Alison Campsie's Afghan blog: "The temperature gauge is tapping 48 degress here"

Crude bombs buried on key routes used by the British Army have become the Taliban's terror tactic of choice this summer, with a small select team of Scots leading the operation to search and destroy the deadly devices.

Improvised Explosive Devices are today the biggest threat to British soldiers but, with 45 bombs located and safely dismantled in the past four months, the Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team is keeping ahead of the game.

The devices are crude in the extreme. Planks of wood or metal plates are taped together to make a pressure switch, which will then activate the explosive with a step of a boot or the treads of a military vehicle.

The bombs have become so sensitive that dead cats have been found lying next to the contraptions, with just the weight of a tiny paw enough to activate the trigger.

Evidence would suggest that certain villages and towns have become manufacturing centres for the bombs, with the Taliban securing production either through intimidation or by the promise of financial reward.

Warrant Officer Moxie , in charge of the unit, said: "These devices are the main killer now and it is like the new cottage industry out here."

The bombs are typically laid on the roads to and from the army's outposts across Helmand province, the threat so great that in the past few months thousands of British solders deployed in the war now hold basic skills on device surveillance. They will be looking for things like freshly turned sand or a change in colour of the terrain.

The mass training programme comes as the Taliban's modus operandi moves away from the kinetic - "toe-to-toe" fighting - to the asymmetric, known more commonly as terrorism.

Each bomb squad has six or seven soldiers. Their patch is the whole of Helmand, at present the most dangerous terrain for British troops to navigate.

Sapper Stewart "Wee Man" Little, 20, from Gretna Green and a member of the Royal Search Engineers, would be the first to inspect the problem spot, using just a metal detector at arm's length and then moving to a super sensitive fingertip search once a detection has been made .

"You are looking for signs that the ground has been disturbed. You use the metal detector and depending on the tone you will know what you have got on your hands," he said.

After seven or eight years of training, a soldier would reach the expertise of Staff Sergeant Stuart Dickson, 37, from Dunfermline, described as the "Ninja" of the operation.

He said: "Basically I get up close and personal to the device and make it safe. Yes, the work has its moments, but making the device safe and then removing it is what you have trained for.

"We like to think that what we are doing here is pretty important."

Once the device has been removed, it carries vital information for the coalition on what materials the Taliban are using, the style of device and even, perhaps, who made it.

Lance Corporal Richard Lacey, 25, will carry out the initial analysis, with the bomb then packaged up and sent to the base at Kandahar for forensics.

The basic design of the bomb hides the extreme nature of their capabilities and the complex methods used to diffuse them.

"They do look very basic but when you go out to disable one you are not exactly sure how it is made up, or what size it is, whether it is remote-controlled or how sensitive it is. Its simplicity can mask the complexity of the situation.

"They are very simple to make but you need to have some skill, and some balls, to go out and plant one. In a country like this, to get the reputation of a man, you would go out and make a device."

For every device which is found, the supply chain of weapons diminishes, but the Taliban hit back by circumventing the drills of the EOD to avoid detection.

Unexploded shells have been gathered up and turned into tools of revenge. An equally serious form of recycling is carried out by recovering "legacy mines" from land battled during the Soviet Afghan war and replanting them against the new enemy.

It is this style of device that claimed the life of the latest British soldier to die in Afghanistan, James Johnson, 31, of the Argylls.

The team is likely to be extended to cover the frequency that the devices are spotted.

But the use of outdated bombs and "cottage industry" explosives should not indicate that the Taliban are running out of ideas.

"I saw the IRA at it and these devices are just as good as anything from them. This is not a last-ditch attempt by the Taliban by any means," W/ James said.