That was almost impossible to accomplish, especially in the midst of a battle, so they rarely worked.21 Plus there were easy countermeasures.

Following the 1967 Six Day War, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) analyzed the performance of their main battle rifle, the Fusil Automatique Léger (FAL) and found it wanting. It did not perform well in the dusty desert environment in which the IDF primarily fought. Examination and testing of Egyptian and Syrian AK-47s and AKMs recovered by the IDF f

Another limiting factor in analyzing the adoption of technology for political violence is that most terrorism scholars don’t focus on the technologies used. Whereas many of those who study the history of military innovation emphasize the hardware, like tanks and battleships, and neglect the software, like military doctrine and organizational learni

Terrorists leapt ahead of military tacticians in creating sophisticated small explosive devices that used dynamite.20

How Lethal Non-state Actors Innovate Those who study how non-state actors such as terrorists and insurgents innovate rarely take a broad strategic perspective about long-term trends or patterns.44 Scholars have tended to conduct in-depth case studies of individual groups, conflicts, or campaigns,45 and there has been little tying together of those

Innovation Was Not Driven by the Military

Still, as often happens in war, innovation spurred reciprocal innovation. Copying the Ketchum grenade, the Confederacy developed the Raines, which was named after its inventor, Confederate general Gabriel Raines, head of the Torpedo Bureau.

Underscoring the fact that dynamite was seen as an exciting new invention, rather than as a dangerous tool to be cautiously used or controlled, is that innovation with dynamite as a weapon was driven not by military organizations, but from below.

In the US Civil War, while both armies used grenades, they were ad hoc and ineffective. In the North, Ketchum grenades, which were patented by William Ketchum in 1861, were shaped like big darts, or iron mangoes sporting four fins, with cylindrical plungers at the nose designed to jab into the tamped gunpowder within.