Needed: IED detector

[Sergei]

One piece of equipment that CMSF is currently lacking is an IED detector, such as the popular ADE-651 that has been used extensively in Iraq.

And it's not just limited to explosives, it can also detect "elephants, humans and 100 dollar bills". Think of the scenario possibilities!

[Lethaface]

That was a sick read...

[wolf66]

Yeah, and you could even sell it to people who have terminal cancer as a miracle cure ...... as long as someone profits everything is fair it seems ..... they shoulda blown up that McCormick dude

[John Kettler]

Sergei,

Appalling and an insult to real dowsing! My father, a hardboiled Navy ET1 at the time and proper skeptic if ever there was one (as opposed to faux skeptics like James Randi), personally observed a priest in Hawaii use dowsing to bring in water well after well, all in the face of geologists claiming he'd never find any water. What this Jim McCormick has done, though, IMO, is in whatever categories lie beyond "heinous" and should be prosecuted accordingly, especially if his "reference samples," when broadly tested, turn out to be fakes, nullifying one of the underlying principles of the device, which is essentially supposed to be a vibrational energy comparison of the suspected bomb to a tiny sample in the detector. It would be interesting to know if the general in the article received any baksheesh regarding the ADE-651.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Homo ferricus]

McCormick should be sentenced to driving in a down-armored humvee, outfitted excessively with decorations and symbols of the UK and America, from Mosul to Basrah with nothing but that piece of garbage with him. Followed by a tour of beautiful Korengal Valley, and safaris in Helmand and Kandahar. Let's see how confident he is in his "bomb detector".

[Wicky]

... there is the Super-Sensor Dowsing Rod which can be ordered from Psi-Tronics Visions. Here is what Psi-Tronics says you can do with their device:

You can dowse the past, present or future. Future events are subject to the laws of probability and free will so it doesn't always work for the lottery. But in other uses you are limited only by your imagination. Locate underground water, pipes, minerals, oil, etc. Locate fish and game animals, or missing persons. I know people who use it to predict the stock market, marketing trends, business opportunities, and to isolate production problems. I know mechanics who dowse to determine mechanical problems in cars, and other machinery and maintenance workers who use dowsing to find underground water lines, leaks, and electrical problems. Professional health workers, chiropractors, dieticians, and people who diagnose illness use dowsing to check their findings. Holistic healers and herbalists use it to prescribe vitamins. In the home, use it to find lost articles and to make decisions. Dowse the telephone book to find a number or the yellow pages to determine who will serve you the best. Check up on your kids to see if they are all right. Check to see if the weather will be good, and what clothes you should wear.

Quadro QRS 250G "Detector"

Get involved detecting the ade 651 detector / Jim McCormick arrested

Randi Forums 6th November

2008

, 05:45 PM

:eek:

[lomir]

:eek: I had to look twice: yes, it's BBC News and not The Onion. And obviously it's not April Fools' Day! "Substance detection cards [...] that in ideal conditions [...] can detect explosives from a range of up to 1km. [...] (and) it can even, with the right card, detect elephants, humans and 100 dollar bills." And it seems that the ADE 651 can also detect guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles and contraband ivory at distances of up to 1 kilometre (0.62 mi), underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes at an altitude of up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) just using the user's static electricity. And the Iraqi government has spent $85m on this! :eek: Dowsing for locating water, alright, it's something that hurts no one, but this is a blatant fraud and clearly fake!! How on earth the Iraqi government decided to buy that thing? Shame on them.

[Wicky]

Because the scam dowsing device originated in the US

http://www.skepdic.com/essays/dowsingfordollars.html

The Quadro QRS 250G "Detector" (the Quadro Tracker) is a plastic box with an antenna which was sold by Quadro Corp of Harleyville, South Carolina, as a detector of just about anything: drugs, weapons, golf balls, even lost coon dogs. Wade Quattlebaum's invention sold for about $1,000 each. Some schools and government agencies spent as much as $8,000 for the device which turns out to be good only at detecting suckers who can be easily parted with other people's money (i.e., our taxpayer dollar

When they got shut down the scam moved to the UK

http://sniffexquestions.blogspot.com/

[MikeyD]

I wonder if it come with "Jesus inscriptions" printed on the side like those rifle sights.

[Sergei]

Don't worry guys, a new improved model is in the works!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6997859.ece#cid=OTC-RSS%20&attr=797084

Mr McCormick told The Times that his device was being criticised because of its crude appearance.

He added: “We have been dealing with doubters for ten years. One of the problems we have is that the machine does look a little primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.”

[acrashb]

can detect explosives from a range of up to 1km.

I firmly believe the above statement to be true, because "THE PHRASE "UP TO" CLEARLY INCLUDES THE NUMBER 'NOUGHT'"

All they really need is more training:

[John Kettler]

Sergei,

If it didn't make me want to weep, I'd laugh, but I can't. I have to ask, though, when he'll be adding bells and whistles?!

Regards,

John Kettler

[panzermartin]

How on earth the Iraqi government decided to buy that thing

Well its easy. You bribe some corrupt "expert" officials and viola, a nice fat contract of 85 m $. Democracy in Iraq is a nice thing

[Bigduke6]

Somehow I think the Iraqis were thoroughly corrupted before Democracy got there.

Although Ali-Baba for sure is dead on, these things for sure got bought by the Iraqis because crooked businessmen starting in England and going through who knows how many middlemen, and a healthy ring of Iraqi government officials, colluded to defraud the general public.

I bet the prevailing highly-sophisticated counterinsurgency - "MUST...STOP...IEDs!" - had a lot to do with freeing up the 58 million bucks to buy these things.

Gotta wonder how much, er, bang for the buck could have been gotten, if that money had gone to bribe the bombers to just stay home and eat hummus.

[noxnoctum]

$40,000 apiece? That's insane.

[panzermartin]

Of course, corruption is older than democracy. But somehow I feel that even Saddam wouldnt allow such a ridicilous buy. Iraqis seem much more prone to fall victims of imported scams since the invasion. I'm guessing the detector is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Damian90]

Such devices are not used, if they were then there will be not so many casualties, few day ago Norwegian soldier, CV90/30 driver was killed by IED (RIP), I also saw pic of LAV-III with big hole in the belly, rest of armor was nearly blowed away from belly.

But there are other systems used, IED jammers are preatty good part of protection system.

Such systems like Warlock, Duke or Chameleon were mounted on all US vehicles, even all M1 tanks were equiped with such systems before T.U.S.K. was even fielded in small numbers.

But of course IED jammers don't work against IED's detonated by wire.

[MikeyD]

That's the difference between Iraq and the U.S.

Our purchases of equipment that doesn't work tend to go for about $150 million each

[Damian90]

Well I don't think so...

T.U.S.K. was succesfull design, B.U.S.K. also, the only bad thing that these kits were fielded so late, they should be ready prior 2003 invasion. :-(

Warlock, Duke, Chameleon IED jammers were good piece of equipment.

MRAP program safe lives of many soldiers, damn even such interim designs like Frag Kit's for Humvees saved some lives, especially from small IED's.

Stryker's were big succes after first fall start. ;-)

And current upgrade under LAV-H made them even better.

IOTV and older IBA saved lives of many soldiers.

So I would rather say that problem is, with financing and with priority of military programs.

What US is needed?

FCS program was one, big flaw, Rumsfeld made huge mistake... Any way, I never forgive him cancelation of XM2001 Crusader program... this SPH could change many things, but nooo, he choose light chassis with sawed off (IRCC) M777... idiot.

F-22A was good program, why not to buy 200-250 F-22A's and then concentrate on F-35A/B/C program, but damn, they must shut down production after 187 F-22A's produced.

Same goes with Zumwalt class destroyers.

But it is good thing that currently Pentagon and DoD starts to think about US.Army needs, GCV program is really starts to looking nice, I hope they start to design under GCV, new MBT, M1 series succesor in same way as M113 and M2 succesor is designed right now.

It is good that M-ATV was fielded allready in A-stan, maybe when when US field enough of them, Polish contingent in A-stan get some to replace damaged and worn out Cougar's and Humvees. Yeah I know, fantasies.

[Bigduke6]

Ali-Baba,

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think you'll agree it all depends on how you define corruption. I would bet a bazillion US tax dollars that the only thing that has changed in Iraq, is the distribution of the slush money.

During Saddam's reign, it went to his own personal accounts, and those of his relatives and friends. Oil for Food is a great example.

Today, the black book payments go to any one who is dishonest and can get their grubby mitts on the cash flow, starting with government ministers who can sign on the dotted line to spend state (and US aid) money, and ending with the vendor, be he ever so greedy.

If every one of these detecto devices cost 40K, then probably 90 - 95 per cent of the price went to payoffs and overseas accounts.

This little gizmo actually is an excellent illustration, of what happens when you throw large amounts of money at a problem via a corrupt system - almost always, you just enrich the corruption.

The ironic part is, of course, that the more you pay into a corrupt system, the more profitable it becomes for the corrupt people to stay corrupt; and that of course fosters insurgents who find support of the average people, who are sick of paying taxes that solve none of the country's problems, and instead just make corrupt officials even richer.

[sarcasm]But fortunately Iraq is a thriving Jeffersonian Democracy, so soon the will of the Iraqi people will be felt in the ballot box, and Iraqi state corruption will soon be a thing of the past, and the insurgency will wither in the face of massive public support of a responsible and efficient Iraqi state.[/sarcasm]

[Damian90]

Current insurgency in Iraq are only pathetic remnants of Insurgency from 2003-first half of 2007, so situation in Iraq is not so bad, but also not so good and need more time and hard work.

Major problem is Afghanistan, where goverment is not liked by people, and in fact people are more asimilated with tribes than with country itself. This is the main problem, heh, most IED's are not planted by Talibans but farmers, or some crime lords. Fortunetly some materials are now banned in A-stan, so there will be less IED's, especially these maded by farmers.

[Bigduke6]

I think if you asked the average Iraqi whether he trusts his government, you would not get a "yes".

If the measure of success in these wars, is how responsible the government the Americans installed is to the citizens' needs in these countries, then it's not so easy to call the situation in Iraq a success.

Arguably the government in Iraq these days is so splintered, and so corrupt, and so obliged to use force to stay in power, that Iraq is a breeding ground for Islamic extremists really mad at the West for installing a secular government, or giving autonomy to the Kurds, or allowing the Shia to step all over the Sunni, or allowing the Sunni back into the army, among other grievances.

I would say the major problem is not Afghanistan, but the idiotic assumption that Afghanistan can be made over into a functional nation state.

But then maybe I'm just grumpy, and everything will turn out peachy.

[Damian90]

Well, I don't agree, and I have info's from the first hand as we say here in Poland. :-)

Iraq is preatty calm right now, in comparrision to 2003-2007 period. Surge worked well, Iraqis now fight, work and provide security on their own hand, US forces stay most time in bases or clear Iraq from explosive ordnance that is still here and there.

So situation isn't bad, the real problem are mass medias that get all insurgents propaganda as true and only true, but in fact insurgency in Iraq was destroyed in 90-99%, rect are still trying to destabilize Iraq but, they are too weak.

Major problem for US right now is Afghanistan, and US can't use the same strategy as in Iraq, different cultures so this doesen't work, surge for Afghanistan must be completely different.