Over the past two weeks, defusing teams from seven nations have been training how to manually disarm unconventional explosive and incendiary devices (IEDs) during the “European Guardian” exercise. On September 14, the capabilities of the multinational European Manual Disarming Center were presented to international and national representatives.
The so-called “manual defusing” is used when a safe removal or controlled detonation of an explosive device cannot be carried out. This is the case when radioactive, chemical or bacterial elements are used. The task of the manual disarmers is to prevent detonation on site. This also applies to hostage-taking, the protection of critical infrastructure or operations at major events. A “highlight” of the exercise was the execution of scenarios at the OMV refinery in Schwechat and the defusing of several explosive devices in a large bus provided by Österreichische Postbus AG.
The exercise is a task of the multinational European Centre for Manual Neutralization Capabilities (ECMAN), which is operated by the nations of Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Italy and Sweden. Austria is taking the lead with the Army Logistics School and its military experts. The European Hand Desharpening Center is operated as part of a multinational cooperation under the auspices of the European Defence Agency (EDA). The European Hand Decommissioning Center has been operational since the beginning of 2018.
