Silly String Goes to War Against IEDs

Luban Doyle writes "In an age of multimillion-dollar high-tech weapons systems, sometimes it's the simplest ideas that can save lives. Which is why a New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to Iraq. American troops use the stuff to detect trip wires around bombs, as Marcelle Shriver learned from her son, a soldier in Iraq."

Comments

Re:Government should pay

[LWATCDR]

Because to make sure that the contractors are not cheating the government they would have to spends years and months putting it out for a competitive bids, writing specs, and following regulations.
To give you an example the USMC wanted to buy the software my company produces.
It had tried several and like ours the best. So they wrote a spec that our software fit and put it out for bids.
The request for bid came in a BOX that weighed 50lbs! Mind you this was off the self software that thousands of other people where using everyday.
Fine we did the paperwork and summited a bid at a low price. A competing company then submitted their software for the bid and lied that it would meet the specs. We lost the bid by $50. Of course our yearly support contract was $500 a year less for that number of seats than the winner.
Fine three years latter the other company was out of the business because frankly their software sucked and it started all over again.
We won it this time but the government wasted well over $100,000 on software that was now useless.
There are so many rules and regulations in place to stop abuse that it extremely painful to get anything done.
Back in the late 90s a lot of pilots bought their own GPS and laptops because the Air-Force hadn't installed the integrated mil-spec units yet.
In the 80s they bought radar detectors for the same reason.
This isn't really anything new. Soldiers have been buying supplemental equipment since David spent his allowance and a state of the art sling and extra hard stones.

Re:Government should pay

[darkmeridian]

It's near-impossible to predict exactly what troops on the ground need before you actually get there. Therefore, American soldiers have always innovated in the absence of the right tool for the job. In World War II, soldiers fighting in France were getting bogged down in hedgerows, which were basically dunes. Aerial photos did not reveal the three-dimensional structure of the hedgerows, so the soldiers were not prepared for such a battlefield. Defending Germans would lay in ambush behind every hedgerow, and American soldiers going over the top of the hedgerows were mowed down by German machine gun fire.

Initially, GIs tried to dynamite the hedgerows so they could attack from a more concealed position. Though this met with some success, it took up too much dynamite. Other GIs tried to drive tanks through the hedgerows, but those got stuck and wouldn't reliably penetrate the hedgerows. Eventually, the soldiers welded on a long metal rod onto tanks. The tip of the rod contained a barrel of explosives that was detonated once the tank shoved the rod into the hedgerow. The "Rhino" saved many American lives by creating a fast and safer way to secure hedgerows in France.

The current administration should be faulted for many things. However, not being able to anticipate Silly String as a precious wartime commodity should not be one of them. I mean, no one would have thought that this would have saved American lives -- and in fact, it was only the innovation of the American soldier that created such a need for a child's toy.

Re:Government should pay

[Lumpy]

They do. it has a pair of UV led's at the nozzle exit to make the phosphorus glow get charged on the way out of the nozzle and it looks more like a Mace can than a silly string can.

My nephew brought one home from Desert Storm. the special ops have had this stuff for at least 10 years. It's just that silly string bran is far cheaper.