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20 May 2007

A sends PDF and HTML versions of TM 31-210:

http://cryptome.org/tm-31-210-pdf.zip (273 pages, Zipped, 4.4MB)

http://cryptome.org/tm-31-210-html.zip (271 pages, Zipped, 4.2MB)

[Cover and Table of Contents]
 
 

Improvised Munitions Handbook (Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs)

Table of Contents

Section 0 — Introduction

0.1 Purpose and Scope

0.2 Safety and Reliability

0.3 User Comments

Section 1 — Explosives and Propellants (including igniters)

1.1 Plastic Explosive Filler

1.2 Potassium Nitrate

1.3 Improvised Black Powder

1.4 Nitric Acid

1.5 Initiator for Dust Explosions

1.6 Fertilizer Explosive

1.7 Carbon Tet – Explosive

1.8 Fertilizer AN-Al Explosive

1.9 “Red or White Powder” Propellant

1.10 Nitric Acid/Nitrobenzene (“Hellhoffite”) Explosive

1.11 Optimized Process for Cellulose/Acid Explosives

1.12 Methyl Nitrate Dynamite

1.13 Urea Nitrate Explosive

1.14 Preparation of Copper Sulfate (Pentahydrate)

1.15 Reclamation of RDX from C4

1.16 TACC (Tetramminecopper (II) Chlorate)

1.17 HMTD

1.18 Potassium or Sodium Nitrite and Litharge (Lead Monoxide)

1.19 DDNP

1.20 Preparation of Lead Picrate

1.21 Preparation of Picric Acid from Aspirin

1.22 Double Salts

1.23 Sodium Chlorate

1.24 Mercury Fulminate

1.25 Sodium Chlorate and Sugar or Aluminum Explosive

Section 2 — Mines and Grenades

2.1 Pipe Hand Grenade

2.2 Nail Grenade

2.3 Wine Bottle Cone Charge

2.4 Grenade-Tin Can Land Mine

2.5 Mortar Scrap Mine

2.6 Coke Bottle Shaped Charge

2.7 Cylindrical Cavity Shaped Charge

2.8 Not Available

2.9 Funnel Shaped Charge

2.10 Linear Shaped Charge

Section 3 — Small Arms Weapons and Ammunition

3.1 Pipe Pistol for 9 mm Ammunition

3.2 Shotgun (12 gauge)

3.3 Shotshell Dispersion Control

3.4 Carbine (7.62 mm Standard Rifle Ammunition)

3.5 Reusable Primer

3.6 Pipe Pistol for .45 Caliber Ammunition

3.7 Match Gun

3.8 Rifle Cartridge

3.9 Pipe Pistol for .38 Caliber Ammunition

3.10 Pipe Pistol for .22 Caliber Ammunition — Long or Short Cartridge

3.11 Low Signature System

Section 4 — Mortars and Rockets

4.1 Recoilless Launcher

4.2 Shotgun Grenade Launcher

4.3 Grenade Launcher (57 mm Cardboard Container)

4.4 Fire Bottle Launcher

4.5 Grenade Launchers

4.6 60 mm Mortar Projectile Launcher

Section 5 — Incendiary Devices

5.1 Chemical Fire Bottle

5.2 Igniter from Book Matches

5.3 Mechanically Initiated Fire Bottle

5.4 Gelled Flame Fuels

5.4.1 Lye Systems

5.4.2 Lye-Alcohol Systems

5.4.3 Soap-Alcohol System

5.4.4 Egg White Systems

5.4.5 Latex Systems

5.4.6 Wax Systems

5.4.7 Animal Blood Systems

5.5 Acid Delay Incendiary

5.6 Improvised White Flare

5.7 Improvised Iron Oxide

5.8 Improvised Yellow Flare

5.9 Improvised White Smoke Munition

5.10 Improvised Black Smoke Munition

Section 6 — Fuses, Detonators & Delay Mechanisms

6.1 Electric Bulb Initiator

6.2 Fuse Igniter from Book Matches

6.3 Delay Igniter from Cigarette

6.4 Watch Delay Timer

6.5 No-Flash Fuse Igniter

6.6 Dried Seed Timer

6.7 Fuse Cords

6.7.1 Fast Burning Fuse

6.7.2 Slow Burning Fuse

6.8 Clothespin Time Delay Switch

6.9 Time Delay Grenade

6.10 Can-Liquid Time Delay

6.11 Short Term Time Delay for Grenade

6.12 Long Term Time Delay for Grenade

6.13 Detonator

Section 7 — Miscellaneous

7.1 Clothespin Switch

7.2 Mousetrap Switch

7.3 Flexible Plate Switch

7.4 Metal Ball Switch

7.5 Altimeter Switch

7.6 Pull-Loop Switch

7.7 Knife Switch

7.8 Improvised Scale

7.9 Rope Grenade Launching Technique

7.10 Bicycle Generator Power Source

7.11 Automobile Generator Power Source

7.12 Improvised Battery (Short Lasting)

7.13 Improvised Battery (2 Hour Duration)

7.14 Armor Materials

Appendix 1 — Primary High Explosives

A1.1 Mercury Fulminate

A1.2 Lead Styphnate

A1.3 Lead Azide

A1.4 DDNP

Appendix 2 — Secondary High Explosives

A2.1 TNT

A2.2 Nitrostarch

A2.3 Tetryl

A2.4 RDX

A2.5 Nitroglycerin

A2.6 Commercial Dynamite

A2.7 Military Dynamite

A2.8 Amatol

A2.9 PETN

A2.10 Blasting Gelatin

A2.11 Composition B

A2.12 Composition C4

A2.13 Ammonium Nitrate

Colophon

C.1 Version History

C.1.1 Version 1.0 (1969)

C.1.2 Version 2.0 (1970s)

C.1.3 Version 3.0 (2007 – Thanks-to-Feinstein's Electronic Edition)

C.2 Copyright Information

Frankford Arsenal
Philadelphia Pennsylvania

For Official Use Only

For further information or additional inserts, contact:

Commanding Officer
Frankford Arsenal
ATTN: SMUF A-U3100, Special Products Division
      Small Caliber Engineering Directorate
Philadelphia, Pa. 19137

Additional inserts will be made available as evaluation tests are completed. Please notify the above agency of any change of address so that you may receive them.

Improvised Munitions Handbook (Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs)

Colophon

C.1 Version History

C.1.1 Version 1.0 (1969)

The only things known about the very first publication from 1969 are that it was printed in loose-leaf form and on lighter paper than the widely-available v2.0 reprint. These are known because the procedure for making an Improvised Scale shows a picture of loose hole-punched sheets and the text says, “Each sheet of paper [of the Improvised Munitions Handbook] weighs about 1.3 grams.” However, the reprint uses heavier paper that weighs about 4.5 grams a sheet.

C.1.2 Version 2.0 (1970s or 1980s)

A 6-by-9-inch (15-by-23-cm) trade paperback with a brownish-yellow cover, apparently a reprint of the original publication, is referred to here as v2.0. It has been available to the public for decades, particularly from alternative mail-order publishers and military surplus stores.

C.1.3 Version 3.0 (2007 – Thanks-to-Feinstein's Electronic Edition)

This electronic edition was created from the reprint described above. (“Thanks-to-Feinstein” is a satirical reference to Senator Dianne Feinstein who passed a perverse law that erodes free speech in the U.S.)

Diagrams were scanned at 300-dpi grey scale and saved as JPEG format. Text was scanned and converted by optical character recognition, manually checked, and reformatted in HTML. The colophon (this section) was added. A PDF file was created from the HTML files.

All corrections and changes made while converting the original paper document to electronic form are listed below. Nothing substantial was changed; this electronic edition adheres as closely as possible to v2.0.

Corrections and formatting in v3.0

1. Some words and phrases were corrected for spelling, consistency, or errors in metric conversion.
2. Most abbreviations were expanded for clarity.
3. Trivial changes such as removing or adding whitespace, capitalization changes, or deleting unnecessary periods at the end of words in a table are not itemized.
4. Hyphenation at ends of line were removed.
5. Words in ALL CAPITALS were changed to boldface.
6. Underlined words were changed to italics.
7. Words that were both ALL CAPITALS AND UNDERLINED were changed to boldface.
8. Page numbers were removed, but the HTML source code has comments that indicate the v2.0 page numbers; look for “IMH v2.0 page number nnn” in the HTML source code of this document. The PDF edition does not provide a way to view the HTML comments.
9. Most mixed numbers (i.e., consisting of a whole number and a fraction) have a hyphen in v2.0 (e.g., 1-1/4 inch). For consistency, all mixed numbers are now shown with a hyphen; e.g., 1 1/4 inch became 1-1/4 inch.
10. The handbook used both table headings “Material Required” and “Materials Required”. All former were changed to the latter for consistency.
11. Likewise the handbook used both table headings “Common Source” and “Source”. All former were changed to the latter for consistency.
12. Section numbers were changed from Roman to Arabic numerals in keeping with current practice; e.g., Section V, No. 7 became Section 5.7
13. Although this document is titled the Improvised Munitions Handbook, improvised munitions are now better known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs. The current expression was added in parentheses alongside each occurrence of the title.

^(a)For consistency with other occurrences of the same phrase.
^(b)This corrects an inaccurate conversion in v2.0 from U.S. weights and measures to the metric system.
^(c)Although both spellings are correct, the change was made for consistency with other occurrences of the same word.
^(d)For consistency with the rest of the handbook, the abbreviation cc was changed to milliliters.
^(e)The procedure was misnumbered in v2.0.
^(f)Sections 13 and 14 of the v2.0 reprint were renamed Appendix 1 and 2 in v3.0. (There were no sections 8 through 12 in v2.0.) Sections 13 and 14 of v2.0 had different typefaces and layouts from the rest of the book. These discrepancies suggest that sections 13 and 14 were copied from a different source and bound into v2.0.

C.2 Copyright Information

This work is in the public domain. The original work was created by U.S. Federal Government employees in their official capacity. Therefore by United States Code, title 17, section 105, it is not subject to copyright.

This electronic edition is anti-dedicated to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein who authored a federal law that makes it illegal in certain circumstances to publish documents just like this one. The military is essentially immune to this law, but civilians lose free speech, a concept that apparently means nothing to Feinstein. (Sherman Austin is an example of a person jailed under Feinstein's law.)

Feinstein feigns disgust at the dissemination of information about explosives without acknowledging the U.S. military's prominent role in producing exactly the kind of information that she condemns. This handbook is indisputable proof of the military's involvement with improvised explosive devices; in fact, the Improvised Munitions Handbook has been the definitive reference on IEDs since the 1970's.

What absurdity Feinstein has created. The military creates and uses technology that the public can not even discuss without fearing prosecution under Feinstein's draconian law.