DESTRUCTION: The world's largest non-nuclear bomb tested by Russians
Posted on 09/11/2007 5:59:17 PM PDT by Stoat
Russia has exploded the world's biggest non-nuclear bomb in a dramatic escalation of the new Cold War.
Nicknamed 'the father of all bombs', it was filmed being dropped from a strategic bomber and exploding in a massive fireball.
The film then showed the debris of apartment buildings and armoured vehicles at a testing range, as well as ground burned by a massive explosion.
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DESTRUCTION: The world's largest non-nuclear bomb tested by Russians
It didn't give the bomb's military name or say when it was tested.
Yuri Balyko, head of the Russian defence ministry's institute in charge of weapons design, said yesterday: "We have got a relatively cheap ordnance with a high strike power."
The test comes as Russia spends massively increased oil revenue on rebuilding its military might.
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It has been nicknamed the "dad of all bombs" and is four times more powerful than the U.S. "mother of all bombs."
The device is said to be four times more powerful than America's Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs.
It would target more specific areas than nuclear bombs, and is an immediate threat to problem areas such as Chechnya.
Last night a source close to the US National Security Council said it was a "matter of concern" that Moscow would develop such a huge weapon at a time when there was no obvious need.
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A computer image of a new ordnance from Russian tv which is claimed by the Russian military the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb
He added that the US would ask for an explanation. He said there was "no chance" that America would become involved in a new arms race with the Russians and that the US had no use for bombs larger than the ones already in its arsenal.
While US intelligence was aware that Moscow was working on a new thermobaric device, it did not know that a test was imminent.
The latest raising of tension by Russia comes after president Vladimir Putin revived the Cold War era practice of flying bombers on long-range patrols.
Last week Royal Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to intercept eight Russian military planes flying in airspace patrolled by Nato.
The incident was the latest this summer in which British fighters have been used to warn off long-range Russian reconnaissance aircraft.
The so-called Mother of all Bombs is the biggest weapon in America's arsenal, capable of detonating 21,000lb of explosives above the ground.
The huge bomb, dropped from a slowmoving C130 Hercules aircraft and guided to its target by the satellite-linked global positioning system, can create temperatures of up to 1,000f (538c).
It is designed to obliterate chemical or biological agents concealed in bunkers.
The US is believed to have 15 in its arsenal but none is believed to have been used against an enemy.
Come one now, Stoat, you know there's rules around here..........
Is this her?
Easier to hit ~ on my keyboard it’s top row, all the way to the left. The other character, -, is third from the right, top row.
A corrupt Marxist / Socialist / Globalist as President and an incoherent, apparently brain-damaged former General as Sec Def?
I'm not sure how this would worry them....please help me out.
BOAB? (Babushka Of All Bombs)
Huh? Hiroshima was a nuke. Nuclear explosions don't need oxidizers, are not limited by the O2 in the air and combustibles on the ground, etc. Their secondary effects (fire, burning, etc.) might be, but the original explosion doesn't need anything but room to grow.
The release of energy by a nuke occurs entirely within the warhead -- not counting comparitively minor secondary effects. What we think of as the explosion is actually the superhot small ball of energy reaching equalibrium with its environment, which requires a LOT of expansion.
In contrast, explosives that burn (i.e., don't have their own oxidizer) are actual ongoing reactions -- think SUPER fast burning, so available O2 can become a limiting factor. FAEs address that problem by mixing their "fuel" (explosive) with the air before detonation, ensuring plenty of O2. Another poster explained the nature of the explosive used consume less O2, but I don't know that much about that.
In any case, NO conventional non-nuke weapon is significant compared to any (non-tactical) nuke...
Well, that’s disappointing. I thought I had found someone else who thinks the new dash looks dorky. A few months back they changed the software so that it automatically merges a double hyphen into a looooong dash, and it’s been bugging me ever since.
(Yeah, yeah, I know I need to get a life ;)
Nukes wouldn't work as well unless you used excessively powerful devices.
BTW, anyone hear the urban legend that some of the scientists who set off the first nuke thought it would start a chain reaction in the O2 in the atmosphere and basically glass the planet? Wonder if it’s true. If it is, can you believe they set it off anyway?
Ah, now I get your point. Gotcha.
guess that was a “hey ya’ll! watch this!” moment
As long as Putin uses it to erase muzzie terrorists then I have no problem with it.
I think it was little more than the very stupid idea of looking good on the May Day parade ~ the "newsies" ate it up anyway.
Here they've developed something just a bit bigger than a MOAB for some reason ~ sucking oxygen out of a qanat system (and thereby destroying its bio or chemical contents) could be a very good reason, which means the real question is why did they make their qanat buster bigger.
No doubt the Russians have found some ancient "qanat" somewhere in their territory and have computed what they need to do the job.
It was Enrico Fermi, while waiting in the bunker for the Trinity test, jokingly asked if anyone wanted to take bets on "whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world."
Robert Oppenheimer also expressed some concern to the military prior to the original detonation that there was a slim probablility that his calculations might contain a significant enough error that an atomic blast would ignite the hydrogen in the atmosphere but he was pretty sure that that would not happen. This is also mentioned in his trial transcripts.
What he was speaking of was the possibility that the fission reaction would initiate a fusion reaction in Nitrogen present in the air. If this reaction were self-sustaining, it could 'ignite' the atmosphere.
I know that is what Wikipedia said, I find this hard to believe, even for the 39 nanoseconds of fusion reported. Maybe some of the physic brains around here can elaborate.
Is there a video of this somewhere?
So because things are complex and the Iranians weren't reduced to puppets, the Russians have to give the Iranians weapons to send to Iraq to kill Americans? Not buying it.
They know what's going on in Iran. It is the leading terrorist organization in the world and has been since Jimmy Carter handed it to the Islamists. I don't care how "complex" things are. Iran supports terrorists and the killing of Americans by terrorists. Iran supports the defeat of American in Iraq. By arming Iran, the Russians also support those goals. That's not complicated.
The great nuance and complexity of a situation is a BS excuse used by liberals, the State Dept. and, apparently, Russians when they want to do something they know is wrong or will get them in trouble if they do it directly.
Far from being "complex", Russian foreign policy in Iran is straightforward. It has always liked to have an "insane-little-brother" countries. It uses the insane-little-brothers to accomplish geopolitical goals that Russia cannot accomplish directly. Then periodically, it will pretend to restrain the insane-little-brother to extract concessions from the current target of the insanity.
Currently, Russia is using the Iranians to defeat the US in Iraq.
So Russia is happy to deal with Islamic terrorists as long as they play the role of insane-little-brother. The Iranian regime obviously has no problem with the insane part.
I surrender!!!!! We agree!!!
Today it is pretty much a Chinese client-state, but the Russians are making a major effort to get as much influence as they can in the place.
That's not necessarily bad.
As far as Iranians using Russian weapons to kill our guys, "W" has it in his power to remove Iran from the face of the Earth and put a stop to that. I would, in fact, encourage him to do so on the slightest pretext.
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