How Bomb Disposal Works | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh Kaboom Clark and there's. Chuck. Bryant uh and uh Jerry's not here she's. a dud and this is stuff you should know. about bomb disposal that's right.

specifically a dud meaning a thing that. doesn't go off right yeah a. dud yeah like I when you're a kid. playing with fireworks and you light one. throw it at your friend nothing happens. and you start crying because it's a dud. yeah like I don't have two cents to. waste black cat give me my two cents. back yeah yeah when you're a kid two. cents mattered back in the 80s that's. true you can put that together with. three other scents and buy yourself a. stick of butter no.

throw it at your friend uh so we should. shout out um speaking of friends our uh. newish writer Kyle hookstra who's uh. writing for us from the UK makes us an. international podcast of. mystery uh and uh he helps us out with. this one it's a it's a pretty. interesting um topic if you ask me and I. don't remember where I got the idea but. it's been on the list for a little while. and I finally you pulled the trigger. mechanism on it no wow you're on a roll.

today I guess so that's one way to put. it had you just seen uh The Hurt Locker. or something I've never seen The Hurt. Locker really yeah you should check it. out it's great movie oh I know I've I've. heard nothing but good things I just. have not ever gotten around to seeing it. I'm not crazy about war movies the last. war movie that I saw that I really liked. was probably Uncommon. Valor wow see you like terrible war. movies no are you crazy that's one of.

the best war movies of all time oh okay. you don't like Uncommon Valor I mean I. liked it as a kid in the 80s but I mean. it was very much that I I don't think. it's regarded as one of the Great War. movies you don't think it hold up now. huh well I mean I think it would hold up. as an 80s war movie I mean who was the. guy in it uh Jean Hackman Randall teex. cob he was Patrick suy yeah okay great. movie it was a great movie um so uh yes.

but no I haven't seen hurt locker I I I. from what I understand it's about as. accurate a depiction of um how bomb. disposal technicians or EOD technicians. explosive ordinance disposal technicians. I should say for those who don't know. the lingo um it's about as accurate as. as what they do is is that correct I. mean I've never done that job so I don't. know but judging from reading this it. seemed pretty spoton and I know that. Katherine Bigalow makes a heck of a.

movie so I'm I'm in her Corner no matter. what what else did she made besides Zero. Dark. 30 uh well she did movies uh I mean. those those two were kind of later in. her career as far as like like big time. recognition but uh she did you know she. did a movie a vampire movie called near. dark back in the day it was great oh. yeah and uh yeah you should see that one. too that's the uh the trilogy near dark. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark 30 yeah. vampires bombs and Osama Bin Laden so uh.

okay so we're talking about people who. go near bombs unexploded bombs and try. to disable them uh try to diffuse them. so that they can either be taken. somewhere and disassembled or they can. be safely removed from an area where say. there's a lot of people or real estate. around and blow them up in a much safer. manner they walk up to bombs that have. not yet detonated and they have no idea.

how or if or when it's going to detonate. and that is their job that's who we're. talking about today yeah and that can be. uh you know a military personnel if it's. um in in Wartime or whatever and that. can obviously be a civilian bomb squad. because um bombs are not only wartime. weapons as we've seen with things like. the Boston Marathon bombing that kind of. stuff happens on the on the streets of. uh the USA in other places too so you.

got to have cops at work you got to have. military at work and they have all kinds. of cool gear that just gets better and. better uh one thing Kyle points out is. that you know it's always and we're. going to talk about the history but it's. always been sort of a a race of um. devising bombs that aren't uh you know. that that that blow up when they're. supposed to and then defeating bombs. from blowing up and then new technology. and then new anti-bomb technology it's. just sort of back and forth what's. horrific is that when new bomb.

technology comes. out like they don't know until after. somebody's died essentially that's. that's often the case that's how bomb's. gone off right but often it's like if. it's if say like it's booby trap a new. kind of booby trap uh that that probably. means that they found out the hard way. that there's this new style of booby. trap that's the kind of job that these. people have yeah and uh since I. mentioned that we got to throw Kyle some.

love because he inadvertently came up. with his first band name for the show. mhm because in describing that back and. forth of technology and racing against. the bomb technology he called it the. pendulum of development and I think it's. a pretty good band name sure what kind. of. music I mean that's got to be some sort. of like emo right I guess I could also. see like TR or drone or. something yeah I could too you're better. at that than me I should ask you that's. not true true that's not true.

Chuck well I feel like we each have our. part I I generally recognize the band. names and you you're always spot on it. nailing the kind of music that it would. be all right well let's move on we'll. we'll both take the compliment how was. that all right uh well should we cover. some of the history I guess yeah um what. was really surprising to me is that the. that bomb disposal really started back. in England in the 19th century like yeah. you know the Victorian era I think the.

1870s really was when it started to take. off one of the reasons why is that um. Ireland was trying to gain independence. from Great Britain and one of the ways. they did that was through bombing. campaigns so essentially as you'll see. like you said the pendulum of. development um like situations whether. it's war or um some sort of struggle or. something like that where bombs make an. appearance that leads to bomb.

development and that leads in turn to. bomb disposal development right and so. that was I mean right off the bat people. uh started adopting this new technology. at the time Dynamite which is a stable. form of nitroglycerin into bombs so now. it was up to people who were in charge. of disposing of these bombs to figure. out how to do that safely like that's. the kind of pendulum of development you. were mentioning yeah so Dynamite comes. along it's a big uh sort of Leap Forward. in bombing technology right yeah and the.

first person to uh kind of pioneer this. inspection routine uh was a guy named. Vivan durang. maundi uh who there was uh what was the. uh the the Finn and dynamite campaign. was kind of the first um big bombing. campaign that featured dynamite and. Vivan came along and pioneered this. field was the first bomb disposal. specialist because he got to work on.

that that you know anti- Dynamite. campaign yeah and so when you think of. bomb disposal we probably should have. said this at the outset the job entails. much more than just diffusing and. disposing of bombs there's also like. finding bombs there's identifying the. kind of bomb you're dealing with and so. that's what mendi was doing it it was. really low hanging fruit because it was. such a new field he would walk into the. room and be like yep that's dynamite and. they'd be like oh good show you know. like and he was like a celebrated bomb. disposal expert but he was also a very.

brave one and he would not delegate. dealing with bombs to anyone else below. him like he took on the actual handling. and attempts to diffuse bombs by himself. and he was celebrated for that for sure. yeah absolutely uh he was the first head. of the explosives Department uh that. they set up over there in. 1875 uh that would later become the. forensic explosives laboratory which. basically any kind of explosive activity.

um like literally explosive activity. right not like a Beatles concert or. something like. that uh in Great Britain is run through. the forensics explosives. laboratory yes so this is going on in. the you know third or fourth quarter of. the 19th century um and as the Irish um. were laying bombs so too were anarchists. starting to use Dynamite as well and. that was a problem in Europe too. but it was also a problem in New York in.

America and so just like in Great. Britain in England where there were. suddenly a lot of people putting Bombs. all over the place there was a huge need. for people to figure out how to make. those bombs not go off and so um America. developed its first bomb squad uh Back. In 1902 under the um leadership of a guy. named jeppe Petrino and they were. dealing with the mafia thank you they. were dealing with the mafia at the time.

and apparently they did their job. because the bomb squad got disbanded and. then as Anarchist started to really step. up their game the bomb squad actually. the anarchist and bomb squad was created. in. 1914 uh in the NYPD and it was basically. the revived Italian Squad under Petrino. I can see Reddit now my friend what's up. with Josh doing Italian names. now after after 16 years right uh you. you can take it oh no no no what what.

you don't do is go back and redo an. Italian accent take so take it I think. you can under the right circumstances. and the circumstances are these do that. Italian accent as Christopher Walkin. doing Sammy Davis Jr doing the Italian. accent my brain just broke uh all right. so we're in 194 with the anarchist and. bomb squad it's kind of a clunky name I. guess the aab BS.

yeah or ABS well they threw that end in. there it's just sort of strange abs are. made in the kitchen was their. slogan uh so they uncovered a plot to. blow up St Patrick's uh St Patrick's. cathed geez I'm getting it all backwards. cathedral in New York City um. they basically let this thing go off. they got all the the manuals of the fuse. design uh it was a timed fuse and so. they they kind of let it happen and then.

arrested these like they wanted to catch. the people so they let the fuse be lit. beit and then they got these guys and of. course it extinguish the fuse yeah. during mass yeah they they went ahead. and let the bombers light the fuse I. mean I guess that's the only way to know. who the guys were. right yeah I guess but yeah that was I. mean that was gutsy that's the way I. took it was that they were they wanted. to you know find out who was actually.

doing this and the only way to do that. was to see the fuse get lit no. absolutely I think you could also just. say anybody who's who starts to crouch. down near the fuse you can go ahead and. arrest that guy or or raise your hand if. you're not here to blow this place. up right and then just arrest who. doesn't raise their hand yeah so uh also. remember we talked about Jay gaho. running the radical division they also. had an early bomb unit within the FBI. and the FBI probably ever since has had.

bomb uh Specialists special agent um. basically bomb technicians um and they. do a lot of training we saw a really. interesting video on wired I think where. a FBI bomb technician describes like you. know what the whole process is like it. was pretty fascinating yeah very calmly. but still I mean you got Anarchist. laying bombs you have Irish Republicans. laying bombs and then what really steps. up the whole game makes it necessary are.

the world wars and the first world war. came along and there's a lot of. Munitions that were fired on either side. all over the place all over Europe and. anytime you're firing Munitions just. like we said at the outset with black. cat firecrackers some are bound to be. Duds and just because they didn't go off. now doesn't mean they're not going to go. off a hundred years from now so it's. actually as we'll see like a huge. problem still we covered it a lot. tangentially in our um landmines episode. about how when bomb are you know shot.

off in war blid in war they can you know. kill people a century later essentially. um that was a problem in and of itself. and uh there were. volunteer usually um Air Force for some. reason um like soldiers. who taught themselves essentially how to. try to diffuse the bombs that were left. over from World War I but it wasn't. until uh World War II that the whole. thing started to be formalized both in. the UK and and in the US yeah the the.

training that they had in World War I. the equipment that they had wasn't up to. Snuff and I think it just sort of slowly. built in everyone's Minds at like all. right this is something we need to. officially address uh we're we're not. trained up we don't know what we're. really doing and so we got to correct. that because this is a big problem. moving forward and in 1940 uh Winston. Churchill uh said we owe it to these. brave men to provide them with the very. best technical equipment so equipment. and training was really The Way Forward.

especially after uh Germany's Blitz. happened over the period of you know. about a year or two um because there. were a lot of bombs dropped and like you. said you know a lot I mean I don't know. if we have an exact percentage of I. guess it depends on the war but even. today like some of the more recent Wars. I've saw numbers like 20 30% of bombs. don't even go off so things are just. laying around waiting for you know. unfortunately Sometimes some some kid or.

any innocent person to just stumble upon. it yeah um and I saw something I can't. remember I sent it to you so maybe. you'll remember either hundreds of. thousands of tons or millions of tons of. Munitions were dropped in in Europe I. don't remember okay well it was one of. those it was this a mindboggling amount. so if you think of 20 or 30% of that. like that's they're still there they're. still in Europe like those bombs if they. didn't go off would plant themselves 60.

ft underground waiting for some guy who. like later was going to build a sports. arena on the site to find it and hope. that he didn't accidentally blow it up. with his earth mover um like that's a I. don't know how common it is but it's a. frequent occurrence in Europe still yeah. absolutely um as they got better at. disabling these bombs of course that. that race starts again the pendulum of. development that great band takes a. stage and Germany is like well here's. what we'll do then we're going to start.

implementing uh things that will kill. somebody trying to dismantle it an. anti-h handling device they had all all. different kinds but you know basically. most of them were just you know if you. mess with the fuse or if you messed with. the the wiring like if you were trying. to extract something to keep it from. going boom that would make it go boom. right and so yeah I just want to like. punctuate that these anti-h handling. devices were booby traps specifically. designed to blow up the very people.

whose job we're talking about today yeah. that was the whole thing that was the. point of it um and for people walking. around like me who just have always. thought of fuses as that long Wick that. goes to like a shiny black round. bomb there are basically anything that. sets off the Detonator or the thing that. blows up the Detonator that's a fuse it. can be everything from a um something. magnetic it can be barometric uh can um.

be uh like a gyroscope so if the bomb is. tipped over it blows up anything that um. that you can use to to that detects a. change in the environment a timer it can. also be a radio something is um as. simple as a garage door opener all those. are fuses it's not just like there's a a. wick that's lit it's anything that can. blow the thing up that triggers the. explosion yeah so they started working. hard again to try and counter this by uh.

developing you know new methods new. techniques to not only uh diffuse bombs. but uh you know figure out what was. sometimes literally making them tick um. drilling holes in them and time bombs uh. they started listening to them with. stethoscopes so you could hear if it had. a clock and if it did have a clock uh. see if there was some sort of mechanism. called a clock stopper um like it's. basically a steel collar uh battery. powered thing see if that thing's firing.

uh to see if they uh you know had any. anti- withdrawal devices thank you. Germans uh boiling water uh they started. using water and steam early on to render. either the powder useless or right as. we'll see now like just like flooding a. thing with a lot of water very quickly. can sometimes work as well yeah and that. also didn't quite make sense to me at. first until I realized that bombs also. are made up there's a of really like the.

explosive part that makes the big boom. but there's also frequently a slightly. smaller explosive that makes the big. boom go off the thing that that booms. really hugely they're usually really. kind of hard to detonate so you can do. things like pour water on the whole. thing and you're you're not necessarily. trying to keep the big bomb from going. off you're trying to disable that either. explosive charge or the fuse or whatever. that's going to make that bigger bomb go. off it's it's kind of hard just jiggling.

around a bomb to make like say the. plastic explosives or something like. that go off it's way easier to make the. black powder get triggered and that's. what you're trying to disable most of. the time when you're messing with the. bomb yeah absolutely I mean we talked. about that a lot in our our episodes on. nuclear bombs and stuff like that you. said we did one on IEDs is that right I. genuinely don't remember that oh yeah 11. years ago wow okay epis I'm I'm glad you. remembered. oh just we're talking about previous.

episodes I think we should take a second. here Chuck to correct ourselves um I. don't know if you saw some of the emails. come in but we released our gask Khan. episode as a Saturday select I think I. chose it yeah um this past Saturday and. apparently in it we say that when gask. Khan was running around there were 7. billion people on the planet and three. billion of them were. Mongols and that is that that could not. be further for them the truth. um apparently we didn't hit 1 billion.

until the 19th century and we're at 7. billion now so we were so off that it. doesn't even make sense what we were. saying and I can't believe we got it. that wrong but apparently we did so. sorry to everybody who's like I can. never listen to Josh and Chuck again. after that you said we I guess you. wouldn't be listening right. now you kept saying we did we both say. that in unison hey man if one of us said. it and the other one didn't correct it. we're both guilty oh okay all right well.

we're guilty of not taking an ad break. so we'll do that right now and beg. forgiveness when we come back right. after. [Music]. this all right so Flash Forward again uh.

you know the the the sort of Technology. of defeating bombs seems to rise and. fall with um lots of bombings happening. of course and that happened uh between. 1969 and really up into kind of the. mid-2000s with the provisional Irish. Republican Army in Northern Ireland uh. during that time uh 23 different uh. Specialists were killed in action from. the Royal Army Ordinance Corp and and or. ordinance is just sort of a fancy name.

for any kind of artillery MH uh but. you'll hear you know like unexploded. ordinance and stuff like that uh a lot. and that's like a bomb that didn't go. off yeah and so um the troubles in uh. Northern Ireland were a huge um uh. impetus for new bomb disposal technology. simultaneously um uh bomb disposal techs. who had fought in Vietnam were starting. to come back to the United States too so. there were two different things that.

were pushing bomb disposal technology at. about the same time in both the UK and. America and what's interesting is this. is the second time that it happened. third time actually remember there were. there was the Irish Republicans in the. 19th century followed closely by the. anarchists in New York uh there was the. um vets returning from Vietnam and in. the UK dealing with the Troubles of. Northern Ireland and then in World War. II there was the um there was. Churchill's push to train veterans in uh. or servicemen in World War II and at the.

same time the US Navy was learning to. defuse sea mines at the same time so. it's just strange to me that the US and. the UK have run in parallel in so many. different times yeah totally um so prior. to. 72 uh it was basically using your hands. like a human being dismantling a bomb. with their fies um after that because of. uh you know the new threats coming from. all the bomb. um from the troubles they started saying.

like hey maybe and and the idea very. much now is to um to try and do. everything as far away from the bomb as. possible including the actual technician. um obviously getting the people out of. there uh but they did this by developing. a bunch of new tools one of which is. called the pig stick uh was invented in. 1971 and this is one of those uh that. sends a water jet a really powerful. water jet to try and just interrupt the. circuitry and disable it and they're.

still used to this day yeah I saw one of. these go off it also took me a minute to. figure out why they call it a pigstick. and then I remembered Anton sugar in No. Country for Old Men it's essentially. they're they're kind of saying it's the. same thing as that it's a charge that. shoots water so forcefully that I saw it. slowed down to 20% and it's still happen. too fast to see yeah like it's so quick. that it will disrupt the bomb before the. bomb knows what hit it right so any any.

fuse or firing mechanism or anything. like that it's just going to get. separated before it can trigger the bomb. and the fact that it's water means that. it's not going to let the um the uh it's. not going to accidentally light any say. like incendiary trigger inside um so. it's pretty ingenious and the fact that. they were using this all the way back in. the early mid '70s is pretty impressive. and because it was just so effective. like you said like it's still pretty. much standard around the world today.

yeah for sure um they're not very. effective for car bombs obviously uh so. more and more car bombs started to be. used like again once something is sort. of figured out and you figure out a. better way to defeat it uh the the enemy. morphs and so car bombs became um sort. of and and are still just a big problem. worldwide because car bombs are mobile. obviously mhm and they're huge like you. can have a a 200 to 300 lb bomb hidden. in a car that's not very big uh without.

even seeing it so of course they had to. develop even newer technology and we all. knew it was going to go this way but um. eventually robots would come onto the. scene oh I'm impressed you didn't say. robots thank that's hodman steal um so. yeah one of the technologies that came. out of that is that the early prototypes. or Proto robots Ed today were called. wheelbarrows I think the first one was. made out of a lawn mower. motor and essentially you could put um.

say something like a pigstick and then. maybe a a like video camera on there and. go approach a car and some of the ones. that came later you could use this robot. to hook tow ropes up to move the car out. of the area to someplace safer to blow. it up um and I think something like 400. wheelbarrows were destroyed just between. 1972 and 1978 yeah which gives you an. idea that's. years that's just the ones that were.

destroyed that's how many bombs were. laid around Northern Ireland but also in. in Europe and England to to somewhat. lesser extent during that period during. the troubles which ran all the way to to. 98 I think um there was a lot of bombs. going off around there at the time so. the more bombs there were the more. quickly they had to develop these. techniques to to counter bomb measures. too that's what was going on it was just. a huge laboratory and pressure cooker at. the same time yeah to be fair I think.

the purpose mostly for the wheelbarrow. was to blow it up so I don't I don't. think there were a ton of wheelbarrows. that made it out alive you know oh okay. all right still 400 is a lot of bombs in. six years oh totally um there was a uh. well I guess we should just sort of give. the the general breakdown of how this. might work back then and it's not too. dissimilar from how it works now uh but. you would initially you know get the. call that there's a suspected device uh. to this this team or these Specialists.

um they would the first thing they do is. clear the area they try to get people. you know they figure out what they think. might be the blast zone get as many. people as far away from you know that. area as possible and then you get that. robot out uh if the robot can't do the. job then you have to get a person in a. bomb suit in there we'll talk about bomb. suits a little bit more later uh and. then they go in and they explode this. thing if if it's real right yeah that's.

another thing um uh Kyle found this BBC. um uh documentary on the bomb squads. working in Northern Ireland at the time. um from 1974 and everything has a real. Clockwork Orange look to it still um but. they find a hoax but at the end of it um. they're working on like a real live bomb. and they just have the audio of the guy. who you know is now inside this building. trying to to figure out what kind of. bomb they're dealing with and you just.

hear his breath and it just gets like. more and more quickened and like like it. sounds not quite like he's going to. hyperventilate but he is breathing way. harder than the normal average person. does and it's really just kind of. stirring at the end there especially for. a 50-year-old hourlong BBC documentary. you should see the her locker then if. that if that turns you on I don't know. if turned me on is the right way to put. it but yes I definitely noticed it yeah. it's an anxiety inducing film for sure.

it's very very tense as you would. imagine okay I'll check it out sure uh. you don't have to man I mean are you one. of the finance years of the movie or you. know just suggesting it's very related. to this topic you know sure uh so IEDs. again we did a full episode on these uh. about 11 years ago so we don't need to. really go through what all those are uh. but they are improvised explosive. devices and the scary thing about IEDs. um like this is what you had in the boss. of Marathon bombing is is like it could.

be almost anything like a a pressure. cooker a pipe bomb uh could be you know. something just sitting in a backpack on. the corner MH so those are that's you. know incredibly frightening to face that. kind of reality yes um so yeah so that's. something that say like a public safety. bomb disposal Tech would be more likely. to deal with rather than say like a. military grade bomb being left somewhere. um that would be more like a military. person that was dealing with that but I.

also saw one other thing that people um. in public safety have to deal with are. illegal. fireworks I didn't even know there was. such a thing as illegal fireworks did. you uh you mean like the firework itself. is illegal in a legal. State I think the impression is that. they're. homemade oh okay or they're so powerful. that they're not legal yeah yeah I've. heard that I think as a kid we all heard. rumors of like m100s and M1 120s that.

probably didn't even exist right a black. cat the size of your. forearm um also on those IEDs especially. in the case of Boston um that that video. we saw you know one thing you don't. think about is when you find out that. there is like a bomb uh you know or or a. uh a tip that there's a bomb somewhere. and you clear out an area like a lot of. things can look like a bomb at that. point cuz he was like you know people. drop their backpack they get out of. there they're you know all of a sudden.

there's a lot of things laying around or. it could be like the mailbox you know so. they have to check out like everything. yeah I I I noted that too that was. pretty interesting um another thing that. they'll do is they'll pre- sweep uh. areas say like there's a political Rally. or something like that you can pretty. much bet that there was a bomb squad. that moved through the area already um. and swept it for bombs also one of the. other big jobs that they have Chuck is. they will um uh identify like evidence.

of bombs they'll help people gather. evidence they'll be like that's a part. of a bomb that's a part of a bomb and. the more that they can collect the more. information they can take back to the. lab and figure out about the bomb the. bomb maker the country that it came from. um and the more they can do that the. more they can learn to counter them as. well yeah for sure uh you know I. mentioned that in the 70s kind of the. protocol of how you would go about this. on the scene um basically being the same. today like some of the only differences.

today is uh like they have x-rays now so. yeah you know just like in the doctor's. office they'll go and put a a plate. behind the bomb and take an x-ray of it. and that has been a real GameChanger and. being able to look inside this thing. safely and see what's going on yeah um. and the other thing too that the guy in. the video really wanted to drive home is. they want to they want to spend as less. as little time around that bomb as. possible so like if you're going in and. you don't want to go in with a couple of. things and be like oh let me go back and.

get this now and and try this like they. want to go in there one time and have. everything at their disposal on hand to. assess and evaluate and decide how. they're going to disrupt this thing yeah. but as it stands because um you almost. exclusively across the board every bomb. disposal unit is going to take an x-ray. first you have to put a person in danger. at least at some point ideally after. they take the x-ray they get the heck.

out of there and then they never go back. again it's the robot that's sent in the. wheelbarrow or whatever to handle the. whole thing with say like a um some sort. of disruptor like a pigstick or. something right but if like you said the. robot can't get to it it's up the stairs. it's over some weird debris it's just in. a place where the robot can't get to it. that person's going to have to go back. in and deal with this. directly yeah and like this is. frightening when you think about like.

you have to go in to get that X-ray and. two out of the three methods for a bomb. potentially going off MH are threats to. you at that moment uh if it's a time. bomb and you you have some bad luck with. your timing you could be exploded uh if. it's a remote controlled bomb you could. very easily be exploded uh the only one. that you're I guess relatively safe from. if you're doing your job really really. carefully is uh victim initiated or like. a booby trap or something right uh so.

you know you're not going to want to. disturb it basically you're going to. want to be really really careful when. you're laying when you're doing that. x-ray yeah for sure all right Chuck I. say we come back and we talk about some. of the technology that these very brave. people are using when they do this crazy. crazy stuff let's do it. [Music].

all right man so as we promised we are. going to talk about some of the. technology that bomb disposal. technicians use we already talked about. the robot um and we mentioned the bomb. suit a little bit but I think you can go. into it a little more because they're. fairly um. complex yeah absolutely and. uncomfortable um there are variations.

you know they'll they'll gauge what kind. of level of suit you need um like. lighter versus heavier but if you've got. on the full heaviest Kevlar plated uh. collar protected helmet visor wearing. suit it is uh clunky um you do have. useage of your fies so like you know I. think if you're a one of these kind of. Specialists one thing you're going to. have to really consider is that you may. at some point be living your life. without fingers or hands right at the.

very least right uh but they are fairly. effective I. mean they're pretty clunky but like the. heat is the biggest problem uh. especially you know you know when you're. disrupting a bomb let's say in the. Middle East in the middle of uh summer. or something like that uh they don't. last long in those so the the very. latest technology has actual uh cooling. units they they all used to have fans. but now they have actually coolant that. says they can withstand like any amount.

of heat for an hour wow and I don't. think they want to be in there for more. than an hour anyway so hopefully that's. helped a lot yeah one thing that I saw. that a lot of them don't have though is. um like communication equipment because. you usually use radio and you can. accidentally set off a bomb that's radio. controlled so they often don't have any. sort of com equipment in there um I also. saw and I don't know this is not from a. legitimate Source or vetted Source how.

about that was either on Kora or Reddit. no offense to either of those sites but. right um where somebody who presented. themsel as a bomb technician essentially. said if you're yes if you're dealing. with a pipe bomb maybe illegal fireworks. something like that you're probably. going to wear a bomb suit if you have to. diffuse it yourself not a robot but at. bomb bomb um You probably aren't going. to go to the trouble of wearing a a suit. because that bomb will kill you if it.

goes off whether you're wearing a suit. or not and those suits are definitely. made to protect you against shrapnel. projectiles a lot of them are literally. bulletproof because they're they're so. tough and made of such thick Kevlar and. ceramic plates and all that um but the. the overlast the shock wave that's. produced is what can it can give you. crushing injuries just from hitting you. that hard if you're very close to a. blast radius so putting all that.

together I couldn't help but wonder if. they were if they were correct or if. they were just talk and. Jive well there is something called. Blast long it's very common injury and. it's basically you know like you said. getting just smashed in the chest with a. with an invisible you know wrecking ball. um so it's an internal injury but that's. one of the most common and those suits. you know they obviously stop projectiles. and stuff but they they also decrease. that blast wave mhm uh impact it's you.

know they're made to do that so I I. would be surprised if the um just sort. of the rules around it were like yeah. he's just not going to wear it today. that's that was my take too it's like. are you are you really allowed to just. say that yourself but also I wonder if. they're in such short supply that it's. like do whatever you want man like just. hats off to you for for even trying this. I don't they expensive. yeah they're like 35 Grand but I stopped.

and thought about it that's because. probably it's um local and and federal. governments buying them so I'm sure. they're 200 300% marked up you know yeah. you can probably make one of those for a. couple hundred bucks I bet sure um I. also saw some of them have spinal. protection so that if you're blown back. by the blast wind actual wind that's. pushed out from the blast um and you. land on your spine you're not. automatically going to get a spinal. injury oh that's that's cool because. that guy in the video kind of indicated.

that the back was the least protected I. saw that but this is on a site for a. manufacturer of actual blast suits bomb. suits did you ever think they're just. trying to sell you a suit Josh come on. maybe come on don't be naive yeah it was. a little kind of hokey it looked like it. was like a drawing of a tuxedo on the. front of it yeah so uh the other you. know piece of technology we talked a. little bit about is the it was called. the disruptor uh those Pig sticks are. disruptors uh there are all kinds of.

disruptors from things that use you know. sound to water uh that that bottler. thing you know I tried to understand. what he was talking about in that video. but I was a little little. confused so essentially which one the. bottler yeah so it's the same thing as. the others except the the pig stick and. the other one that shoots everything in. like a V wedge uh it's it's not it's not. like a hyper Lo ated on a certain area. it blows out in a circle it's.

multi-directional again the same key is. it's spreading water and it blows up so. fast that it it can disable the trigger. before it can fire all it's that's what. disruptors do essentially okay uh. there's also um you know there there. bomb carriers that yeah uh just sit on. the back of a pickup truck you know. they're bolted to a pickup truck or humy. or whatever or a cyber truck yeah oh God. I saw one in the wild the other day for. the first time oh yeah what' you think I. was just like that's just the dumbest.

looking thing to drive around in that. I've ever seen in my life that's what I. thought yeah I mean I get that a lot of. people do there's a subreddit called. cyber stuck and the whole thing is just. totally dedicated to making fun of. people who drive cyber trucks and all of. the woses that they have from from. driving a cyber truck it's pretty funny. if you've got one you know I'm not. trying to yuck your yum everyone has. different tastes but let's just say it's. not my taste okay yeah I think that was. well put aesthetic Ally uh so these bomb. carriers like I said you know it's kind.

of just a big like you know heavy um. chamber to put a bomb in to carry it. somewhere else yes and like I think they. can I've seen that some of them can hold. up to 10 kilograms of TNT the equivalent. of that right yeah so like you could. blow up you could put 20 something. pounds of dynamite in this thing and. blow it up and the thing will be like. that's all you got It'll like it belched. or something like that it's just amazing. that we can make something that can. contain that kind of violent Force yeah.

I'm just impressed by those things one. other thing that I saw that was really. stuck out to me is like you would think. that that bomb disposal experts are paid. like basketball stars and they are not. like the average bomb Tech makes about. $50,000 a year in the UK or the US oh. yeah that's. wrong yeah okay just wanted to go on. record is saying that I support bomb. teex being paid through the roof oh yeah.

I mean it's just another example of um. job you do does it necessarily equate to. money you make right you know as far as. the fairness scale goes y uh so. unexploded. ordinances I keep saying ordinance it's. ordinance without an eye right it's it's. hard to say that right for me uh but. like we said those are bombs from past. Wars that have not gone off uh I think. you already mentioned that World War II. to has a lot of these still scattered uh.

across Europe mhm um and these are. really dangerous because you know these. things degrade over time in every way. you can imagine uh from the fuses to the. primers to you know Parts rusting out. and stuff like that so uh it's you know. it's literally sometimes a bomb just. waiting to go off and you never know. when that might be right um and this. happens I mean sometimes it goes off and. kills people as recently as. 2010 2023 I think uh in that 2010.

incident was in Germany three three bomb. techs were killed in that explosion yeah. and again this is World War II ordinance. like imagine being a pilot who drops a. bomb it doesn't go off you go home you. return from the war you buy a house in. in the suburbs you have a picket fence a. family you grow old you die and then 30. years after that after you're buried. somebody comes along in that you drop. blows up and kills them completely. outside the context of war that happens.

in Europe yeah that happens all over the. world yes for sure that's well put uh. because you know more recently in the. 1970s uh with the wars in. Indochina uh I think um Kyle found the. stat 2 million tons of Munitions were. dropped uh between 64 and 73 and of the. 270 million cluster bombs dropped 30%. may have failed to detonate that's over. 80 million cluster bombs potentially.

still scattered about that area yeah and. that's not including all the landmines. that were purposely laid and not cleared. too man unbelievable yeah um then kids. get killed by that um the kids in Iraq I. start between 2017 and 2022 519 kids. were either killed or injured in Iraq. from unexploded ordinance and then the. United States has its own stockpile. problems too. I saw that um we dumped millions of. pounds of bombs when when the stock.

piles got too big they and and the stuff. was getting old they just dumped it off. the coast in the the um East and the. West that's just uh how can that be. allowed it w well it was stopped being. allowed in 1970 but it's not like they. went back and got every fished. everything out which is funny because it. does get fished out once in a while in a. fishing net and apparently Lake Erie had. Camp Perry which was approv Ming ground. from Munitions and just like in war when.

you're shooting off a bunch of Munitions. to test them some of them aren't going. to aren't going to blow up right then so. apparently Lake Yi is littered with. unexploded ordinance as well was that we. talked about the one uh wasn't it a. nuclear bomb off the coast of Savannah. right yeah from I think the early 50s. didn't they did they find that thing. recently yeah I think they did and they. were like it's too it's too dangerous to. move we're just going to cross our. fingers if I'm not mistaken yeah I.

couldn't remember because I feel like we. got email cuz we we talked about that a. long time ago yeah they made the they. made the call that it's really just tybe. Island that's in danger and they're like. it's taibe. Island that's so mean okay um since I. just made fun of tyby Allen I'm just. kidding tyby uh it's time for listener. mail I. say you know who loves tyby Jar's Jerry. does she's a tyby person and she's not. here today so she'll hear this when she.

uh or maybe she won't who knows no. she'll be doing something else all right. so uh you said listener mail right yeah. I did uh I'm going to call this I I I. have to do it friend I'm sorry but I. have to do this Minecraft correction oh. yeah because the emails and this is one. where I just tried and tried and tried. to tell you that that wasn't right and. you stuck to your guns hey sure hey guys. been listening for our almost as long as. I played Minecraft a little over a. decade uh Josh repeated the point that.

there is one seed per game copy but. Minecraft has more to offer than you. think uh you can make as many worlds as. you want concurrently and even pick your. seed it's gotten so popular that entire. websites are dedicated to seed. sharing uh that sounds gross if someone. finds an interesting seed with something. like an island inside a volcano close to. your spawn point they will often share. the random string of characters that. produce that seed so others can generate. that same world uh there was also a. sarcastic comment made about kids.

learning that the ancient ones built. underwater cities I don't think it was. sarcastic I think it was clever quip. probably sarcastics not the word. sardonic it was sardonic oh okay uh but. this is actually true guys tons of. ancient settlements in real life are. currently under the water because the. coastline changes over time we tend to. build near bodies of water absolutely. true on both counts thank you for that. that is uh Nathan Nathan that was great. that's pretty awesome you've been. listening to us about as long as you've. been playing Minecraft that is High.

Praise as we take it and thank you for. so gently correcting me even though I. got it so wrong wrong wrong that's okay. if you want to be like Nathan and gently. correct us we're always up for that you. can send it via email to stuff podcast. iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts iHeart. Radio visit the iHeart Radio app app. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows.

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