The pictures are nice but what else have these smart guys screwed up in the report about this new and improved MOAB ? Archy or Patton..... you have anything on this new wizbang thang ?
Stay Safe
The pictures are nice but what else have these smart guys screwed up in the report about this new and improved MOAB? Archy or Patton....you have anything on this new wizbang thing ?
Only that the old BLU-82 was NOT an ANFO slurry, but used a filler of water gel-based explosive not unlike commercial Tovex and Pourvex; developed by Mel Cook, the explosives chemist who was the *daddy* of water based explosives and one of those in on the Air Force *instant [helicopter] landing zone* development almost from the beginning, and was himself present for the initial live firings at Eglin AFB in Florida. Indeed, the BLU-82 was such a supurb utilization of both the chemistry and physical capabilities of the delivery aircraft used during the Vietnam era, the C-130B, that it lasted not only through the Vietnam War, but was dusted off for a psywar surprise for Saddam's troopies in 1991. But today's most probably delivery bird, the MC-130P is capable of a good deal more than the Herky birds of 35 years ago; and since anhydrous hydrazine is used as fuel in the USAFs F16 fighter's emergency power unit and is thereby available, I'd wonder if they might well have gone to an ammonium nitrate/ hydrazine/aluminumum powder mixture for even greater blast effect, at the cost of being a good deal more difficult to prepare, as hydrazine is particularly nasty stuff and requires very careful special handling.
Gerald Hurst, the developer of Astrolite A-1-5, sometimes referred to as *the most powerful non-nuclear explosive on Earth* [which it isn't, though it is way up there and is one of the more common and cost-effective this side of a research lab] was also involved in those tests at Eglin, using Astrolite in napalm bomb cannisters as the first experiments into what would eventually become the BLU-82. And his rig for mixing the ingredients required and loading those cannisters neatly fit into a semitrailer rig that was driven from Seattle to Eglin, and I'd expect such equipment, modernized, could be handily flown overseas via a C130, or certainly by a C17 or C141B. And a MUCH greater effect on the target might make the change in materials, filler and procedures worthwhile, even if the supplu of prepared BLU-82 casings wasn't running short...our target nowadays isn't triple-canopy jungle needing cleared for helicopter insertion, so they may well have improved the effects of the MOAB by switching explosive fillers.
Either way, I'm glad to not be on the receiving end. Hmmmm, I wonder if one of those big fellas wound blow out an oil rig fire, as per the *Hellfighters* and *Boots and Coots* explosive charges used in Kuwait after the wells there had been fired up....
-archy-/-