Designed after discussions with Canadian Combat Engineers and USMC EOD Specialists, the REX EOD (Rescue. Escape. Xtract) is a breaching/digging tool. It is manufactured from carbon steel and 9.25″ in length. It features a welded handguard and is available with five different handle wraps.
Interestingly, it is PALS compatible and will slide in the webbing channels due to its one inch width, keeping it handy.
OGDENSBURG, New York – Med-Eng, LLC, a company of The Safariland Group, today announced it has been awarded a four-year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to supply the United States Army with its 2nd generation Advanced Bomb Suit (ABS II) to protect the lives of front line soldiers conducting Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) operations. Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier selected Med-Eng following a comprehensive and competitive process that evaluated protection levels, operational capabilities, human factors considerations and other requirements. Under the contract, which has a maximum value of $47 million, the Army may procure up to 1,641 Med-Eng® bomb suits during the four-year term.
“We are honored and very excited that the Army has re-affirmed its trust in Med-Eng to develop and provide proven solutions against blast threats, including Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs),” said Rob Reynolds, vice president and general manager, Med-Eng. “Selecting Med-Eng demonstrates PEO Soldier’s continued confidence in our ability to develop an integrated suit and helmet ensemble that will provide the protection, mobility, situational awareness and technical capabilities best enabling US Army EOD operators to successfully complete their missions on the battlefield.”
Med-Eng has been providing the Army with its current fleet of ABS bomb suits since 2002. The ABS II ensemble takes advantage of new protective materials and technologies that will directly benefit EOD teams, including significant weight reduction; improved protection against blast overpressure, fragmentation, impact and heat; voice-activation of all helmet features to keep the operator’s hands free; improved ventilation to mitigate heat stress; and a user-centric design to improve ergonomics and physical flexibility.
Fulfillment of the contract will support highly skilled manufacturing operations in Ogdensburg, New York, where Med-Eng currently produces bomb suits for all four branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, as well as for state and local law enforcement bomb squads, and are used across the United States and abroad.
The Stacy Strong 5k honors Kenton Stacy a Navy EOD tech who was seriously wounded last November in combat operations.
www.eodwarriorfoundation.org/events
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va.— Marines will have better situational awareness on missions in dark areas thanks to new night vision goggles.
The Binocular Night Vision Goggle II, or BNVG II, is a helmet-mounted binocular that gives operators improved depth perception at night, and uses white phosphor Image Intensification technology to amplify ambient light, with a modular thermal imaging overlay capability. BNVG II helps Marines identify potential buried explosive devices, find hidden objects within foliated areas and safely conduct tasks that require depth perception.
A Marine with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Force Reconnaissance Platoon waits on the flight deck while training in the Pacific Ocean. Marine Corps Systems Command is fielding Force Recon and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Marines greater capability with the Binocular Night Vision Goggle II. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. T. T. Parish)
Marine Corps Systems Command began fielding the BNVG II to Force Reconnaissance and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Marines this spring, and full operational capability is planned for the second quarter of fiscal 2019.
The BNVG II includes a Binocular Night Vision Device and a Clip-on Thermal Imager, or COTI, that attaches to the body of the BNVD with a bracket. The BNVD amplifies the small amount of existing light emitted by stars, the moon’s glow or other ambient light sources, and uses the light to clearly display objects in detail in very dark conditions. The COTI uses heat energy from the Marine’s surroundings to add a thermal overlay which allows the image to be viewed more clearly. It helps Marines with situational awareness in conditions with little to no light.
“The BNVG II helps Marines see enemies at a distance, and uses the COTI to detect ordnance or power sources for an explosive device that give off heat,” said Nia Cherry, program analyst with Infantry Weapons. “The COTI intensifies Marines’ ability to see anything in dark conditions, rain, fog, dust, smoke and through bushes that the legacy binoculars couldn’t.”
The BNVG II is a follow-on to the legacy, battle-proven AN/PVS-15 binocular, but offers more features— such as the COTI—for increased survivability. The BNVD component is a compact, lightweight, Generation-3 Dual Tube Night Vision Goggle with an ergonomic low-profile design. It offers superior situational awareness compared to the AN/PVS-15, utilized by Reconnaissance Marines, and the single-tube AN/PVS-14 Monocular Night Vision Device utilized throughout the rest of the Marine Corps. It mounts to the Enhanced Combat Helmet and may be used individually or in conjunction with the COTI.
“In March, we held an exercise in San Diego where Marines provided positive feedback on their ability to easily maneuver with the goggles,” said Joe Blackstone, Optics Team lead in Infantry Weapons. “The depth perception provided by the BNVG II enhances precision and increases the operator’s survivability while on missions with limited lighting.”
Infantry Weapons falls under Ground Combat Element Systems at MCSC.
During last month’s package bomb attacks in Austin, Texas, ADS, Inc supplied local law enforcement with equipment which helped identify the devices.
The Austin PD’s Bomb Squad used four MSPT Nanos and two Golden Engineering XR-150 X-ray generators, allowing each of the four EOD technicians to determine if suspect packages or actual IEDs or not.
ADS overnighted three devices to the Austin PD and contacted Golden Engineering, a long-time partner supplier, requesting they supply a second XR-150 to Austin PD direct from their warehouse in Indiana, which they did.
Read additional details at adsinc.com/austin-bomb-squad-assistance.
The 2017 Ravens Challenge EOD exercises were funded by the Army and led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, with support from the FBI, the Defense Department, the Transportation Security Administration and state and local public safety agencies throughout the country.
This year’s exercises took place at Camp Pendleton in August, Pinal Airpark in Marana, Arizona, in March; Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, North Vernon, Indiana, in April; Camp Dawson, Kingwood, West Virginia, in May; and Camp Shelby, Mississippi, in June.
A DoD News article by Shannon Collins describes the event:
Throughout the week, the combined teams went through training scenarios, or lanes. One such scenario was a hostage situation, where a hostage in a stairwell had a bomb strapped to his body while other hostages were upstairs and there was a body booby-trapped on the ground floor. Teams also dealt with locating hidden devices, an aircraft with a device in the cabin or baggage area, improvised mortars located on rooftops and in vehicles, a cabin with booby traps and a suspicious package in a hospital.
Training was under realistic conditions, and included a no-light and low-light environment, where technicians had to use night-vision goggles while entering a village and disarming devices through the goggles or with the naked eye.
“The no-light, low-light was my favorite. because it’s the most challenging thing an EOD tech can do — walk through something you can barely see,” said Army Spc. Seth Hamilton, an EOD technician from Fort Bliss, Texas. “You’re hot, you’re tired, they’ve booby-trapped an entire warehouse; so you’re going through in the middle of the dark, just trying to get through without dying. It had the best training value.”
Lanes were also focused on responding to the developing tactics of terrorists, such as the use of booby-trapped unmanned aerial systems.
“The UAS seems to be the emerging threat, … because of the widespread availability of unmanned systems. It’s exciting for us to say, ‘Hey, this is a new emerging threat.’ We’re going to be the people figuring out how to address it and come up with the [tactics, techniques and procedures] to become more proactive,” said Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Brian Murphy, an EOD technician here.
Intelligence analyst B. Joshua Bauer discusses terrorists’ use of commercially available unmanned aircraft with U.S. and Belgian explosive ordnance disposal teams during the Raven’s Challenge exercise at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Aug. 1, 2017. DoD photo by EJ Hersom
Intelligence analyst B. Joshua Bauer discusses terrorists’ use of commercially available unmanned aircraft with U.S. and Belgian explosive ordnance disposal teams during the Raven’s Challenge exercise at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Aug. 1, 2017. DoD photo by EJ Hersom
“The new [unmanned aerial vehicle] threat, we’re the first people in our company to get that knowledge and run that lane, and we can’t do that at our home station,” said Army Staff Sgt. Sean Mattes, an EOD bomb technician from Fort Bliss. “So now we can go back and help educate those guys and tell them what we’ve learned but until they come to something like this, they’ll never get that training. You really broaden your skills with the site layout and coordination. You’ve got to get every tool out and use it, and that’s what I like doing.”
“The teams who went up against the UAVs for the first time had no procedures to use,” said Col. David Schmitt, chief of the Army’s adaptive counter-IED/EOD solutions division. “There was no logic tree to follow to get to the right solution, so they were working that out inside their heads, but if we do it right, then the issues will be captured in the after-action report, the review will go back into the process, so next year, they will have a logic train for this scenario.”
Schmitt said Raven’s Challenge is one of the largest DoD EOD counter-IED interoperability training exercises in the world. “Continuing to do this kind of training provides incredible benefits for the individual participants, but also for the services and the bigger institutions that sends the participants, because it feeds into the after-action reviews,” he said. “These feed into the institutional processes that drive what equipment we buy, what training we do in our institutions. It drives a lot of change in the Army, and, I would imagine, elsewhere.”
A specialist Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) helmet visor has been launched by Morgan Advanced Materials, which integrates with its cutting edge Silverback® 4020 Elite bomb suit. This has been made available in response to increased demand for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) protective garments.
Designed as an additional option for Morgan’s acclaimed Silverback® 4020 Elite bomb disposal suit, the Silverback CBRN visor allows for the seamless integration of in-service CBRN masks. Featuring a wider surface area to accommodate the wearing of a CBRN facemask and respiration equipment, the visor delivers a range of benefits including powerful demisting technology and a wide field of vision for optimal situational awareness, helping to maximise the safety of the wearer. The latest innovation is the outcome of more than a year of research and development, and has undergone extensive blast testing to ensure full protection for the wearer.
The unique design of the Silverback CBRN visor allows for seamless integration with leading in-service CBRN facemasks and protective undergarments. Designed to ensure full compatibility as a complete CBRN garment system, the Silverback 4020 Elite features Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment (MOLLE) attachments on the rear of suit jacket which allow for air purification and respiratory systems and other critical accessories to be attached.
Chris Davies, Technical Director at the Composites and Defence Systems business of Morgan Advanced Materials, explained: “The launch of our Silverback CBRN visor represents a significant technological breakthrough and step change in the application of our bomb suits. We are proud to have developed an EOD suit solution, which is compatible with most in-service CBRN garments to protect EOD teams from an array of threats.”
The Silverback CBRN visor is available to buy with the Silverback 4020 Elite bomb suit, or as a standalone purchase for existing Silverback 4020 Elite customers who wish to upgrade to a CBRN protective solution.
For further information, please visit www.morgandefencesystems.com/CBRNVisor
We showed you Sericore’s Demolition System Remote and Timed device during a Darley event a few years ago.
Using the same technology, they’ve introduced the new Sericore Remote Firing Initiator. Designed specifically for a federal law enforcement agency, the system has a 2.5 mile LOS range in a rural high RF environment and .5 mile LOS Range in an urban high RF environment and features AES encrypted comms. Each transmitter is powered by CR-123A batteries and will controls up to 8 receivers. It’s 10 juole discharge fires 80 M6 series detonators and the MD82 tip fires NONEL and electric detonators. ARM hold times are 10, 30 or 60 min and the fire delay is configurable for 0, 1, 2, or 5 secs.
