America drops "largest non-nuclear bomb in history" on Afganistan

[Fireball]

I guess we showed that cave who was the boss.

I wonder how many civilians were hiding in there because of our "normal" bombing?

FFS, man, they're BROWN civilians! DO try to keep up!   On a side note, my kids did lots of yard work, just like I did when I was a kid. I did not want them to grow up thinking that people not of their own color were inferior to them in some way. I think it worked out pretty well.

[popeyespappy]

I don't understand why an in air detonation bomb is being used on a tunnel/cave complex. Seems that tunnels and caves calls for bunker busters.

Maybe they had an outdoor picnic scheduled.

It might be not strictly a conventional bomb, but what is called a fuel air bomb, which relies on sucking oxygen from surrounding air to feed the atomized fuel surrounding the bomb, this could asphyxiate people trapped in aconfined space such as a non-airtight bunker.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the MOAB is a thermobaric weapon. The Ruskies FOAB on the other hand is suspected of being a thermobaric design, but I don't think that has been confirmed.

My dad can tell you what a fuel air weapon can do. He was in a couple of LZ's cleared with BLU-82 Daisy Cutters in the late part of US involvement in Viet Nam.

[Jackalope]

I don't understand why an in air detonation bomb is being used on a tunnel/cave complex. Seems that tunnels and caves calls for bunker busters.

Maybe they had an outdoor picnic scheduled.

It might be not strictly a conventional bomb, but what is called a fuel air bomb, which relies on sucking oxygen from surrounding air to feed the atomized fuel surrounding the bomb, this could asphyxiate people trapped in aconfined space such as a non-airtight bunker.

IIRC, it's conventional explosive - about 5 tons worth, equal to 15kt of TNT.

That is, if I'm not mistaken, a significant fraction of Fat Man's yield. How is this not a WMD? Semantics?

[Jackalope]

Ok, no, I recalled incorrectly. It's yield is 11 tons of TNT.

Quite the difference.

[Isis]

Not so bad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39598046

A US military strike with a weapon known as the "mother of all bombs" (MOAB) killed 36 IS militants and destroyed their base, the Afghan defence ministry says.

The 21,600lb (9,800kg) bomb was dropped on a tunnel complex used by so-called Islamic State in Nangarhar province.

No civilians were affected by the explosion, the ministry said.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as "an inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country".

[brewer]

If it's caves and tunnels, why aren't we using exploding bats? 

Warped in bacon.

We tried that.  There were...issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

Yeah, you don't think I'm smart enough to come up with that idea on my own do you?

[Minimalist]

I guess we showed that cave who was the boss.

I wonder how many civilians were hiding in there because of our "normal" bombing?

FFS, man, they're BROWN civilians! DO try to keep up!   On a side note, my kids did lots of yard work, just like I did when I was a kid. I did not want them to grow up thinking that people not of their own color were inferior to them in some way. I think it worked out pretty well.

Oh, of course you're right.  The WLB only cares about them when they are little babies and only when they have been gassed....not when they are floating face down in the ocean because their parents were trying to flee a war zone.  Those dead babies are just future terrorists in training.

[popeyespappy]

I was just wondering to myself if they didn't do this as test before trying one on North Korea's underground nuclear test site. Then I remembered the delivery system is a cargo plane and decided that wouldn't be anybody's first choice for a preemptive strike.

[Anomalocaris]

I was just wondering to myself if they didn't do this as test before trying one on North Korea's underground nuclear test site. Then I remembered the delivery system is a cargo plane and decided that wouldn't be anybody's first choice for a preemptive strike.

There was improvised bunker buster developed during the first gulf war that would be more appropriate. Basically the air force found a couple of old army 8 inch heavy howitzer barrels in a scrap yard, filled the barrel with explosives, welded a solid steel cone on one end to aid penetration, and a set of fins on the other, and turned it into an explosive filled heavy metal dart with a laser guidance unit at the front end.

They then dropped the weapon using a F-111 on some super hardened Iraqi bunker and destroyed it.

The entire process from when the air force discovered these impenetrable bunkers to when they finished the improvised weapon, shipped it to Iraq and dropped it took 2 weeks.

I believe the clinton administration requested the air force develop a real bomb matching the penetration characteristics of this improvised dart for potential use against super hardened chemical and nuclear weapon bunkers in rogue states. It was called heavy ordinance penetrator. Don't know if they are still in service.

[scoobysnack]

I bet was meant to partly send a message along with a show of strength and probably a strategic strike to take out some key individuals. Some are complaining about the cost of the tomahawk missiles and now this MOAB. It's not like these were ordered up specifically for these strikes. They already existed. It's almost like spending a lot of money on fireworks, and then not firing them off because they are so expensive or people complain you are wasting money by lighting them.