How the IED threat differs regionally around the world

Countering the IED threat is the most important attribute for armoured vehicles when considering Asian requirements according to a survey of defence industry professionals, with 54% revealing that blast protection is “critical.”

However, taking the top two responses together from Figure 1 (i.e. respondents specifying “critical” and “important”), protection from small arms ballistic attack is generally considered to be the main design requirement for 83% of respondents. Based on this analysis, IED protection then dramatically falls into third place with 79% behind reliability in second, which 81% of participants specified as being “critical” or “important.”

In Defence IQ’s Armoured Vehicles 2012 Report, 57% of respondents identified ballistic protection as a critical attribute (Figure 2), which is significantly above the 43% looking specifically at the Asia region.  There is a similar contrast with blast protection – 78% in the global report compared with just 54% in this one.

This perception gap suggests Asian customers are less concerned with protection and instead consider secondary or tertiary factors, such as cost and mobility, to be more relevant than their counterparts in the West or those currently engaged in combat and combat support missions.

This is further evidenced when looking at the disparity with reliability, which with 55% of respondents identifying it as a critical attribute it’s 13% up on the 42% in the global report. Even more stark is mobility, which twice as many respondents thought to be critical for Asia (36%) compared to the global market (18%).

Why does the Asian market put less emphasis on the protection component of armoured vehicles and give more credence to a wider range of attributes than other regions do?

One answer could be that it has been some time since an Asian country was deeply committed to a war on foreign soil. Simply, if you’re not being shot at the need for ballistic and blast protection understandably diminishes.

Looking at Figure 3, however, the assumption that Asia compromises on protection is soon put into perspective when respondents were asked to prioritise armoured vehicle capabilities.

Figure 3 highlights that survivability (55%) is more than twice as important as reliability (26%), and nearly three times that of mobility (19%).

While this shows that, in accordance with Figures 1 and 2, protection, reliability and mobility respectively line up as key attributes, it is only when respondents are asked for the key attribute that survivability is prioritised for armoured vehicles.

With NATO nations bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade where the IED threat has increased in frequency and lethality, the requirement for innovative counter-IED technologies has been the primary driver for industry. It appears the need to protect against IEDs is deemed to be directly proportional to the frequency with which a nation is likely to face the threat. In Asia, that prospect is considerably lower than for the United States military for example.

That doesn’t mean the IED threat should be ignored. The IED, essentially a mine, has been around for centuries and will continue to be used as a cheap, effective weapon against military forces for years to come.

Colonel Gareth Bex, Head of Army EOD & Search at the UK MoD, recently said at a Counter-IED conference in London that “the genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no way it’s going back in.”

Col Bex went on to say that the UK failed to continue the investment it made in this area after Northern Ireland and lost the C-IED capability as a result. When protection against IEDs and mine blasts wasn't top of the agenda anymore it was easy for that investment to be directed into other avenues. Bex wonders if the same may happen again post-Afghanistan, especially considering the current economic climate. But it mustn't. The lessons learned from Afghanistan must not be allowed to be forgotten like they were after Northern Ireland - the only way to do that is maintain investment in the area and continue to take the threat seriously. The IED is a threat - it will always be a threat, regardless of geography.

“IEDs are certainly an enduring global threat,” said Col Bex.

He’s right on both counts: the IED is an enduring threat and a global one for manufacturers and end-users of armoured vehicles. While the threat may not be as pressing for governments in Asia it does not mean that it should be overlooked.