I don't think that the MOAB killed anyone.

[popeyespappy]

And, so, my question remains, "What was Trump's real motive in using this weapon?"

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The misunderstanding seems to centered around the munitions detonation height.  The reason we do that, is to allow blast time to accelerate before it reaches target.  Otherwise, some potential force is wasted/lost.  That, is "the physics" of it.  These bombs don;t lose applied force over that distance, they gain it.  Detonating the munition in the mouth of the access tunnels would have less effect, not more.

I just don't think that an above-ground explosion against a below-ground target makes much sense, from a physics POV.  As for "gaining force over distance" that would be equivalent to saying that a bullet gains speed after leaving the muzzle of a gun (neglecting its vertical drop, of course!), and that is false.

I've seen nothing to indicate tRump had anything to do with the decision to use this particular kind of device against this target. That was a call made by the military. This bomb was designed just for this type of target, and if there's one thing we've gotten good at in the past several thousand years it's designing weapons to be efficient at destroying stuff including people.

Gaining force over distance isn't a good description of what happens in the shock wave of an air burst. In an air burst there is an intesified area of higher pressure generated at some distance from ground zero due to an effect called Mach Stem. When the incident wave from an air burst hits the ground it is reflected. The reflected wave is traveling in an area of lower pressure and higher temperature generated by the incident wave so the reflected wave travels faster than the incident wave. The area where these two waves meet generates an area of greatly enhanced pressure.