Software development from Sussex helps destruction of banned weapons

Aug. 15, 2012 - PRLog -- SUSSEX COMPANY AND BOMB DISPOSAL EXPERT DEVELOP SOFTWARE TOOL TO HELP DESTROY ILLEGAL MUNITIONS




A former Bomb Disposal Officer has teamed up with East Grinstead software company BALLARD CHALMERS to assist the implementation of an international Convention banning cluster munitions.

Vast numbers of unexploded bomblets inevitably remain behind after conflicts, often hidden in vegetation and prone to go off if accidentally disturbed.  

Local former officer Colin King defused bombs in the Gulf, the Balkans and the Falklands, and trained teams to do the same thing in Afghanistan.  He is now co-director of a company involved in the disassembly of landmines and cluster bombs throughout the world.  His collaboration with BALLARD CHALMERS has resulted in a software tool giving practical help to countries trying to destroy their stocks of cluster munitions.

BALLARD CHALMERS are a Microsoft Gold Partner better known for business software development, but their Chief Technical Officer Geoff Ballard has worked on previous humanitarian campaigns and saw that providing the right software could make a big difference to efforts to enforce the Convention.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions came into effect in 2010 and outlaws many types of the weapons, but part of the problem in implementing it is that managers of stockpiles simply don’t know which of their munitions break the law.  

Armed forces often accumulate varied stocks of munitions from different nations and manufacturers.  They are frequently difficult to identify because at first sight they can be indistinguishable from other weapons, and information to decipher their markings may be unavailable or hard to understand.

The Geneva International Centre for Human Demining (GICHD) asked Colin’s company, Fenix Insight Ltd, to help devise a solution simple and intuitive enough to be used in real world conditions.

Having worked together previously on similar projects, Colin turned to East Grinstead software company BALLARD CHALMERS to build the Cluster Munition Identification Tool (CMID).  The tool is a simple and robust programme that can now be downloaded from the GICHD website and quickly identifies weapons which fall outside the protocols.

The CMID shows stockpile managers and administrators where to look for the markings and codes which identify the contents of the munitions, and tells if they are banned by the Convention.   Such information is otherwise spread between old handbooks, manuals, or even lost.  

Colin says “It may sound ridiculous that armies don’t even know what’s in their munitions stockpiles, but many of these weapons systems look very similar.  As a technical advisor to the Oslo Process which initiated the Convention, I soon realised that a number of nations would require assistance to identify and dispose of their cluster munitions stockpiles.”
“I needed a software company to produce a robust and easily deployed tool to put the information in the hands of stockpile managers and explosive ordnance disposal operators.   Ballard Chalmers came up with this functional and intuitive tool which could be understood by people with minimal technical background.  We minimized the use of text and put a good deal of thought into the symbols since it will be used extensively by non-English speakers.  It only takes a couple of minutes to download but incorporates a great deal of technical data.”

The easily accessible and searchable database includes graphic navigation and identification of cluster munitions based on weapon category. An additional overview shows types and combinations of explosive submunitions that can be carried by such cluster munitions.

The CMID tool is now available from the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining website.

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more information: mike.garside@ballardchalmers.com  01342 301800