[rdcbn]

Having worked in the DOD for 30 years, my guess is that the in house cost for these weapons was about $200,000 each. Note that they contracted for the design of the guidance system, and that only cost $35,000. That is for the design, the most expensive piece of the puzzle.
They produced 10 of these weapons in only nine weeks. If we allow for a team of 50 people working on project, at a cost of $50 per hour and 40 hours per week, one week per bomb, would be 2,000 manhours or $100,000 for labor. Add $100,000 for material, which seems fairly generous.

The 13+ million per bomb story that is floating about is complete B.S.

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Yeah, the MOAB was one of these quick and dirty projects that got done fast by a small and dedicated team of engineers and techs because we needed it.

The MOAB is just a really big fuel -air bomb that is relatively inexpensive to produce. We should use them more often

[marktwain]

Yeah, the MOAB was one of these quick and dirty projects that got done fast by a small and dedicated team of engineers and techs because we needed it.

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Bingo. You nailed it. I saw similar projects on other items. Amazing the dedication of American DOD personnel when they realize that our troops lives’ are on the line in combat.

Of course, a very large number are former military.

[wrench]

On another site, a Marine VN War vet commented his unit assembled a very large bomb. It was a connex container loaded slap full of C4. They rigged up a fuse system and set it off. He indicated it was quite impressive.

Cost? The materials were already in country and were supposed to be used.

[schurmann]

“The MOAB is just a really big fuel -air bomb ...”

It is not.

GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast munition contains a burster charge of 18,700 pounds of HE - a mix of RDX, TNT, and aluminum powder.

DOD conducted extensive experiments with fuel-air explosives (FAEs, aka thermobaric) but ultimately declined to procure any for combat employment. Reasons were not stated, but best guesses include reduced fire risk, reduced storage risk, better shelf life. Also, FAE detonation output is much tougher to predict: the tiniest variations in local air temperature, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, incident sunlight (and perhaps other factors) have large and unforeseeable effects on explosive yield.