I don't think that the MOAB killed anyone.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The pre-drop imaging will be helpful in that regard. I doubt it will be released soon.

I doubt imaging, including thermal, will give us a reliable count of those in the cave.

I never suggested that. How would we get imaging inside the mines? So far the only body count I've heard of was those ISIS outside the caves. Those wouldn't be hard to image before the strike.

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The pre-drop imaging will be helpful in that regard. I doubt it will be released soon.

FTFY.

Tell me why you think that's a valid fix, please.

[Jehanne]

MOAB was NOT a penetration bomb, it went off at 100 feet. That's how it collapsed the mines. Damn you're dumb.

Exactly my point. lmao the irony.

This kind of reminds me of the hoopla over the Patriot Missile Defense Systems in the Gulf War:

On February 15, 1991, President George H. W. Bush traveled to Raytheon's Patriot manufacturing plant in Andover, Massachusetts, during the Gulf War, he declared, the "Patriot is 41 for 42: 42 Scuds engaged, 41 intercepted!"[48] The President's claimed success rate was thus over 97% to that point in the war. The U.S. Army claimed an initial success rate of 80% in Saudi Arabia and 50% in Israel. Those claims were eventually scaled back to 70% and 40%.

On April 7, 1992 Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Reuven Pedatzur of Tel Aviv University testified before a House Committee stating that, according to their independent analysis of video tapes, the Patriot system had a success rate of below 10%, and perhaps even a zero success rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Pa...._accuracy

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think it's really beside the point. The whole idea of this is to show everyone that we are now the "Not fucking around" crew.

I don't doubt that there's a bit of bluster in this attack with this bomb. Military actions are often composed of political or psychological elements.

That doesn't address the military efficiency of the operation. I don't know if it successfully blocked those tunnels ... but I don't doubt that was the main aim.

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MOAB was not designed to collapse caves. Look into penetration bombs... MOAB was designed to blow up in the air. Massive Ordinance AIR Blast.

There goes Gawdzilla talking more shit he can't back up.

From Wikipedia:

The MOAB is not a penetrator weapon and is primarily an air burst ordnance intended for soft to medium surface targets covering extended areas and targets in a contained environment such as a deep canyon or within a cave system.[18]

Overpressurization is a physical fact that has been used by militaries since the dawn of the Gunpowder Age.

Later numbers I've seen indicate 90+ KIA. And, again we didn't drop the bomb into a tunnel. We dropped a bomb to close the tunnels. The KIAs were outside the tunnel, security and the like.

This is what I have read.

94 confirmed dead on the ground (though we know how often such numbers are exaggerated).  I doubt they'll ever know the full extent of the casualties, whether in or out of the tunnels.  Many were likely blown into red mist or crushed so thoroughly they won't be found.

Most likely suffocating as we write.

[AceBoogie]

I suppose I stand corrected. I was under the impression that air blast explosives were used for cities and the like and penetration bombs were used for bunkers, caves, etc.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Bunkers and caves are pretty different from the point of view of the ordnance, and it's not hard to conflate the two. Bunkers are reinforced in part to withstand the shockwaves exuded from an explosion. Cave entrances can be, but the nature of the reinforcement (usually wooden) is much less resistant than the rebar in a bunker. The fact that the reinforcement is not embedded in the structure makes it less resistant, too.

Air-blast explosives are generally used to flatten stuff standing above ground, but the shockwave can also be used for other jobs. Spalling can and does occur (that's where the wave passing through solid material breaks off pieces on the interior, creating shrapnel). I doubt that's why MOAB was used here; GS is most likely right that it was used to seal up a ingress -- because against unreinforced earth, some dirt's gonna move. Spalling probably only happened near the entrances.

Was it a political message? Almost certainly. But that sort of ordinance does have battlefield value as well.

I'd hate to be riding in the plane that dropped that SoB.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

In a probably vain attempt at a common lexicon that will no doubt inspire an great deal of quote mining:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/s...s/moab.htm

This is not a complete coverage of the munition, but it's a start.

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And information from the commander as to what the attack was meant to accomplish.

[Fireball]

I doubt imaging, including thermal, will give us a reliable count of those in the cave.

I never suggested that. How would we get imaging inside the mines? So far the only body count I've heard of was those ISIS outside the caves. Those wouldn't be hard to image before the strike.

---

FTFY.

Tell me why you think that's a valid fix, please.

Should have included a   since it's a joke. In the light of day, a weak one.

[popeyespappy]

I suppose I stand corrected. I was under the impression that air blast explosives were used for cities and the like and penetration bombs were used for bunkers, caves, etc.

Kudos for admitting your mistake, Ace.

I'm not picking on you here just taking the opportunity to point out a textbook case of the conformation bias we all suffer from from time to time in your earlier reply that referenced my previous post in this thread. The article I quoted said the MOAB was designed as an air burst weapon for use against soft to medium surface targets. You immediately latched onto that statement in support of your position, and blew right by the very next sentence in my post that said the MOAB was optimized for use against targets in environments like caves. That's classic biased interpretation which is one of the three pillars of conformation bias. Those being biased search, biased interpretation and biased memory.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I suppose I stand corrected. I was under the impression that air blast explosives were used for cities and the like and penetration bombs were used for bunkers, caves, etc.

Kudos for admitting your mistake, Ace.

I'm not picking on you here just taking the opportunity to point out a textbook case of the conformation bias we all suffer from from time to time in your earlier reply that referenced my previous post in this thread. The article I quoted said the MOAB was designed as an air burst weapon for use against soft to medium surface targets. You immediately latched onto that statement in support of your position, and blew right by the very next sentence in my post that said the MOAB was optimized for use against targets in environments like caves. That's classic biased interpretation which is one of the three pillars of conformation bias. Those being biased search, biased interpretation and biased memory.

Good summary of why threads like this go south so quickly. I found several pages on Google that were just wrong about the MOAB, and that was echoed several times.

[Jehanne]

Bunkers and caves are pretty different from the point of view of the ordnance, and it's not hard to conflate the two. Bunkers are reinforced in part to withstand the shockwaves exuded from an explosion. Cave entrances can be, but the nature of the reinforcement (usually wooden) is much less resistant than the rebar in a bunker. The fact that the reinforcement is not embedded in the structure makes it less resistant, too.

Air-blast explosives are generally used to flatten stuff standing above ground, but the shockwave can also be used for other jobs. Spalling can and does occur (that's where the wave passing through solid material breaks off pieces on the interior, creating shrapnel). I doubt that's why MOAB was used here; GS is most likely right that it was used to seal up a ingress -- because against unreinforced earth, some dirt's gonna move. Spalling probably only happened near the entrances.

Was it a political message? Almost certainly. But that sort of ordinance does have battlefield value as well.

I'd hate to be riding in the plane that dropped that SoB.

You seem very knowledgeable.  Let's shift gears a bit -- Why didn't the US use a MOAB in Syria?  Fear of the plane getting shot down?