US military tests 21,000 pound bomb

[The diplomat]

See: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/11/spr...oab/index.html

Today, the US tested its biggest conventional bomb, the Massive Ordnance Air Blast or MOAB, weighing 21,000 pounds. The heat released creates a mushroom cloud 10,000 ft high!

Dang, that is one huge bomb!

[Eli]

Any pictures of the blast?

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Eli
Any pictures of the blast?

Not yet, but the military will probably release video of the test soon.

[Andrew1999]

Military officials say they hope the MOAB will create such a huge blast that it will rattle Iraq troops and pressure them into surrendering or not even fighting. Officials suggest perhaps the Iraqis might even mistake a MOAB blast for a nuclear detonation.

Is that really a good idea, to make them think we're using WMDs on them?

[alva]

I hope it's more used to scare, then to actually use it....

I hope,


I hope,


I hope.....

[SlowwHand]

More bang for the buck.

[monkspider]

If only someone could make us disarm.

[rah]

What possible tactical use can it have for use in IRAQ. I doubt their army is going to bunch up in the middle of the dessert for us to use on them. They're going to me hiding amongst civilians whenever possible, and I doubt it's use will be authorized on a possible civilian target.

Only possible use if for fear.

[Japher]

And to rattle Florida

[SlowwHand]

Admittedly not having read the article, does it say, anywhere, that plans were to use on Iraq?

That's more of a China bomb.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Admittedly not having read the article, does it say, anywhere, that plans were to use on Iraq?

That's more of a China bomb.

Why China? Why not a North Korea bomb?

[SlowwHand]

Ok. North Korea.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by rah
What possible tactical use can it have for use in IRAQ. I doubt their army is going to bunch up in the middle of the dessert for us to use on them. They're going to me hiding amongst civilians whenever possible, and I doubt it's use will be authorized on a possible civilian target.

Only possible use if for fear.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not rule out use of the MOAB, or "massive ordnance air blast" bomb, in a war with Iraq.

As you say, I hope he means it only to be as intimidation.

[DuncanK]

I think you can drop a bomb like this down on fortified troops and it will seriously break their will to fight.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by DuncanK
I think you can drop a bomb like this down on fortified troops and it will seriously break their will to fight.

At the very least.

[MichaeltheGreat]

There are a lot of entrenched and fortified positions the Iraqis will be dug into, plus buried command bunkers, etc.

Drop one of those, and you wipe out all resistance in a given area, the guys nearby will be blind (most will recover some vision), deaf (most won't recover their hearing), coughing and urinating blood and shitting their pants.

Word will get around, and pretty soon, those type of heavily dug in positions won't be occupied.

The net result will save lives on both sides - these things are expensive to make, there won't be many in production, and only certain aircraft will be able to drop them, so they're very limited use weapons.

[Demerzel]

not something you'd want anyone to have though, and certainly not something that even the troops in the field will be too interested in having dropped anywhere near them.

[MichaeltheGreat]

One of the purposes of that test was to measure blast effects at various distances, to determine safe targeting distance from friendly forces.

Personally, I'm all for whatever type of ordnance that will break enemy will to resist the fastest.

[Jon Miller]

I am too

excluding nuklear weapons of course

(And I was pronuklear weapons in Japan)

Jon Miller

[Dis]

this will be used on bunkers and such.

obviously we don't need it for normal surface targets.

[Dis]

My reservations with it is how can they accurately drop such a thing?

Same with the daisycutters used in Afghanistan.

Those things aren't laser guided. And they aren't guided at all I believe.

It's like just dropping bombs the old fashioned way. If this thing misses and hits a residential area- **** will really hit the fan.

[Kramerman]

actually, i dunno about the daisy cutter, but this MOAB deal is GPS guided. I would imagine its really sluggish tho, adn cant be guided with great dexterity, but it is still guided none the less. Its just kicked out the back of a C-130. I believe its a fuel-air explosive type bomb like the daisy cutter, as well.

[Kramerman]

who was it...? i think it was Lancer who posted a couple good articles on this weapon a while back.

Kman

[Koyaanisqatsi]

*removed due to extreme cross-post*

[Dis]

well that's a relief.

[PLATO]

edit: redundant post...sorry

[Demerzel]

The MOAB - when you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherf*cker in the world, accept no substitute.

[raghar]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
More bang for the buck.

In reality less. Remmember FAB9000?

It would be really low step to small nukes and then to my loved BIG nukes. 60 MT + More heat and less neutron flux close to ground. I'd be smiling all day.

[Kramerman]

I just hope this isnt a stepping stone towards utilizing low yield tactical nukes...

they would be VERY effective, but it would initiate a terriblely dangerous precedent.

[Sten Sture]

Here is the www.strategypage.com report from Feb 27.

February 27, 2003: The U.S. Air Force is developing a new, 2nd generation, ten ton large, low air burst bomb. It will replace the older "Daisy Cutter" 7.5 ton bomb developed during the 1960s. This was a 7.5 ton bomb using a semi-liquid explosive for clearing landing zones in the Vietnam jungle. The terms "Daisy Cutter" actually comes from the four foot probe at the bottom of the bomb which triggered the explosion without creating a crater (helicopters don't like to land in craters.) The probe was later replaced with a radar altimeter fuze, but the nickname "Daisy Cutter" stuck. The official designation was BLU-82 (or "Big Blue"). Until the BLU-82 came along, the biggest non-nuclear explosion obtainable was with a FAE (Fuel Air Explosives). FAE works by dropping a bomb that is actually a large aerosol dispenser. When the FAE "explodes" it first dispenses a large cloud of flammable material (anything like gasoline or propane will work). The cloud is then ignited and huge explosion results. There's one drawback, the size and density of the aerosol cloud depends a lot on the wind, air temperature and humidity. So the power of the explosion will vary a lot. But it's difficult to get a FAE to work in a bomb larger than 2000 pounds. So the replacement for the BLU-82 bomb, called MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst) simply uses more of the slurry of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminum. In dry, dusty conditions, the Daisy Cutter produces a mushroom cloud similar to that created by a nuclear explosion (and for the same reason, the sheer size of the explosion creates an upward pull that sends up a "mushroom" of smoke and dust on a column of smoke). In addition to a more powerful explosion, MOAB doesn’t need a parachute, like the Daisy Cutter, but uses a GPS (like JDAM) and an aerodynamic body to detonate the bomb at a precise area. Thus the MOAB can be dropped from a higher altitude (like outside the range of machine-guns and rifles). Like the Daisy Cutter, MOAB is shoved out the back of a cargo aircraft (usually a C-130, but since the MOAB uses GPS and higher altitude drops, the C-17 can probably be used as well.) MOAB is a highly destructive and terrifying weapon. If used in Iraq, it would demoralize any Iraqi troops in the vicinity who survived the explosion. The force of a MOAB explosion is sufficient to knock over tanks and kill any people within several hundred meters of the detonation. After the 1991 Gulf War, the United States started to get rid of it's various FAE weapons. But some were left in the inventory when the Afghanistan came along and the success of Daisy Cutters there, plus the new Russian research in FAE weapons, led to the new American research effort. There may be larger, or simply more powerful, FAE weapons in the works. But for the moment, MOAB, ...



there is more, but the next page won't load right now. That was most of the report iirc.