Page 512 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
during the 1970s were relatively simple RC Servo devices and best of all offered some useful limitations. These limitations, as a result of the commercially available nature of devices such as toys, car alarms and door openers, meant that they would be operated at well-known spot frequencies and would therefore be relatively easy to target using Electronic Counter Measures (ECM).....56
Given the operational importance of freedom of manoeuvre in Helmand, MWDs were eventually brought under the umbrella of their own ECM during the HERRICK campaign, when the dogs began to be directly targeted by the Taliban.
The Manoeuvrist Approach57 placed a premium on the achievement of high levels of speed, agility and tempo. UK COIN principles58 include freedom of movement, understanding human terrain and securing the population. The seeding of the environment with IEDs by the Afghani insurgent seriously inhibited Coalition Force freedom of movement; reduced speed of troops by vehicles, agility and tempo; and reduced effectiveness of understanding the human terrain and ability to secure the population.
Explosive Ordnance (EO) was not only a threat to Coalition Forces operating within the Afghanistan Area of Operations it was also a very real threat to the indigenous population. To combat this growing curse, the Improvised Explosive Device Detection Dog or IE3D capability, offered the opportunity to increase freedom of movement and therefore the effectiveness of the COIN operation.
“The biggest challenges are in developing the agrarian economy that dominates the area by improving freedom of movement and enabling farmers to transport their goods to market. Securing the road network is, therefore, vital to progress in the province.”
[Major General Nick Carter Commander of Regional Command South 17th September 2010]
MWD: IE3D
The procurement of IE3D began in September 2010 during Op HERRICK 13. Its integration a month later, made the IE3D the newest MWD type in use during the Afghanistan war.
The IE3D was procured as an Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR), to support the current and future Op HERRICK deployments and do that by detecting and indicating the location of IEDs, principally, buried Low Metal Content (LMC)
56 Lt Col Lance G Foster REME Thesis MWD IE3D.
57 JDP 0-01, British Defence Doctrine, (August 2008), pp. 5-7.
58 Army Field Manual Volume 1 Part 10 – Countering Insurgency.
Victim Operated Improvised Explosive Devices (VOIED). By this stage of the conflict, the rapid growth of the LMC VOIED threat had become the major cause of UK casualties.
Operating immediately ahead of dismounted patrols, the IE3D preserved life and maximised freedom of manoeuvre (FoM) and improved tempo, preventing patrols from becoming fixed by the threat of IEDs and consequently reducing their exposure to other threats such as direct fire.
The dogs provided a ‘standoff DETECT’ capability that gave an added level of assurance – which included on Operations such as Ops BARMA, KALA and AFGHAN SNAKE. They searched points within a general area where the handler suspected a device to be buried. This capability did not indicate on Arms or Ammunition but on Main Charges (MC) and Pressure Plates (PP).
IE3D fully met the Urgent Operational Requirement remit. As with Northern Ireland, this new classification of dog meant personnel had to be relocated to direct and manage the Project (or UOR), and, initially, Captain Robert Hart from the Army Medical Directorate (AMD) was relocated to the Defence EOD and Search Branch at Minley to assist. When his posting was almost up, it was requested that Lieutenant Colonel Chris Ham MBE RAVC, be moved from 2 Medical Brigade to support, having only been recently assigned to Strensall. However, within a few more weeks Chris Ham was relocated and stayed heavily involved in the UOR for the next 24 months – seeing the project to a successful conclusion by the autumn of 2013.
No other capability provided a ‘standoff DETECT’ capability – only the IE3D. The operational requirement was to provide sixty-nine IE3D and handlers per HERRICK operational tour. An Initial Operating Capability (IOC) of six IE3D teams were deployed during Op HERRICK 14; further tranches of IE3D were procured by FMS (Foreign Military Sales) resulting in a total fleet of one hundred and fifty-two with Full Operating Capability (FOC) being reached by November 2012.
The initial training solution was delivered by a FMS contract for both dog and handlers in order to meet the demanding timescales against which the success of the UOR was judged.
Where did the idea come from? The IE3D UOR grew from observing a US Marine Corps (USMC) dog capability in Afghanistan. The USMC
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