You're listening to a stage talk titled Identifying Explosive Ordnance in Social Media Imagery. This week, we continued our discussion on weapon identification with Andrew Mathewson, a former Bellingcat Tech fellow and researcher at the Haylor Trust, who is now working for the Center for Information Resilience. He talked us through his guide on verifying EOs. in many different conflict regions. This talk was hosted by me, Charlotte Ma, on Thursday the 27th of March 2025 in the Bella
Cat Discord server. We're here with another stage talk. This week we're revisiting a topic we approached last week, well, two weeks ago, identifying weaponry. You can listen back to the talk a fortnight ago on the amazing resource that is the open source munitions portal now on any podcast platform. But today we're here with former Bellingcat Tech Fellow and War Studies student, Andrew Mathewson, to chat about explosive ordnance identification.
If you didn't know already, explosive ordnance are munitions that contain explosives and can detonate without warning, killing or injuring civilians long after conflicts have ended. The rise in conflict imagery on social media has both helped and hindered open source research efforts. There is now more footage of EOs than ever before, but within recent conflicts we've seen an uptake in false weapon claims contributing
to myths and disinformation. So Andrew here thought he should write up a guide to help verify the most common types of EO. He did just that last year and now is here to talk about it and to dig a little deeper into the types of EO you might find in particular regions. If you'd like to ask a question please so do Do so in the chat. Remember, this is being audio recorded. So if you don't want me to read out your Discord username,
please include that within your question. You can find the chat in the corner of your screen on the right -hand side. It's a little speechable. Okay. I'll be back with questions in a bit. Hopefully I can now hand over the mic to Andrew. Thank you all for joining today. I'm a past Bellingcat Tech Fellow and also a PhD student in War Studies
at King's College, London. Previously to my studies and my time at Bellingcat, I was a global research officer at the Halo Trust, which is one of the largest humanitarian demining organizations in the world, where I used open source intelligence to map minefields, primarily in Eastern Ukraine, but a few other countries as well. and that was the inspiration behind the beginner's guide to identifying explosive ordnance in social media.
A bit more backstory on that. Essentially, I was working in Eastern Ukraine since April 2021, so prior to the full -scale Russian invasion in Eastern Ukraine. However, obviously, when Russia invaded in February 2022, the majority
of our team had to leave the country. For the next two or three months, we were really wondering what we can do to support the people of Ukraine, to keep our teams on the ground informed that were remaining in Ukraine, and how we can map any potential minefields that were being laid
in the country. And obviously, as probably most of you are aware, with the first few months of the war in Ukraine, the explosion of material that was created online on Twitter, on Telegram, on any other social media platform, really has provided such a wealth of information for any open source intelligence investigations, whether it's mapping minefield, war crimes investigations, human rights abuses, or more just generally conflict
mapping. And obviously I think that the conflict in Gaza has sort of solidified the real strength that open source intelligence can play in conflict monitoring and even for justice and accountability,
for example. But back to the guide. And so for the first two or three months of since the Russian full scale invasion, All we really could do from sitting abroad in the UK was really look at the imagery that was coming from the conflict and try to identify where mines were being laid, whether that's by the Ukrainians defending or even defensive minefields once Russians had occupied areas in Ukraine. This started out very, very
simply. looking at social media imagery, but obviously this developed into a very, very larger scale effort that the Halo Trust continues to use in terms of prioritizing minefield clearance. But obviously, as I'm sure most of you are aware, during the whole, during the conflict and during the war in Gaza, for example, there has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation narratives, including around weapons use. And so that was the primary driving force behind working with
Bellingcat. on creating the beginner's guide. I think it's really important because I know one of Bellingcat's central missions is for investigations to be reproducible by anyone with OSINT skills. I think that's really important when talking about munitions identifying too. The reason why it's really called a beginner's guide to identification is because it is somewhat limited in where it focuses only on specifically the types of munitions
and not models. those of you who might have a bit more experience with explosive ordnance, there's probably a million different types, specific types and models of ordnance when you really get into the details. But for a lot of the larger scale pictures of investigations and research, the type of munition is generally sufficient. And that's more or less the case for mine clearance at this level where we're at all. to identify whether they're landmines or other types of unexploded
ordnance for example. Walking through the guide itself and the whole process, the main aspect of the guide is the identifying features of the different types of munitions. If you're lucky enough to have a very clear image of the explosive ordnance, we're really looking to get as much information as we can at the first instance. So any text on the munitions is really important. Often it might include producer codes, it might even tell you the type of munition exactly it
is, the model. Many landmines, for example, have even the production year stamped on them, which can be really interesting information as well. But obviously, talking about social media imagery or munitions that have been in place for many years, often that's very important. possible together, and it's very dependent on the source material, the source image. So if you can't really identify any text, color can be really helpful.
One of the more basic things is the color of the munitions, and they can identify, for example, for NATO munitions, blue indicates a training or practice round, so it doesn't have any active explosives in it. Although I wouldn't obviously recommend in person that if you do see a blue munition to pick it up, because nonetheless it can still be dangerous. And last but not least, especially for identifying the models, the shape
of the munition is really important. And so for those of you who can see the screen, obviously you can see, for example, one of the the writing on the munition and this is part of a Bellingcat investigation where a fragment of a US -made bomb found in Mali is showing a cage code outlined in green on the screen and also a NATO stock
number outlined in red. So this not only allows the exact type of weapon to be identified but actually it's manufacturer as well and so depending on the investigation that you might be conducting that's really really important and really valuable information which you really wouldn't be able to get unless you have that text. visible in the source image. As I said, color can be really important as well. On the screen, you can see a laser guided bomb made in a paveway laser guided
bomb. It's very obviously very large and blue in color, the warhead of the bomb specifically, which identifies that it's a training material because it was during a visit by the French defense minister to a military air base. Beyond those two things, obviously, many of the munitions that we might be looking at in social media, it can be degraded. They can be rusted. They can be muddy. If we're talking about large conventional
warfare and trench warfare. Really, sometimes all we have to go by is the actual shape of the munition. As I said in the beginning, there's a... a vast, vast amount of exact models of explosive ordnance. In this guide, we're specifically looking just at the type of munitions. I decided to focus on specifically 11 types of explosive ordnance, because those are generally the most commonly used munitions in conventional warfare, such
as is the war in Ukraine. That would be artillery, which are projectiles, As you can see on the screen, for example, so there's sort of objects that are normally forced from a gun and follows a trajectory by virtue of kinetic energy. So artillery shells are the most common example. And they're generally not very long. They're quite cylindrical. They've got a point in those, which is the fuse and also a driving band at the end. And almost always they have a very flat
base. Afterwards, grenades, obviously very common in conventional warfare, especially in trench warfare and close hand -to -hand fighting. Very small bombs, essentially, but most common items, grenades will have safety pins and fuses, which are very visibly easy to identify. Afterwards, rockets, generally self -propelled, but don't have a necessarily controlled trajectory very often, but they're often very quite long and narrow in shape and have fins at the end for
stabilization in flight. Mortars, commonly sort of tight explosive used in conventional warfare, they have quite distinct bodies. They also have fins but spigots at the end where Gas is expelled, so they have quite a distinctive teardrop shell, so they're generally quite easy to identify.
Landmines, which is my expertise, given my work at the Halo Trust, while many landmines are flat, such as anti -tank mines or anti -personnel mines, they do come in a lot of shapes and sizes, and that is generally the case for all these munitions covered in the guide as well. So it is more... The guide does focus on the most commonly identifiable items of these different types of munitions.
Number six is submunitions. These are known as cluster munitions, so obviously fired normally from larger rockets and then dispersed over a large area. and they're much smaller in size, but almost always they have fins and a fuse at the top of the body. But sometimes they do, for example, come in a ball shape as well. So not always identical in terms of their shape and
size as well. I also identified small arms ammunition, which is sometimes difficult to identify in social media imagery because they're quite small in size. And it's very often to also to identify the exact model of small arms ammunition is quite difficult. And then we're moving to fuses, which is essentially not a type of ammunition in itself,
but normally part of a munitions payload. And this is the functioning top of a ammunition, so often seen on artillery shells, mortars as well, and grenades in different sizes and shapes. But they're generally the smallest. Item covered by this guide besides small arms ammunitions. Guided weapons. So these normally have a guidance system, so quite complex in their actual internal functioning and generally have an onboard propulsion system as well. Aerial bombs, which are the largest.
category in the guide. And so as the name denotes, obviously dropped from aircraft, very large in size, often, for example, used very extensively in the conflict in Gaza right now. And last but not least, IEDs and booby traps. And often these are the most difficult to identify. because they have no uniform shape, and they have no uniform structure. Very often, these might have a power source, such as a battery, and wires, and explosive container. But still, they're not mass produced,
except in a very few cases. So they are quite difficult to identify as well. And so those are the key models that I covered in the guide. And one thing I also created for the guide as part of my tech fellowship was a repository of resources. Identifying munitions in social media imagery is almost like working through catalogs of reference
material. And I know there's a few that you might be familiar with, such as the open source munitions portal, which is extremely helpful and especially helpful when trying to identify the exact model of explosive ordnance. But out there, and I believe Charlie will be dropping the chat in the link. The link in the chat is the repository of open source reference material where there's both imagery and the sizes and different aspects of a lot of the munitions that you might see in
conflicts nowadays. But that's a very brief overview to the guide and the inspiration behind it and some of the things that you might be able to do with the guide as well. So I'll pass back to Charlie now and hopefully we'll have a great discussion if there's any questions from the group. But thank you all for tuning in. Thank you so much, Andrew. Sorry, I turned off my camera for a second there because we were experiencing a little bit of lag on our side. So I just wanted
to make sure that that didn't... continue. But thank you so much for talking us through it. I know a couple of the people couldn't see your screen, but the great thing about these audio podcasts is that we describe it in such detail that you don't actually need to be able to see it. So thank you so much. And I know a lot of people were also following along via the guide
in the chat which I dropped. I've also shared the Bellingcat Explosive Ordnance Identification Resources sheet that you mentioned within the chat. And Jake from our team has also been sharing some really amazing resources. Jake said, worth following for published investigations on small arms, which is the smallarmssurvey .org. And alternatively for small arms and a lot of investigations on stuff similar to what Andrea is talking about. Conflict armament research is an excellent resource.
Who spoke last two weeks ago as part of the open source munitions portal team. Please make sure you're putting your questions within the chat. I'll be reading them out in a second. I wanted to ask because we've just shared quite a lot of different details on identifying munitions and different types of characteristics that you
can look out for. Is there some thought to actually thinking about the region that you're looking at specifically and whether there's certain EOs that are more common in different types of conflict. Are there any resources or kind of key factors that you can talk to about that? Yeah, definitely. Thanks, Ro. I mean, I think so that the regionality
of the source material is really important. It's one of the contextual clues that can be really helpful in identifying especially the type of munition rather than the model specifically, but different conflict zones will have difference. and suppliers of weaponry very often. And so obviously, for example, in the conflict in Gaza, many of the aerial dropped weapons are, for example, supplied to the Israeli armed forces by the United
States. And so it's very likely that if you are seeing any aerial dropped bombs in the conflict in Gaza, those are most likely US made. Obviously, that's not 100 % of them, but many of them will be, as the US is a major arms provider to Israel. the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Obviously in the very early stages of the Russian invasion, back to 2014, 2015, for example, the Ukrainian armed forces weren't receiving almost any support, especially in terms of weaponry
from Western countries. So most of the munitions from that time period in far Eastern Ukraine... would have been domestically produced Ukrainian weapons or even legacy Soviet weapons as well. And obviously since then, there have been extremely many different providers of weaponry in Ukraine to both sides in the conflict. And so it has become much more complicated in that region and in that respect as well. But I think One thing that's quite important to note there is this
is where timing comes in as well. So beyond obviously the locality of the source image, the timing of the source image can be quite important as well. There are not that many imagery, for example, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But obviously during that period, for example, if you are looking at any imagery that has munitions, it's most likely to be Soviet imagery. And if we're looking at imagery from the global war on terror, for example, and the US action in
Afghanistan, it's much more complex again. So it really depends both on timing and area of the war zone. And that can help you really narrow down. the origin of the weapon at least, which is, you know, any information is helpful when trying to, especially when trying to identify the exact model rather than just the general
type. Absolutely. And as you mentioned, there's some conflicts, some regions that aren't as represented as others, and you have to kind of work backwards in terms of who's arming this particular country and this particular conflict. And we mentioned a couple of the regional conflicts that aren't as well represented in social media imagery, at least in the previous talk two weeks ago. So please do listen back for that as well and
that discussion. We've got a few people in the chat who are new to the world of exquisite ordinances. I wanted to just ask how you, you mentioned that you were at the HALO Trust, but how did you first really get interested in exploring this particular topic? and looking further and what kind of things helped you at the beginning, kind of really remember
the different types of munitions. Yeah, I mean, I think nobody in the world knows every different type of munition, not a model, especially the models, even exposed warrants, disposal technicians with 20 years of experience what know every single model that's out there. And as I said earlier, And there's new types and being developed probably daily, especially with all the conflicts going on. So I think the basics is the most important
thing to get straight. And I think this is, again, one of the inspirations behind my guide as well, where I think depending on the level of detail that every investigation is going on or the use of the research that you might be producing. You might not necessarily always need to be as specific as the model. You might not need to know exactly if it's a delay fuse, for example, if it's a time fuse, if it's a magnetic influence fuse. You might just need to know that it's an
artillery shell. and maybe like the size of it if you can try and identify that from an imagery as well, although that's sometimes difficult as well. I personally got started in OSINT and munitions research more from an academic perspective. During my undergraduate degree, I was working with a professor as a research assistant on conflict, specifically looking at drones. ISIS in the Middle East was doing a lot of innovations using small drones and drone drop munitions, which is nowadays
a common place in conflicts. That really got me interested in about some of the manually manufactured munitions, for example, that insurgency groups have used and we've seen across the world. into an interest in munitions and weaponry more generally speaking. But I think for people who are more new in the space, the basics is really that important. And that's not just the basics of munitions identifying,
but the basics of OSINT as well. thinking about verifying an imagery, there's no point in spending a day or two or three going through reference books of munitions to try and identify what it is. If it's a false, if it's a, if it's a, you know, AI generated image, for example, or if
it's disinformation, misinformation. So I think, you know, identifying the explosive is just one part of picture as well, in general picture of trying to understand what is the truth and what exactly is being shown on the source material. Your thing about not everybody knowing everything about ordinances really resonated. Someone said, if someone says they know everything about ordinance, they are lying. And a few other people have actually
done explosive courses. So somebody said, I studied about explosives in my course with advocacy. Assembly in collaboration with Amnesty International is really helpful. We've got a few questions coming in now. Someone's asked, how would you go about identifying a less known type of munition? For example, in a more remote or less covered conflict. So how would you approach that situation? I think this is where essentially collaboration with people on the ground, if it's possible,
is really helpful. Conflict armament research that was mentioned earlier, they have experts who are able to deploy to countries and actually study study munitions in detail and into the physical reality, you know, whether that's the actual munitions as a whole or bits of shrapnel that are remnant. I think the one thing that is really impressive and that's just about, you know, as OSINT as a whole, it's amazing what
you can do with very little information. And I think, you know, very often identifying the exact model is impossible, but generally a type or even a larger category of the munition can be identified. I think if we're talking about conflicts or even zones that are not necessarily termed conflicts, thinking about Mexican cartels where there's a lot of booby traps and IDs being used, honestly, it is sometimes impossible to identify exactly what you're looking at and you're
not always going to succeed. But if you look at the repository that I think Charlie shared in the chat, there is a striking amount of reference material in there. going as far back as even the US Civil War. So if you're looking at really historical things, I know there's people, for example, that have used those guys to identify munitions that they've found through metal detecting as a hobby. Bullet Picker is one of the guides that is my personal favorite. I think it's something
like 800 ,000 entries in there. So it's extremely, extremely in -depth and a really, really great resource. But as I said, unfortunately, sometimes it's not really always possible, especially if you only have one reference image, for example. We've got another question. I noticed cluster munitions are used a lot by both sides in the Ukraine War, and I've read that many of those submunition types do not explode. Does that functionally turn any targeted area as a potential minefield
is being used as a remote mining technique? That's a really good question because some munitions have, at least on the Ukrainian side, increasingly proved their tactical utility against infantry. I think one issue with some munitions from a humanitarian mine clearance perspective is they have a very high failure rate, historically speaking. I wouldn't say it necessarily turns it into a minefield because they're not designed to be
mines, cluster munitions. They're not designed to go off, for example, from pressure or target, or they're not victim operated essentially, unless, but they are obviously very volatile. So, you know, kicking a submunition or picking it up is something I would never recommend. So it is, in a sense, it is a type of minefield, but they're not necessarily being used as a remote mining technique, because that's not what their intended
use really is. However, obviously any area that is littered with subunitions will be very dangerous for both civilians and any military in the area as well. But there are also increasingly a number of mines that can be delivered remotely as well. Both the United States have supplied those to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Russians have a few in their kit as well. So remote mining is possible as well, unfortunately. Scary. Yeah,
subtle knife has putts. Aren't there more specialized versions of this to deliberately mine a space? I think you've just spoken about that yourself. A lot of people are saying that they are really interested in some of the resources you've shared, particularly talking about Um, ways to follow the Bom Bom in Myanmar as well, using Center for Information Resilience and Open Source Munitions Portal, which we talked about last, uh, two weeks
ago as well. Um, the Primal Collective has asked, are there issues with censorship surrounding photos of EO on social media? Um, we haven't really spoken about the actual source that you're using here. Are there issues with those posts being taken down and how do you mitigate that when you're trying to investigate something you've found online? Realistically not. I actually haven't encouraged any issues with censorship. It really depends on the social media. Obviously Telegram
has no censorship really. So any imagery with explosive ordinance is quite... easily accessible there. I mean, I think this is a general point about OSIN where archiving source material is really important in case it gets removed or deleted later. So as soon as, you know, there's anything I might be interested in researching immediately. And the Bellingcat auto -archiver is a very useful tool for that as well. So thank you for the Bellingcat
team for developing that. But no, generally I haven't really come across any major censorship issues. The caveat being that sometimes if it's in as part of an investigation into something that's a bit more sensitive or gruesome, whether it's a potential war crime or civilian harm incident, then obviously sometimes those can get taken down from social media. But not when it's, for example, just an image of explosive ordinance or explosive ordinance being used. I haven't
really come across that more broadly. Often, these images This imagery is just, and there's examples in your guide, actually, if people go and click back on that, they're often, you know, just remnants, metal remnants that people have found buried or thrown under bushes. And they're usually kind of at the corners or away from kind of the scenes of destruction. So yeah, I think it's a really interesting question though. We've had another question back on cluster munitions.
Can you touch on the legality regarding cluster munitions? I don't know if you can speak to that, Andrew, or not. Well, cluster munitions and antipersonnel landmines fall under two separate international treaties. So for signatories of those treaties, they are illegal. However, obviously that doesn't... necessarily mean that even those who have signed the treaties are necessarily stick to those promises.
And we've also seen countries in Europe, I believe the Baltic States and Poland have either already expressed their desire or already have pulled out of the Ottawa Treaty, for example, that is part of the international campaign to ban landmines, which specifically forbids They use production and stockpile of anti -personnel mines or any victim operating mines. However, that doesn't include anti -tank mines. So yes, in theory, plus munitions are illegal under international
humanitarian law. But as I said earlier, the Ukrainians have shown that they do have quite a large tactical utility when used against infantry. However, as I think many of you are probably aware, That's not always been the case, especially by, for example, Russia that has used cluster munitions in heavily urban areas with civilians and caused lots of casualties. I hope that helps clarify that. Thanks for sharing. Keep your questions coming in. We've got about 20 minutes, so please
pop them in the chat. I wanted to ask how you, we talked about how you can't be really an absolute expert in this space. You're not going to know every single ordinance that exists. How do you keep your knowledge up to date? How do you make sure that you know as much as you can at this stage? Do you take courses? Do you consistently check archives? How do you keep fresh in this particular subject? I mean, I think Osin more
generally is practice makes perfect. I wouldn't say it's a muscle memory task, but the more you stare at munitions, the more you see and the more you know, especially the types off by heart and their different particularities. But I think if we're all monitoring various conflicts, in every other post you'll probably see a munition being used or at least a small arms or a light
weapon being used as well. So I think it's really about practice and reading some of the reports that come out from other organizations, conflict arm and research again, ARIs as well, Air Wars, many of these great organizations do fantastic guides about specific munitions, about their use cases. And I think those that have really detailed information about the different components of munitions are fantastic as well, and that's
really getting into depth. But otherwise, if there's individuals interested in really gaining in -depth knowledge, there are organizations that can provide explosive ordnance disposal courses. I mean, they are very expensive courses and very long, and obviously it's dangerous. It's blowing up items of explosive ordnance in real life. But a large constituent part of those courses is learning the different munitions, learning the different constituent parts, learning
how to work with them safely. So it really depends, I guess, how much people want to learn about this topic. But even Explosive Arms Disposal courses, even if you go on a course and never blow up a munition again in your life, it's still really, really useful knowledge for research or OSINT work as well. Have you yourself had that opportunity? So working with the Halo Trust, I was able to go on an EOD course and so I was spoiled in that sense that I didn't have to pay
it for myself. Amazing, amazing. That sounds so interesting. I'm guessing they give you quite the safety talk though. Yeah, there's a lot of safety talks and anybody who has been in the military and probably gone on the EOD course can talk about it as well. Um, but it's a fantastic
experience and it's very unique as well. Um, but yeah, I think it really is just practice makes perfect and, and going through the repositories, some of them have, um, you know, a lot of them have reference images or even technical blueprints from any of the missions. So it can be really, really interesting as well. Uh, someone's asked in the chat, which specific courses did you get to go to? Yeah. So In the humanitarian mine clearance
world, EOD is set by IMAS standards. So that's the International Mine Action Standards, which is globally recognized for humanitarian mine clearance. I have only done the EOD 1 course, which basically permits me to blow up singular items but not move anything or blow up multiple items at once. But generally, there's EOD 1, EOD 2, EOD 3. And then it can go up to EOD 3 plus. and you can also do HIED course, which is humanitarian IED courses, which focuses specifically
on IEDs as well. Each different military will have their own different classification, but those are the globally recognized EOD courses for humanitarian mine clearance, at least. Yeah, sorry about my enthusiasm. I mean, it sounds amazing, but I just want to put a PSA there. Please do not approach explosive ordinances just to see if you can blow them up in real life. It requires a very safe setting and people who know what they're doing around you and a formal
course. So please, please do not go out and get blown up and then say that you did it because you've listened to the stage talk. Somebody's asked in the chat as well about Bellingcat trainings. We don't offer trainings on EO identification, unfortunately. Maybe that's something we should be doing. But we do offer open source research beginning courses and workshops. Those are announced on our workshops page. And there's some announced pretty much every quarter of the year. So keep
your eye on there. That's where they are. Thanks for asking. Keep your questions coming. We've got about 15 minutes left and I would love to know what else you want to know about explosive ordinances. Andrew, while I have you, if you were going to take this guide a step further, obviously you did this as part of your tech fellowship at Bellingcat. What would you do to advance this guide further? What kind of information do you feel? maybe should have been included that wasn't.
I mean, I think more broadly, the next step really is automation. And I know a lot of fantastic people at Bellingcat and other organizations are working on automating many aspects of OSINT more broadly. And I think object recognition comes into it, specifically for exposed awareness, object recognition comes into mind immediately. Even if automated tools can't identify the model exactly, because as I said, that's very difficult, I think identifying the type can be relatively
easy. And there are fantastic NGOs such as Tech4Tracing, which is funded by the European Union, which is working with Halo actually on doing automated detection of anti -tank mines from drone flights. The focus, if I was to expand the guide, wouldn't really be on the guide per se, but I think on, for example, working on auto recognition tools
for social media. Obviously, a lot of the amount of data that comes out of social media research, so telegram channels or even Twitter, and with the ability to scrape those channels now when download images in mass, if you're looking specifically for munitions type, if you could run millions of images that might have munitions through automatic recognition software that can pull out those images and identify the types of munitions in
those images. I think that would be amazing, especially if we're talking about large scale conflict monitoring or investigations about munitions use in particular conflict zones as well. Unfortunately, I don't have the coding skills for that, but maybe someone who's listening does and can pick that up as a next project. I have an idea for how to build that. Please get in touch. Great. We had a few interesting questions that I think I can combine. Sarah's asked, what's the weirdest,
most unexpected ordinance you've run into? And then we've Easy Bay Covens asked, what's the most interesting ordinance item or development? you've seen. So the most weird is the non -expected one and then the most interesting one and they could be the same thing. Yeah, I think weird is strange, but something I saw in Cambodia was three anti -tank mine, anti -tank mines stacked on top of each other, but buried really, really deep. So most landmines will be buried at about
10 to 20 centimeters. Obviously, otherwise the soil will disperse the pressure effect of people or vehicle and then the mine won't work. But in the case in Cambodia, they were buried at about two or three meters and three stacked on top of each other with a wooden stick balanced on top of them and all buried together. And so the stick acting as a pressure mechanism to then pressure on the mines at the bottom. And they were buried that deep, obviously, to avoid detection,
although even that depth. would be too deep for any detection, for any minefield. So I think that was really unexpected and strange, especially at that depth. I think most interesting ordinance developed, a lot of the more domestically made stuff, the 3D printed munitions are really interested. I know the Ukrainians are somewhat at the forefront of that. And I think that that presents almost a challenge in itself for the future as well because many of them are not. are not mass produced.
And so everyone can a little bit different. I know, for example, during the conflict in Sri Lanka, there were mass produced mines in warehouses that were produced by the Tamil tigers, for example. So each mine has a different amount of explosive in it for it. And the body was made out of different pieces every time. So I think, yeah, I think the IEDs have always been, is probably where all the really interesting ordinances developed.
But that's also really complex. But I think in future of more conventional warfare, some of the loitering munitions that are being used in Ukraine are fascinating and scary at the same time. Absolutely. I think 3D printing is going to change a lot of weapon identification munitions. We've got a few more questions coming in and I want to make sure that we can address them before the hour. Alphas asked, upon successfully identifying an EO, how can we begin tracing its
origins and how it got to where it is? I think that's really dependent on the source material. And I think I mentioned this in the guide, but after verifying the source material and identifying the type of EO, if we're looking for the exact model, to be able to trace any origins, you kind of really need the exact model. And that will help, for example, if it's a Western produced munitions or ex Soviet Union or Chinese munition,
for example. And so I think the first step really is, if possible, narrowing down to the exact model. And this is where some of the reference guides and other platforms such as the OSMP come in really handy. Because, for example, for some of the larger incidents on social media that might have already been done by, for example, the OSMP. I think tracing to how it got where
it is is a much more complex investigation. If we're trying to understand, for example, where it was produced, who the manufacturer was, again, as I mentioned earlier, any writing on the munition or on fragments of the munition, that'll be the first go -to to identifying. the producer and manufacturer of the weapon. But unfortunately, just from imagery and social media, sometimes that's very difficult to do. So it's very dependent on the source imagery and if it's in the reference
imagery. But yeah, I hope that helps. But basically the first step is to identify the exact model. our channel, Bombs and other killing machines. Sorry, Bombs, Arms, Drones and other killing machines. There's been a lot of discussion on drone use recently. So do you have any experience covering that and could you speak to it? This is blending into my PhD work, which is on essentially exactly this topic, which is remote delivery
systems. And so looking at drones as a way of remotely mining areas and remotely delivering munitions. to areas. I think the Ukrainians really are at the forefront of this and have been, and as I said earlier, should have inspired by terrorist groups, ISIS, that were some of the first people to develop these drone drop munitions from conventional store -bought drones, DJI drones. I think the big difference between using those drones rather than larger purpose -built systems is the number.
Obviously, many minefields are very large in scale. For example, the minefield on the Cambodian and Thai border is a few hundred kilometers and has many, many different layers of mines. So it really depends on the end goal of the mining. I know the Ukrainians, for example, have been using grenades for targeting specific vehicles, for example, or troops in dugouts or trenches. And FPV drones with attached munitions have been quite effective against armored vehicles. Mines
is a bit more difficult. I know the Ukrainians have used them, for example, to mine areas outside of dugouts, for example, during the night. So secretly mining areas and to inflict casualties in the next day. But I guess it's one of the sort of interesting areas of conflict development that we'll see if it becomes standardized or is again more of a more of a one -off thing in this conflict. Probably second to last or last
question. Michael has mentioned that they're really interested in learning about the workshops and generally related to war crimes investigations and identifications for that purpose. Are you aware of any groups or resources that are free or offer free or low price training. So is there any training that you're aware of or any resources that you're aware of that we haven't mentioned already that are available for people who are
on lower budgets? I think really just going through the repository, I know I've sort of repeated that a few times today, but they're all, almost every single one of them is free. And some of them have really, really detailed and information about the munitions. And so cat UXO, for example, is sort of industry standard for EOD and personnel. And it really depends what you're trying to investigate.
So for example, for the war, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the basic identification of ammunition in Ukraine is a guide by bond text without borders. And they publish new versions every few months. I think they're on version seven now with any new munitions that they've seen. So these are Ukrainian EOD deminers, sappers and foreign volunteers conducting humanitarian demining in Ukraine that are collecting this information. So it's extremely precise. It's extremely detailed and it's from
the ground. So it's very accurate. And then as again, the open source munitions portal is fantastic, really detailed and has the imagery as well. And then there is a paper book guide, which is available to purchase. It's called the Practical Military Ordinance Identification. I think it's on its third edition now. So that's almost a full book on how to identify munitions and their types and models. So that would obviously be much cheaper than a full EOD course, for example.
But really, I think, like a lot of us, a lot of it can be self -taught. And it really is just spending time looking at the repositories and looking at source images on social media, you know, if you type Twitter, munition on Twitter, you'll get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of recent things, recent images from the world's war zones that you can sort of use as practice cases and telegrams the same as well. And so I think you can try and I guess practice makes
perfect. So you can grab an image from any from even maybe the OSMP, but not read what it is. immediately and then try and identify it yourself and check if you've done it correctly. That's probably a fun task to do. Absolutely. I've just shared the repository again, the Bellingcat one, the one that you made, and also the Chord Search one as well. Those are both within the chat right now, so please check them out. They're also within the guide though, along with many other really
useful resources within there. Please do check that out. Sorry, go ahead, Andrew. Yeah, one thing I'd just add is there is also a lot of historical guides that are quite interested. For example, soldiers in the Second World War, many of them were handed out booklets and leaflets about identifying munitions, and those can be found in PDFs online as well. So there's a lot of materials out there as well. So it really, really depends what you're trying to... trying
to identify as well. But it's like studying textbooks almost. Yeah, the potato fields just shared the practical military ordinance identification book, which is really useful. Thanks for sharing that in the chat. Last question, because we've spoken about misinformation and disinformation and how that kind of spots the reasoning behind, well, one of the reasons why you thought the beginner's guide was needed. What happens if you... have, think you've identified something, maybe you've
used the key, but you've misidentified it. You've seen something that wasn't there and you've maybe posted about it or shared that finding. What do you do then? How do you deal with that kind of situation? I think this is where volunteer communities are just more widely the OSINT community comes in really handy. I mean, like Billing Tats Discord, but more broadly as well. I think a lot of the OSINT community is very open -minded, is very sort of encouraging in terms of learning
and corrections. And so I think, you know, double checking with communities like the Bellingcat Discord. Getting a second opinion is always, you know, it never hurts in any case as well, especially before sharing it more broadly as a result of investigation. I think it's always good to get another pair of eyes on that. I'm part of the Bellingcat group as well, so you can always reach me on the Discord, but there's dozens of experts both in Bellingcat and in the
group that... I'm sure we'd be more than happy to double check munitions identification as well. So yeah, double checking can never hurt. Hopefully you're not inundated with images of landmines now in the next few hours. Thank you so much, Andro, for this amazing talk. I think a lot of people in the audience really appreciated it. We've gone through a lot of different things.
a lot of information all at once. But if you want to recap, you can listen back because this has been already recorded and you can have a read of Andrew's fantastic guide that he wrote a year ago and has come back kindly to chat about today. So thank you so much, Andrew. I will end the recording now and thank you again to everybody who attended at the beginning and had some issues when we had some issues with connection as well. Thank you very much. Thank you all for joining.
Please do feel free to reach out if you want any help. Thank you for listening to the stage talk. If you'd like to catch a stage talk live where you can ask the guest questions, join the Bellingcat Discord server by visiting www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. The music you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer Self. and is courtesy of Artlist.