Posted on 11/05/2001 5:47:46 PM PST by Lady In Blue
Nov 5, 2001
WASHINGTON (AP) - With its use of the 15,000-pound "daisy cutter" bomb in Afghanistan, the United States has unleashed one of its most powerful weapons - billed as the world's largest conventional bomb.
The BLU-82 combines a watery mixture of ammonium nitrate and aluminum with air, then ignites the mist for a huge explosion that incinerates everything within up to 600 yards. The shock wave can be felt miles away.
The BLU-82 uses about six times the amount of ammonium nitrate explosive that Timothy McVeigh used in the bomb that blew up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.
First created during the Vietnam War to quickly clear jungle landing zones, the daisy cutter also was used against Iraqi troops during the Gulf War. Reports from the ground in Afghanistan indicate the huge bombs have been used against front-line Taliban positions.
The bombs cost about $27,000 each. They are dropped from a C-130 cargo plane flying at least 6,000 feet off the ground, to avoid the bomb's massive shock wave. Each is more than 17 feet long and 5 feet in diameter - about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle but far heavier.
AP-ES-11-05-01 2047EST
This story can be found at : http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA6ASS1PTC.html
Also explains why they wern't used before...as need to make shure all ground to air is adequately supressed.
Those cargo planes are slow flying and vunerable
Hopefully the fuel air bombs will be demonstrated next...
Does it come in any other colors?
"http://pages.prodigy.net/dsbrittain/KSEV%20700%20AM%20Radio2.htm"
this is the only link i can find that works for ksev...
n its n ad for one of their new sponsors
This interesting, since the explosive weight of the BLU-82 is about 13,000 pounds. Some of that is aluminum powder, but ignoring that (and I suspect that's a large amount being ignored) you get 2,167 pounds of ammonium nitrate for Timmy to have used. I thought the latter numbers for his bomb were in the 7000 pound range?
Notice how AP can't resist bringing in the OKC bombing even though there is no apparent reason to do so, in this article that is.
U.S. Uses Huge Bomb Against Taliban Forces a 62 Caddy de Ville.
pull a mcnamara, drop edsel's on em....
talkin' about a bomb
Ah, no one's survived to pass that info on.:^|
Good thinking. It's important to be PC on these things. I hope we didn't offend the people who were dancing in the streets on the night of 9/11. They have feelings too, you know.
I was thinking of the same thing, and it may already have some iron in the mixture, but the iron acts only as a catalyst.
The propellant mixture in solid rocket fuel such as used on the Shuttle SRB motor consists of an ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer, 69.6 percent by weight), aluminum (fuel, 16 percent), iron oxide (a catalyst, 0.4 percent), a polymer (a binder that holds the mixture together, 12.04 percent), and an epoxy curing agent (1.96 percent), which is extremely flammable.
In fact the Hindenburg burned so strongly because the skin was a mixture or iron oxide and a heavy dose of aluminum powder, not because of the hydrogen.
This bomb is effectively solid rocket propellant allowed to ignite all at once.
Wrong direction, if one is starting from Afgoneistan, China is just over the moutains to the east. Have to burn nearly horizontally to come out in China. Go straight down and you'd come out somewhere south and west of Easter Island in the South Pacific.
Indeed that sounds like the main course--but a squadron of A-10 Warthogs might serve up some pretty hot side dishes to the jihaders in the mountains and valleys once we lock up those airfields in Tajikistan.
I'll buy that. Better have your life insurance paid up!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.