Knowing exactly what has been used in an attack can
mean changes are made to kit and equipment, to protect
against the latest threats and save the lives of
soldiers on the front line.
The system involves simple analysis and forensics
gathering at the scene – something which is essential
to do quickly in a battlefield environment, with more
detailed reconstruction and analysis later on, to build
a picture of what happened. Everything, from measuring
the craters left by explosives to studying the blast
patterns of bullets, can be used to accurately identify
the weapons used, even down to the country of origin,
with each weapon leaving behind a distinct ‘signature’.
The package, funded by Dstl and created in partnership
with the US Army National Ground Intelligence Centre
(NGIC), is made up of sophisticated algorithms,
libraries of collected data and results from live
testing, and can provide accurate results quickly –
sometimes within an hour of an incident.
Louis Tutin, project manager from the blast and IED
team at Dstl, said:
It’s like a fingerprint, we can accurately identify
the exact methods used by the enemy, and so can
counter it with improved protection for our troops.
Before this project, we relied on experience and
opinion, now we can back this up with science. You
can’t protect against bombs and bullets if you don’t
know what the enemy’s using.
The UK has been working on gathering intelligence from
attack scenes since the Northern Ireland deployments
and since then in Iraq and Afghanistan. This formal
bilateral work with the US brings together best
practice from organisations like the Metropolitan
Police, the CIA and the FBI to inform the high-speed
techniques required to gather evidence from a hostile
environment.
Col Charles Crowder, from NGIC, said:
Gathering evidence from a crime scene is a
painstaking process, which takes time. We don’t have
that luxury; we must collect any data we can within
two to ten minutes. With our UK partners at Dstl, we
can deploy specialist Combat Incident Response teams
within 72 hours, who can then study vehicles and the
data collected on the ground for detailed analysis.
The system is already in use at Dstl, providing a
real-time resource for troops on the ground, and is set
to be formally adopted by the MOD in the coming months.
Find out more about Future Threat
Programme
