“...MOAB like the Daisy Cutter is a pallet loaded, parachute stabilized, fuel air aerosol surface bomb. Very, very big surface bomb....” [Robert A Cook PE, post 25]
Neither the GBU-43/B (MOAB) nor the BLU-82B (”Daisy Cutter”) use fuel-air explosive. GBU-43/B is filled with H-6: a mix of RDX, TNT, powdered aluminum, paraffin wax, and calcium chloride. BLU-82B was filled with GSX, a variant of ammonal: a mix of ammonium nitrate, powdered aluminum, and polystyrene.
Fuel-air munitions of such size are subject to engineering limitations and development in this area was discontinued, because results weren’t predictable enough.
The filler mistake keeps cropping up. This time, we can blame the website posting the initial article.
Thank you for the correction.
But I agree: they are all in the surface blast family. Not a deep penetrator bomb.