We all know it was Snipers that were the major killer in Iraq. When they took out JUBA the sniper attacks died down. Then the major killer in Iraq were IED’s. These were usually large amount of explosives put on the side of the road, under the road, in dead animals, or even in vehicles.

The American solution to this problem was to increase armor on the poorly protected HUMVEEs that were currently deployed in Iraq. While this did work for a while, the Insurgents who are supposedly supplied by Iran (not proven yet) stepped up and came out with more powerful explosives which continued to kill American troops in Iraq.

This brings us to current day and the use of EFPs. These are “Explosively Formed Penetrators” and are deadly in any form. They are generally cylindrical and fabricated from commonly available pipe, with the end closed off by a concave copper or steel disk-shaped liner that will create the shaped charge. When this device is detonated it forms the cap into a deadly molten copper/steel penetrator that has a velocity of over 1 KM/S.

At this speed and the fact that it is molten copper, it can easily penetrate HUMVEE armor and even the armor on a super strong Abbrams Tank. This can even pose a serious risk to the brand new bomb proof MRAP’s which are being deployed in Iraq right now.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator