Superbomb Mystery: The Herrhausen Assassination

What's the connection between the murder of a German banker 20 years ago and the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan?

It's all to do with terrorist technology and explosively formed penetrators (aka, "superbombs"), the insurgent's deadliest weapon against armored vehicles.

Many have pointed out the similarity of attacks in Iraq to the method used to assassinate Alfred Herrhausen in Germany on November 30, 1989. Herrhausen was the head of Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank -- and an obvious target for the Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist group.

Herrhausen was in a bullet-proof Mercedes limousine, the middle car of a three-vehicle convoy, with bodyguards ahead and behind. The RAF planned their attack well, planting their bomb in a satchel on a bicycle parked beside the route. The bomb was linked to an infrared beam, which terrorists posing as workmen had set up across the road.

The terrorists allowed the lead car through, and then activated the beam. When Herrhausen's car broke the beam, the bomb went off. It consisted of ten kilos of explosive and a two-kilo copper plate, aimed so that it would strike the passenger seat.

The metal pierced the armored limo and Herrhausen was wounded in the legs; he bled to death shortly afterwards, before medical assistance arrived.

The RAF device which killed Herrhausen is generally described as a platter charge, rather than an Iraq-style EFP (explosively formed penetrator). That's because the RAF are not thought to have had the skill to produce an EFP. By contrast, a platter charge is a much cruder form of improvised explosive device. ...