You posted something similar earlier about how Iran-Contra led to Iranian TOWs, and I had to point out that we had been selling the Shah TOWs since the 1970s, years before Iran-Contra. You didn't respond.
As far as I've read, the munitions that Iran has been accused of providing Iraqi insurgents includes Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS) and RPG types 7 and 29. There have been other references to shoulder-fired SAMs. But, I haven't seen mention of TOWs, until now.
The argument cooked up about Iranian responsibility for American losses in Iraq due to IEDs and RPGs is pretty thin. Large, effective IEDs first appreared in Sunni areas west and north-west of Baghdad in May 2005 after the first round of Parliamentary elections brough a Shi'a dominated regime to power, effectively cementing Iran's control over southern Iraq. The Iranians have had little reason to upset the status quo, but the Sunnis and Saudi Arabia, have a lot of reason to want to reshuffle the deck. The breakaway Shia militia, al-Sadr's Mahdi army, is known to have worked in the past with Sunni militias.
As for RPG-29s, these are Russian sourced and aren't known to be manufactured in Iran. RPG-7s are everywhere, and frankly are considered to be light arms at this point.
I wouldn't reinforce the message that Iran is actually responsible for manufacturing and providing the devices that have killed US troops. The case isn't at all conclusive.
Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) in Iraq likely are not the result of reverse-engineering of TOWs. The use of EFPs date back to WWII, and are essentially shaped charges (plastic explosives) clad in metal cones, that upon ignition turn into a molten plasma jet that penetrate armour at short distances ahead of a larger charge that gets detonated miliseconds later. These aren't smart munitions, like TOWs, but are instead stationary munitions usually buried or sometimes dropped from overpasses. This type of stationary munition has been used quite effectively for years by Hezbollah against Israeli tanks, and the technology is now widely known throughout the region. None of the components are terribly sophisticated, and the materials are widely available inside Iraq.
Here's the history of shaped charges and EFPs:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/bullets2-shaped-charge.htmShaped Charge History
Charles Edward Munroe was the inventor of "The Monroe Effect" in explosives in 1885. He noted that a high explosive with a cavity facing a target left an indentation.
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Shaped charges were first developed after World War I to penetrate tanks and other armored equipment. A cylindrical charge that lies flat against the armour and is being initiated in one end gives a directed detonation effect so that a hole is created at the point of contact is Generation I. If that charge is equipped with a conical hole the force of the explosion will be channeled further and increases the chances for a penetration it is Generation II. The most common type of hollow charge munitions is the jet creating hollow charge, also called Hollow Charge Generation III. The other type of hollow charge munition is the projectile creating munition. It is referred to as Genetration IV. Gen I and Gen II (developed during the WW II) are predecessors to Gen III and IV but they are no longer in use in any munitions.
The "shaped charge" was introduced to warfare as an anti-tank device in World War II after its re-discovery in the late 1930s. In 1935, Henry Mohaupt, a chemical engineer established a laboratory in Zurich to develop an effective anti-tank weapon that could be used by infantry soldiers. Henry Mohaupt was the inventor of the lined shaped charge. Other accounts mention earlier work by R.W. Wood of the John Hopkins University Physics Department as the discoverer of the metal liner principle. After the war started, Mohaupt came to the United States, and in October 1940 he took over direction of the bazooka project.
In January, 1945, Ramsey C. Armstrong founded Well Explosives Company, Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. He decided to pursue perforating technology related to the bazooka, an anti-tank device based on the shaped charge concept. Armstrong contacted Mohaupt in Washington, DC, where he was then working for the Navy, and in October of 1946, Mohaupt and his wife made the long drive from Washington to Fort Worth.
The Beehive Charge was a six in diameter shaped charge demolition/sabotage device devised by the UK in October 1941.
The RPG-43 Ruchnaya Protivotankovaya Granata ("Hand Anti-Tank Grenade") Model 1943 was Russia's first shaped charge grenade for anti-tank purposes. It replaced the RPG-40 which was an ordinary stick grenade with an oversized high explosive head. It had an impact fuze with a 95mm diameter warhead containing 612g of TNT which could penetrate 75mm of armor.
In 1965 a Russian scientist proposed that a shaped charge originally developed for piercing thick steel armor be adapted to the task of accelerating shock waves. The resulting device, looking little like a wind tunnel, is called a Voitenko compressor. The Voitenko compressor initially separates a test gas from a shaped charge with a malleable steel plate. When the shaped charge detonates, most of its energy is focused on the steel plate, driving it forward and pushing the test gas ahead of it. Ames translated this idea into a self-destroying shock tube. A 66-pound shaped charge accelerated the gas in a 3-cm glass-walled tube 2 meters in length. The velocity of the resulting shock wave was a phenomenal 220 000 feet per second. The apparatus exposed to the detonation was, of course, completely destroyed, but not before useful data were extracted.
The US Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, an ARL predecessor organization, made several important contributions to the development of shaped-charge technology. BRL scientists delineated the penetration mechanics of the stretching, high-velocity jet of metal that is formed by the warhead, thus making it possible to design relatively light, inexpensive weapons to defend against tanks. Guided missiles, such as Shillelagh, TOW, Dragon, and Hellfire, exploited the high penetration capability of such warheads with accurate fire at long range. Further contributions included the demonstration of tandem shaped-charge warheads and the application of advanced liner material technology that increased jet velocity and ductility and provided enhanced lethality within existing weapon system envelopes.
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In early 1997, Lawrence Livermore successfully tested a shaped charge that penetrated 3.4 meters of high-strength armor steel. The largest diameter precision shaped charge ever built produced a jet of molybdenum that traveled several meters through the air before making its way through successive blocks of steel.
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