We often come across bomb disposal scenes, especially in detective movies. You may have come across the reality of these scenes, which can easily convey the tension to the people on the screen, in the news. As standard, we see the bomb disposal expert in his special suit and other security forces at a certain distance from him. In movies, we usually see a bomb disposal expert and another officer who supports him from afar.
What exactly these people do there is seen by most as simple. After all, the bottom (!) cable will be cut, right? So what’s stopping them from cutting them all at once?
Unfortunately, things don’t quite work out the way we see them in the movies.
Although there are common methods for setting up bombs, there is no standard. For this reason, it is possible to see photographs of strange mechanisms. We simply dominate two types. One of them is explosives that can be activated remotely by radio signals, which we are accustomed to from games, while the other is the ones activated with the help of a switch or button connected to the circuit.
Let’s get rid of the most common.
When you look at the eastern sides, where military conflicts are more intense, you will see very amateurishly prepared simple mechanisms. As most bomb disposal experts confirm, in such setups, turning off the power is actually enough to defuse the bomb. So here is the “red wire or green?” We can say that there is no such confusion. However, it should be noted that military personnel never act on memorization in such matters.
On the countdown or connected to a mechanical system, there are also those activated by radio signals. It is noteworthy that a phone is usually used for these.
But bombs aren’t always going to be like this.
You remember the strange traps in the chainsaw movies, and the interesting (and disgusting) solutions to neutralize them. It is possible to be creative in bomb setups, though not as much as in this movie. But since the events in the eastern parts we mentioned are developing at an incredible speed, no one sits down and tries to set up mixed circuits. In this context, even though simple circuits are circulating, the large number of them and the amateur way make things difficult.
We said that in simple circuits, turning off the power can often simply destroy the bomb. So why “which cable is the power cable?” instead of thinking they don’t cut them all?
As we mentioned before, there is no certain standard in bomb production. Simply, you can get explosives when you mix two specific chemicals, or when you combine mixed circuits to form explosives.
Let’s explain it more simply. Let’s think a little…
You act as a bomb disposal expert. You notice that the power cord is dark blue in every explosive you encounter, and for a while you see it as standard, even though no security forces do it.
When the person who produced the explosives wants to buy materials one day, he sees that there are no colored cables left. In this context, this image welcomes you:
So what would you do now? The blue wire is no longer there, because it doesn’t matter if the wire is colored or not. The important thing is to find the power cord and disable triggers if there are any. It could be a telephone, it could be a mechanically attached wire, it could be a remote in the hands of someone nearby, and so on.
That’s why no bomb mission is based on memorization. We have seen before in our country that citizens inadvertently destroyed bombs in certain ways, and the strangest thing was the person who kicked the bomb. But it’s important to remember that comedy can be followed by disaster, as explosives can also be tuned to react to it.
As for cutting every wire…
We can say that it is impossible to cut the electric current at the same time, even if there are many people with you. This requires being fast enough and no one would want to take that risk with too many people when it comes to a bomb. That’s why in every explosive mission, teams act with the same meticulousness and professionalism. In addition, other than one cable may be set as a trigger. For this reason, the bomb itself is analyzed as deeply as possible before starting the bomb disposal process.
If it seems that it cannot be solved, the safety of the environment is ensured and then the explosive is activated in a controlled manner.
As a result, we saw that cutting all the wires wouldn’t do much. In addition, we saw that the color of the wire did not mean anything, it only came to the fore during the communication between the bomb disposal expert and the officer he was talking to. If there were no colors, there would be countless options such as “right, left, third, middle”. Perhaps the use of particularly striking colors highlights the stress in movies. What are your thoughts on this? You can share it in the comment section.
- Sources: Bomb Disposal Specialist Lloyd Davies/Insider, RUSI
- Image Sources: FearfulFerret