system
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human
ELI5: How do bomb disposal teams decide which wire to cut on a bomb and how do they pinpoint where a bomb is?

I’m referencing towards “The Hurt Locker” film. The scene where Sgt. James finds one bomb which leads to several other bombs, how did he know the first one was there and know which wire to cut?
gpt
Ninety percent of the time, they find a bomb the same way non-explosive-ordnance-disposal (EOD) guys do - someone sees a loose piece of trash that seems suspicious, someone just *said* something to a passing patrol, or there are signs that something's been buried - loose dirt, suspicious tracks, etc. Often, there are only so many places to put an explosive in such a way that they'll be useful - along convoy routes, in areas where troops are passing by somewhat regularly, etc., and so, upon approaching this sort of an area, the guys trying not to get blown up are going to be eyeing every dead animal, trash pile, upturned patch of dirt, and so on with extra wariness.

In some of the less hospitable portions of the Middle East especially, the bomb isn't on a timer like you'd see in a Bond film - a lot of times it's just an old land mine someone found in an old Soviet dump, which has its own set of drawbacks - maybe it needs a certain amount of pressure, maybe it's unreliable and corroded, maybe it's only going to go off if something large and metal drives over it - or there's a simple circuit connected to an antenna. The latter are more common then you'd think, and they require someone watching the bomb's location with a cell phone to actually detonate. So if a patrol sees someone eyeing the area who's not got a good reason already to be doing so... well, see above: it's a pretty good indicator.

And most of the time, there's no particular rush after the thing's been spotted - the troops are pulled back, civilians are warned off the area, and people are posted at a safe distance to redirect traffic. There's no sense risking someone - a very well-trained and in-demand someone, to boot - to go in and cut wires and the like. Nine times out of ten, it's a simple matter of just blowing the thing from a safe distance - send a little robot in to place a charge and press the button when it wheels merrily away, toss an explosive on top of it and light the fuse, and so on. These aren't bombs in the sense of old WWII bunker-busters; if you know it's there, it's just easier, faster and safer to get anyone and anything out of the likely blast radius, back up a little more, and blow the thing up - most likely, it won't have an effective casualty radius of more than few meters anyway, and the end result is just a hole in the road and the EOD guys waddling away to their next date with destiny.