Risk Management Magazine

There are good reasons emergency procedures (EPs) are developed, committed to memory and rehearsed before conducting training or combat operations. The moment an emergency occurs is not the time to become creative or develop a better way to handle the situation. As a Type A personality, I made the mistake of modifying a procedure while in the middle of an emergency, and it could have cost me dearly.

The 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team “Dagger,” 1st Infantry Division, executed a successful and safer-than-average large-scale combat operations (LSCO) National Training Center (NTC) rotation recently, primarily due to a deliberate approach to risk management and engaged leadership at echelon.

When an explosion causes a sudden release of heat, light and sound, the energy causes the air around the point of the explosion to expand outward faster than the speed of sound. The blasts produced by these explosives throw shrapnel, extreme heat and piercing sound at their targets. However, perhaps the most dangerous — yet least understood — effect of an explosion is blast overpressure (BOP).