The Air Force's 30,000 Pound Bunker-Busting Bomb Is Ready For Action

Business Insider ^ | 26 July 2012 | Robert Johnson

[moonshot925]

Its been nearly eight months since the Pentagon sent its largest and most powerful bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), back to Boeing for modifications necessary to take out Iranian nuclear facilities, but the Air Force says it's now ready to go.

Jeff Schogol at Defense News reports that Air Force Secretary Michael Donley says that while the MOP bomb continues to be refined and optimized, the Pentagon feels the 30,000 pound piece of ordnance is now sufficient to strike whatever targets the military may have in mind.

While the bomb went back to the drawing board with Pentagon planners considering Iran a potential target, recent developments in Syria offer up alternate possibilities for the MOP's initial mission.

[Jack Hammer]

Ya take fifteen tons, and waddya get?
Not another day older or deeper in debt.

Mohammed is a calling and I must go,
Those bunkerbuster bombs’ll cause a lot of woe.

.

[MasterGunner01]

Need to test several GBU-43/B, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC to give them real urban renewal. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_Massive_Ordnance_Air_Blast_bomb

[moonshot925]

The 11 ton explosive power of the MOAB is very small when you compare it with the tactical nukes in our arsenal.

The lowest yield on the B61 nuclear bomb is 300 tons.

That is 27 times more explosive power than the MOAB.

[MasterGunner01]

Never underestimate the effect of 18,700 pounds of high explosive. I witnessed the effect of the MOAB predecessor, the BLU-82 “Daisy Cutter”. The effects on people are rather dramatic (even those under cover): (1) the overpressure from the blast will kill you; (2) the blast consumes all the available oxygen and suffocates you; (3) the shock wave will turn you into either Jell-O or a gibbering idiot if you're not killed.

When the BLU-82 went off, we were 5 miles away and we felt, heard, and saw the blast. There was a mushroom cloud that looked like a tactical nuke. We had people surrendering for three weeks after that bomb went off.