Mock 'IEDs' help soldiers prepare for war.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: UP FRONT

Devices that replicate Iraq's roadside bombs are in such high demand at U.S. military training ranges that the Army recently doubled its orders for so-called "IED simulators."

Improvised explosive devices are the number-one killer of American forces in Iraq, but so far it has been difficult for soldiers and Marines training for war to rehearse tactics to avoid getting killed by IEDs.

In an effort to make drills more lifelike, the Army is buying 800 fake IEDs to be used at training facilities in the United States and Kuwait. The original plan was to acquire 400, but the order later was upped to 800 to meet the services' requests.

The Army Program Executive Office for Simulation Training and Instrumentation, in Orlando, Fla., is purchasing the IED simulators under a $2 million contract with Unitech Corporation. The company expects to deliver all 800 devices by March 2006.

Each IED simulator "kit" contains a remote control that detonates a mock explosive. It doesn't cause bodily harm but creates enough noise and smoke clouds to resemble a real IED event, says Jack Collins, program director at Unitech.

"In the field, they emplace the device, and the insurgent player has a remote transmitter that they can use to detonate the IED," Collins says in an interview. "A safe non-pyrotechnic simulator releases a large smoke cloud and a great deal of noise, without the dangerous pyrotechnic blast."

The mock IED is designed to look like a 155 mm artillery shell. Two other variants include a pressure-sensitive mine and a tripwire booby-trap mine, which can be planted under the hood of a vehicle or inside a building. All devices are powered by a carbon-dioxide cartridge to help generate noise and smoke clouds.

The military for years has used pyrotechnic devices in training exercises. Because they are made up of small quantities of C4 plastic explosive, these pyrotechnics are not only dangerous, but fail to realistically recreate the large explosions caused by IEDs in Iraq, Collins explains.

The Unitech simulator was a redesigned version of an earlier device, made by Raytheon Technical Services Company, of Pomona, Calif. Raytheon made 125 IED simulators under a $250,000 contract. But the device got negative reviews from training commanders, who complained that it was too large, heavy and complicated to operate.

The Army then asked Unitech to design a new version, incorporating feedback from users. The point of having an IED simulator is to allow soldiers to...