This mission is designed to recreate the danger and difficulty our armed forces face on a daily basis from IEDs and related hazards. The map is peppered with carefully hidden IEDs that will kill immediately when players enter their vicinity. You'll have to search carefully for give-away details such as wires or out of place objects. There are ambushes waiting near many IEDs as enemies hover nearby to trigger the devices. We have modeled the IEDs on actual devices and situations faced by coalition troops every day.

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are easily hidden by insurgents looking to kill coalition forces by surprise, damaging morale and, often, to create a diversion to facilitate an ambush. Insurgents place IEDs in commonplace items such as spent or dud artillery rounds, cans, boxes, piles of rubble, drainpipes, etc.

It is extremely difficult to discern the small details that give away an IED's position. Usually these are the fuses or detonation devices such as wires, batteries, timers, but also piles of salvageable wood or metal and discolored ground areas spell IED to a sharp-eyed soldier. Many IEDs are so cleverly hidden that special equipment or vision enhancers must be used for detection.

As many IEDs require a line of sight to the triggerman for use of direct, radio frequency (RF) or infrared (IR) detonation, when coalition forces identify an IED, an ambush is often the result of the insurgents' frustration in failing to blow up personnel. Other unmanned triggers are tripwires, pressure or pressure release devices such as mousetraps, clothespins, and simple triggers as used in mines. Some IEDs are "shaped" to inflict maximum damage, or are placed against concrete and sandbags to direct the explosive force in a specific direction.