some Member States, EDA under the umbrella of the SF C-IED FL is investigating an opportunity to enhance WIT with more effective technology. Figure 8 shows a screenshot of an area, which was documented by a camera carried by a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (sUAV). The documented area was the surrounding of a point of impact (POI), the documentation was conducted under following circumstances:
  • The area to document was 76×90 meters.
  • The distance between operator and spot was 200 meters.
  • The drone was flying at an elevation of 38 meters.
  • And the time for the documentation was 9 minutes.

Figure 8: Screenshot of a virtual environment based on a documentation under the aforementioned parameters.

During the post processing the produced images (236 images) were transferred into a virtual environment that allows all types of measurement and visualisation. Figure 8 for example represents the area color-coded according to the elevation of the ground to assess channelizing terrain.

The virtual representation of the environment, the so-called virtual twin, allows also to precisely measure or exploit the dimension and shape of specific point of interest. Figure 9, for example, shows four different cross sections of the crater caused by the explosion of a simulated IED. This new approach allows to measure all cross connections and enables the analysts to draw more precise conclusions of the shape and size of the explosive material.

Figure 9: Four different cross sections of the same documented crater.

COLLECTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA

While the documentation via small drones is very well suited to capture a limited space, this method seems less suitable for the documentation of larger spaces, e.g., along a marsh road. Red Teaming is a common way to identify vulnerable points. In the context of C-IED, these points often fulfil several of the following criteria:

  • Channelizing terrain,
  • Reducing marching speed,
  • Opportunity to emplace an IED (underneath the road),
  • Frequently used,
  • Reduces the effectiveness of your own protective equipment.

Collecting and synchronising these data manually is time-consuming and exposes the personnel fulfilling that task to an increased risk. Kinematic data acquisition describes the automated documentation of the environment via laser technology while driving and is therefore sometimes paraphrased with the term “Mobile Mapping”. This technology is already widely used in non-military applications. Based on the archived results of some Member States, EDA under the umbrella of the SF C-IED FL is investigating how to make use of this technique in a military context – collecting environmental data with higher quality in less time and with less risk for the deployed troops is the desired result of this testing.

Figure 10 provides one example of a docu- mentation done by Germany in MALI. During this campaign, about 90km of a main supply route were documented in both directions, in less than four hours. The collected raw data needs to get post processed to create a virtual environment (“virtual twin”) that allows -similar to the introduced results under the heading Enhanced Post Blast Investigation of all types of measurements and visualization. Following is a list of results and possible applications in a military context:

  • Panorama image with meta data (driving direction, GPS coordinates/-time),
  • Virtual environment of the documented area, color- coded according to:
      • the elevation of the ground to identify channelizing terrain,
      • intensity values to detect differences in material,
      • real colour to visually identify points of interest in the virtual environment.
  • Precise measurement of distances, areas, and dimensions,
  • Line of Sight analysis,
  • Bird – and 1st Person view.

Figure 10: Point of interest along a main supply route. Panorama image vs coloured laser point cloud.

CONCLUSION

This article provides you an overview about EDA supporting our Member States through capability development in the wide range of C-IEDs, and how these individual efforts are frequently verified to ensure a common synchronal C-IED strategy in Europe to counter the constantly evolving threat of IEDs.

  • Always be one step ahead of your opponent.

The response to this constantly evolving threat can never be considered as complete and we should not diminish our efforts and risk losing the advantage gained over the past few years.

  • Addressing yesterday’s threat, will not answer tomorrow’s questions.

This includes a critical reflection of definitions. A more-dimensional model as a supporting tool for a definition has been provided, which is addressing the complex threat more intuitively. But this can only be the starting point for a multinational & multiorganizational effort to sharpen this model together.

  • Turn our technological advantage into opera- tional value.

The provided examples have proven the existence of available technologies that could be easily adopted and applied to a military context. ■

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Johann Fischer was appointed as Head of Unit Land & Logistics at the European Defence Agency on 1 September 2016. After graduation from the Austrian Military Academy, he served as a Main Battle Tank platoon leader and company commander. Upon completion of the Austrian Command and General Staff Course, he was nominated as a Head of Tactics and Logistics for advanced officer training, Branch Head of Mission Planning in the Austrian Ministry of Defence followed by an appointment in the Austrian Permanent Representation to the European Union and a subsequent assignment in the Force Capability Branch of the European Military Staff. After working for four years in Brussels, he took over the Branch of International Force Planning in the Austrian Ministry of Defence. His portfolio at the EDA stretches from conceptual thinking to implementation in the planning and development processes of armament programmes within the land and joint enabling domains. This includes contributions to the Capability Development Plan, Coordinated Annual Review of Defence, PESCO and European Defence Fund. The most prominent programmes are Military Mobility, Additive Manufacturing, C-IED as well as the collaborative procurement of ammunition with a focus on 155 mm for the replenishment of national stocks and in support ofUkraine.

Danny Heerlein has been working as Project Officer for C-IED (PO C-IED) in the Land & Logistics Unit of the European Defence Agency since 1 September 2023. Prior to his appointment as PO C-IED, he had been worked as Head of Section in the Centre for C-IED at the Bundeswehr Joint Forces Command from 2015 to 2023. As part of his assignments, he was deployed several times in ISAF missions as Chief Analyst and as C-IED expert for EUTM and MINIUSMA in Mali. Danny Heerlein holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich and a Master’s degree in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, USA. During his studies he was involved in several C-IED projects of TRAC Monterey and formerly JIEDDO and was able to deepen his experience during the ISAF missions as Chief Analyst.

 

FOOTNOTE

  1. The IED Lexicon, 5th edition, 2017 is amended and replaced by the IED Incident Reporting Guide, 6th edition 2024, that defines IED as following “Unconventional explosive weapon that can take any form and be activated in a variety of ways. It may incorporate military and/or non-military components.” “These devices can be placed or fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic or incendiary chemicals designed to destroy, incapacitate, harass, or distract.” The model for characterizing incidents with explosive devices presented in this document does not contradict this definition, but rather attempts to supplement it.

Download PDF: 16-25 Johann Fischer and Danny Heerlein , EDA – Synchronized C-IED strategy in Europe to counter the evolving IED threat – CIEDR SS2024


Counter-IED Report, Spring/Summer 2024