MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE — On Wednesday morning, a small cannon fired a projectile into a cardboard box at the explosives range at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
"We'll use that for opening up suspicious items or to gain access into a bag or a box so we can further interrogate whatever it is with our robot,” said Technical Sergeant Tristan Crandall, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team leader.
The EOD team is the military equivalent of a civilian bomb squad.
"We have various mission sets to cover all of the normal bomb squad requirements, anything somebody might run into out in town, but we also cover all military munitions as well,” explained Crandall.
The cannon-cardboard box scenario was the second of two the EOD team demonstrated on Wednesday.
The first, and the one that left a crater in the ground, was an explosion the equivalent of about 10 sticks of dynamite.
"This is going to be replicating the large explosions people may hear. We're right at what our comfortable limit is, non-emergency,” said Crandall. "Part of our home station role is to continue training for various mission sets, including what we may encounter when we deploy. That's where some of our other training, including our large explosion training, may come into play."
TSgt Crandall explains some of the tools used by the EOD team:
