Mother of all bombs

Times of Oman ^ | 11 March '03 | Reuters

[11th_VA]

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE (Florida) — The US Air Force said it dropped a 9,450kg MOAB bomb on a range in northwest Florida yesterday in a successful first live test of a powerful new weapon nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.”

Defence officials suggested the test was a message to Iraq ahead of a possible war about the might of the US military.

“Obviously, anything we have in the arsenal, anything that’s in almost any stage of development, could be used” against Iraq, said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US military’s joint chiefs of staff.

A C-131 “Samaritan” aircraft dropped the bomb on a test range at Eglin Air Force Base a minute or two after 2pm EST, a base spokeswoman, Senior Airman Nicholasa Brown, said.

The explosion sounded “just like thunder,” Brown said from an office on the east side of the 724-square-mile base, adding that “We barely even heard it.” The test took place on a range of the west side of the base.

The bomb packs 40 per cent more power than America’s current most powerful non-nuclear bomb, the 6,750kg “Daisy Cutter,” which was used to pound the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001, Eglin officials said. Base officials warned residents in neighboring communities to expect a loud noise when the bomb was dropped.

“We’ve done some that were inert. This is the first one with munitions,” Hansen said.

The MOAB is guided by global positioning satellites, an Eglin spokeswoman said. It spreads a flammable mist over the target then ignites it, producing a highly destructive blast.

The acronym stands for “Massive Ordnance Air Burst” but military officials have nicknamed it the “Mother Of All Bombs.”

[11th_VA]

Glad to see the Middle East is picking up this story...

[BushCountry]

Need explosive output. 1/2 kilotons? Want to compare to small nuclear device.

[Grut]

A C-131 “Samaritan” aircraft dropped the bomb...

Ah, the press, the press!

[Tennessee_Bob]

Well, they got some of it. Here's a C-131 Samaritan:

The plane that dropped the MOAB was a C-130 Hercules.

[keithtoo]

What surprises me is that there is a barren area in the FL panhandle that would be good for this demonstration. I would think this would be done out West somewhere.

[Kawolski]

Got any cool photos of the explosion? :D

[Diogenesis]

Test of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb on March 11, 2003.

[calljack]

Why does this feel like we are saying "oooh, you guys better watch out!!"

[Semper911]

Freeper AmericanInTokyo has aptly called it a cauliflower cloud, rather than a mushroom cloud.

[11th_VA]

Why does this feel like we are saying "oooh, you guys better watch out!!"

Because we are !!!

[Varmint Al]

Remember that line in Crocodile Dundee... You call that a knife?

You call that a Knife? And Dundee pulls out his knife. THIS is a Knife! 

You call that a bomb? This is a bomb! The B83 is 1.14 million times more energetic!

B83 Characteristics

Available Yields	Low Kiloton Range/ 1200 Kilotons
Weight	2408 lb
Length	12 ft
Body Diameter	18 in
Number In Service	650

The B83 (Mk-83) Bomb

 Take note Iraq!

[Kosh5]

The bomb was tested at Eglin AFB - about an hour east of Pensacola. Eglin is the largest USAFB in terms of land area. Eglin is consistently used as a munitions test range. Eglin and Wright Patterson AFB (Dayton, OH) are common hops for AF personnel in the Logistics Command branch of the AF.

[Gamecock]

I knew an AF Senior Master SGT who had a video of a daisy cutter being pushed out the back of a C-130. I watched the bomb float to earth, saw the explosion, and a couple seconds later the whole plane was shaking. Very Cool.

[Cyber Liberty]

Your math is off.

21,000 lbs of TNT is 10.5 tons. That's 0.015 kilotons.

[Libloather]

The plane that dropped the MOAB was a C-130 Hercules.

A Navy plane? Doesn't the Air Force have some of these by now?

[Cyber Liberty]

You take your Germany, France and , roll them all together and it wouldn't give us room to park

I don't know what that means, but it cracks me up.

[rundy]

Here is a C-130 Hercules in Action.

Just imagine something that looks like one of these hanging on to the parachute.

That will give you some idea of what's going on.

[SuziQ]

I just saw a vide of this thing on the MSNBC web site. That is one big*ss bomb!!!

[conservativecorner]

Ain't she a beaut!!

[BushCountry]

Sorry, but I disagree (I pick 1/2 kiloton out of air, that is why the question mark). The bomb weighs 21,000 lbs, but doesn't use TNT to generate its explosive force. It disperses gases than ignites them. My question: Is the total explosive power greater than it's TNT weight? I would think so. But how much greater was the question.