What is a "roadside bomb", exactly?

[fishnfla]

We keep hearing stories about US casualties due to this ambiguous term. What exactly is a roadisde bomb? I have not seen any press descriptions of this. They are not old fashioned pressure activated mines I take it. I gather they are remote-controlled devices of some sort.
How do they work? are they hidden in debris or what? how can they stop these type of attacks?

[DUreader]

1. Whatever they are, they now destroy Tanks

[quinnox]

2. Don't know

I guess it would require a military commander in the region or a general overseeing the operation to say what it is exactly.

They probably can't prevent the attack if it's done by remote or maybe even sensor triggered.

[alcuno]

3. They can be detonated from a distance away.

Like a remote control. You wait for the Americans to drive by and then push the button. As for the tank that was blown up, that was an anti-tank mine that was used.

[Khephra]

4. I used to think it was one of those Stucky Logs

You'd get at roadstops, but I guess I was wrong.

[Aidoneus]

5. probably radio-activated or remote activated device

The substance may vary greatly, it can either be a bomb constructed to take the form of a landmine, or some unexploded artillery/tank shell rigged with some sort of improvised detonator to go off. Depending on the location, they're either hidden next to a road where occupation forces travel, or buried within the road itself.

The Israelis tried some things in the course of their criminal occupation of Lebanon, such as flying a plane over areas the military forces were going to travel over and trigger the radio-controlled detonations before crossing, but the Lebanese found a way around that also. To the best of my knowledge, the Russian invaders have found no way of stopping the roadside bombs the Chechens plant against their occupation military forces.

There basically is no way to stop them except knowing the guy who buried/hid them and getting him/her to cough it up (or the much easier route of not occupying somebody elses country, that's the best way to stop them).

[JanMichael]

6. What you do is take a RC toy controller & have it set off...

...plastic explosives as a convoy drives by.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

[jody]

7. Roadside bombs are all of the above and they can't be stopped 100%. eom

[fishnfla]

8. Well then I guess our troopers are going to keep dying?

In ones and twos, almost every day, for how long?

There's got to be away to stop them. Bringing the troops home would be the most obvious.

[jody]

10. Yes, our troops will continue dying until AWOL brings them home. eom

[karlschneider]

9. My friends and I built bombs back in high school in the 50s. Some BIG

ones. How to make a bomb is no secret, and any Radio Shack will sell you a 20 dollar remote-controlled toy that contains everything necessary to detonate one from a distance. We say "it isn't rocket science", but it'd be even more accurate to say "it ain't bomb science."

[JanMichael]

11. Me too! But in the 80's.

We did all sorts of things with remote controls and Estes Rockets...


PS~ No people or animals were hurt duuring that period...Except that I'm left with a perforated eardrum and 24/7/365 ringing since 1980.