The Proliferation of 3D Printed Explosive Devices

Ghost Guns? How about Ghost Bombs?

This article won’t tell you how to make the things. There are plenty of available resources if that’s what you’re after. I’m just going to report on the trend and the strategic and policy implications. Please don’t do this yourself, it’s very easy to blow yourself up.

About a year ago I discovered a brilliant gentleman who runs a business known as Ordnance Lab, who are at the absolute forefront of this domain.

As a licensed explosives manufacturer, O-Lab has been hard at work legally printing every kind of nasty explosive device you can imagine. They are, after all, researchers who specialize in that kind of thing.

One such device that caught my attention was a 3D printed EFP type anti-tank device.

EFP stands for Explosively Formed Penetrator, a type of explosive device that acts on a small concave metal plate by turning it into a high speed ball-like projectile capable of piercing armored vehicles. There’s an awesome physics simulation that shows what these things do in ultra slow motion.

Every part of the device including the metal plate is 3D printed. The only parts the user has to obtain are the explosive filler and detonator.

What this means is that anyone who previously had the capability to build an IED can now build a vast stable of specialized explosive devices. O-Lab is hardly the only entity working with these things, and just they alone have developed everything from mortar shells to hand grenades and an exploding martini glass. Others have developed rotary bomb racks that can be fitted on FPV drones, delivering Close Air Support on a tight budget.

While Washington regulators are scrambling for ways to ban 3D printed guns, something that I’m not sure how they would enforce, there’s a whole world of 3D printed exotic explosives proliferating right under their nose.

I believe we should take a rational and non-emotional view of this situation. A dirty secret is that it has been incredibly easy to produce IEDs for years. The materials are out there and not really regulated. Sure some of them are regulated, but there’s ready alternatives you can get your hands on.

It’s likely we’ll see more complex and targeted attacks taking place with these exotic explosives, but they don’t really increase the potential for mass casualties. If anything these new weapons are more discerning than the last generation. After all, somebody can already put an IED on a drone and drive it into somebody they don’t like. It’s an activity I’m told has become quite popular in Eastern Europe.

What these new exotic devices bring to the table are consistency, precision, and an anti-vehicle capability — features that are well suited to guerilla forces operating in austere environments. Expect to see them show up in Malaysia, the middle east, and all over Africa and South America. They’ll be in the hands of freedom fighters, cartels, mafias, and private military contractors.

As scary as these things are I don’t think regulating 3D printers to prevent this is desirable or even possible. How’s the printer supposed to know the difference between a landmine and a replacement shell for your roomba?

Instead, we should address the root causes of violence. Poverty, inequality, social alienation, the prison industrial complex, lack of opportunity, and lack of access to quality mental and physical healthcare.

Science tells us that removing the motivations for violence is both more effective and easier to accomplish than bubble wrapping our entire world.

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