Posted on 10/30/2001 2:14:26 AM PST by mdittmar
JABAL SARAJ, Afghanistan (AP) A huge explosion hit the Bagram front lines about 25 miles north of Kabul on Tuesday, sending up a mushroom cloud that billowed at least 1,000 feet into the air.
The origin of the explosion was not immediately clear, since there were no airplanes immediately overhead. However, U.S. planes had roared in the skies over the front lines north of the capital throughout the morning and early afternoon Tuesday.
It was also not clear what positions had been hit by the blast and how extensive the damage was.
A crater makes a lousy helipad, and a 15,000 lb. bomb can make a HUGE crater if it penetrates and then explodes.
Bear in mind this report was about a 1000' foot cloud. there was no indication in the report of secondary explosions. There was no report, that I read of an intense fireball (as would be with an FAE, which ALSO explodes above ground). This reporter has probably never seen a 2000 pounder go off before.
JDAMS in the morning are a beautiful thing.
That was in the early days of planning for the new army, the one they are designing for running around in modestly armored cars waging war in urban areas on citizens throwing rocks ala Palestine.
Kind of like a fully-fueled commercial airliner impacting a tall building???
Those 'high-tech bullies' of the Al-Queda used the Volkswagon version of the FAE. "Drivers wanted"
Mike
Safest place to be when one of these babies goes off....
Anywhere you can say, "What the f was that?"
Fuel air should be the weapon of choice in this war. Tit for tat.
It runs the air pressure at ground zero up to 1,000 pounds per square inch, killing every living creature for about a square mile. But 30 minutes later, the area is safe for invading troops. In short, it is the perfect weapon against deployed troops.
If the reporter bothered to look up the informaton that is available readily on FR, he would have known that this was the BLU-82, being used for the second time (there were "demonstrations" in the Gulf War), and for the first time against troops.
The virgin supply in heaven just went way, WAY down.
The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob,
cyberCongressman from Western Carolina
For a clear discussion of the difference between what the US can constitutionally do in wartime with aliens (but NOT with US citizens of foreign extraction), see my book, Manzanar, published in 1988.
If so, it was nice of them to make a target worth hitting and to go to Allah so quickly!
Attention to the next group of zealot/fanatic goat thumpers! You can start gathering on the border. Our special forces teams will usher you to your final seating arrangements! Leave your goats at home! We don't want your Peta buddies to have a bad day!
Was this the Daisy-Cutter used in Viet Nam? I thought the bomb they used there fell by parachute and had a long probe that allowed for an airburst when the probe made contact with the ground.
The one that I saw used in 1971, Central Highlands, VN, was as you described. I was on a very small FSB, near Charlie Ridge, called "Linda" or hill 270. There was an abandoned FSB on hill 327, several Klics away, which still had old culvert halves and other miscellaneous stuff that was left behind. It was used as an OP, due to height and location, by the NVA. I often called in fire missions, both day and night unexpectedly, to drop 10-15 rounds (105 or 155 mm) on hill 327 as surprises for Charlie. The Army decided to drop a blockbuster and remove all easy hiding places on 327. I was basically an FO on hill 270 and was told to observe from the 30' tower, where I worked while on duty. Everyone on 270 was ordered to stay inside their bunker/one-man hootch or wear flak vest and steel pots, if outside, at the appointed hour/minute. Using 20x, large field of view, binocs that were part of the I.O.S. instrument, I watched as the blockbuster was dragged out of a high altitude cargo plane by a parachute, and dropped at a high rate of descent, even with the small chute. There was a 10-20 foot pole on the bomb nose, for above ground detonation. Even though we were far enough away, the same relative altitude of the blast as our hill made the shockwave a minor danger but a major bone rattling, deep penetrating, thud. I can only imagine the effects of the same shockwave, at a closer range. Needless to say, the top of hill 327 looked nice and clean, like freshly plowed dirt, after the blast.
BTW .. that was the same hill 327 that the Marine sniper, Gunny Carlos Hathcock, used as a home base for a while, in the late 60s.
Right you are!
A familiar example is a gasline engine that burns fuel/air. If the ignition is advanced, the mix too lean, or the octane's too low the mix will knock(detonate), because the pressure is high enough. The fuel/air instead of burning with a smooth flame front and providing an even push on the piston, explodes and bangs the piston really hard. The engine doesn't transfer any of the power to the wheels, because all the energy goes into wrecking the metal parts in the engine.
If the mix in the FAE bomb is ignited before it's dipersed, it will just burn like napalm, or a flung bucket of burning fuel. If it's allowed to mix with air beyond it's explosive limit, it will detonate. That's what generates the overpressures. One of the key ingredients in FAEs is cyclonite, it's in there by design to insure an explosive mix.
Incendiaries are used to start fires. With FAEs, there's a big fire, but the mix consumes all the oxygen in the area. For that reason it wouldn't be used to deliberately start a fire, because the things one wants to set fire to won't burn very well w/o the oxygen. Incendiaries other than napalm types usually contain powdered metal or phosphorus. Those additives raise the temp. quite high and spread burning pieces all around.
I had never heard of a FAE before, but this news is likely to have me grinning like a fool all day!
I saw the cloud on Fox ... Big but notb really a mushroom.
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