Mother of all bombs

Times of Oman ^ | 11 March '03 | Reuters

[11th_VA]

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE (Florida) — The US Air Force said it dropped a 9,450kg MOAB bomb on a range in northwest Florida yesterday in a successful first live test of a powerful new weapon nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.”

Defence officials suggested the test was a message to Iraq ahead of a possible war about the might of the US military.

“Obviously, anything we have in the arsenal, anything that’s in almost any stage of development, could be used” against Iraq, said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US military’s joint chiefs of staff.

A C-131 “Samaritan” aircraft dropped the bomb on a test range at Eglin Air Force Base a minute or two after 2pm EST, a base spokeswoman, Senior Airman Nicholasa Brown, said.

The explosion sounded “just like thunder,” Brown said from an office on the east side of the 724-square-mile base, adding that “We barely even heard it.” The test took place on a range of the west side of the base.

The bomb packs 40 per cent more power than America’s current most powerful non-nuclear bomb, the 6,750kg “Daisy Cutter,” which was used to pound the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001, Eglin officials said. Base officials warned residents in neighboring communities to expect a loud noise when the bomb was dropped.

“We’ve done some that were inert. This is the first one with munitions,” Hansen said.

The MOAB is guided by global positioning satellites, an Eglin spokeswoman said. It spreads a flammable mist over the target then ignites it, producing a highly destructive blast.

The acronym stands for “Massive Ordnance Air Burst” but military officials have nicknamed it the “Mother Of All Bombs.”

[Cyber Liberty]

You are correct. This isn't TNT. The actual explosive force is likely to be larger.

But, not on the order of thousands off. That's like asking for a millimiter and taking a kilometer.

[Steven W.]

Check the subtle message from the AF guy sayinghe was over 700 odd miles away and could actually hear it!

[BushCountry]

, not on the order of thousands off. That's like asking for a millimiter and taking a kilometer.

Lets say the explosive force is ten time greater. That would mean .015 x 10 = .15 Kilotons. Thirty times greater gets me to .015 x 30 = .45 which is very close to my .5 kilotons. : )

[Cyber Liberty]

Oh, sure. It's a big 'un. That movie we see is MILES away.

This is one BF bomb.

[Slewfoot]

It disperses gases than ignites them.

That was the other error in this Times of Oman story, this is not a fuel air bomb.

[Cyber Liberty]

Hey, I'm just a math pecker-head, I can't help it!

The number of kilotons is irrelevant when you're the business end of a MOAB.

[Cyber Liberty]

It's powdered magnesium, isn't it? Or is it aluminum?

[Slewfoot]

A Navy plane? Doesn't the Air Force have some of these by now?

The plane in #4 looks like a C131 the Air Force hasn't had any C131 in twenty years. But the Times of Oman reported that a C131 dropped the MOAB. An Air Force C130 dropped the MOAB. It would have been hard to push one of those big bombs out the side door of a C131.

[Jennifer in Florida]

It's ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminum. This was posted a few days ago:

February 27, 2003: The U.S. Air Force is developing a new, 2nd generation, ten ton large, low air burst bomb. It will replace the older "Daisy Cutter" 7.5-ton bomb developed during the 1960s. This was a 7.5-ton bomb using a semi-liquid explosive for clearing landing zones in the Vietnam jungle. The terms "Daisy Cutter" actually comes from the four foot probe at the bottom of the bomb, which triggered the explosion without creating a crater (helicopters don't like to land in craters.) The probe was later replaced with a radar altimeter fuse, but the nickname "Daisy Cutter" stuck. The official designation was BLU-82 (or "Big Blue"). Until the BLU-82 came along, the biggest non-nuclear explosion obtainable was with a FAE (Fuel Air Explosives). FAE works by dropping a bomb that is actually a large aerosol dispenser. When the FAE "explodes" it first dispenses a large cloud of flammable material (anything like gasoline or propane will work). The cloud is then ignited and huge explosion results. There's one drawback, the size and density of the aerosol cloud depends a lot on the wind, air temperature and humidity. So the power of the explosion will vary a lot. But it's difficult to get a FAE to work in a bomb larger than 2000 pounds. So the replacement for the BLU-82 bomb, called MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst) simply uses more of the slurry of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminum. In dry, dusty conditions, the Daisy Cutter produces a mushroom cloud similar to that created by a nuclear explosion (and for the same reason, the sheer size of the explosion creates an upward pull that sends up a "mushroom" of smoke and dust on a column of smoke). In addition to a more powerful explosion, MOAB doesn’t need a parachute, like the Daisy Cutter, but uses a GPS (like JDAM) and an aerodynamic body to detonate the bomb at a precise area. Thus the MOAB can be dropped from a higher altitude (like outside the range of machine-guns and rifles). Like the Daisy Cutter, MOAB is shoved out the back of a cargo aircraft (usually a C-130, but since the MOAB uses GPS and higher altitude drops, the C-17 can probably be used as well.) MOAB is a highly destructive and terrifying weapon. If used in Iraq, it would demoralize any Iraqi troops in the vicinity who survived the explosion. The force of a MOAB explosion is sufficient to knock over tanks and kill any people within several hundred meters of the detonation. After the 1991 Gulf War, the United States started to get rid of it's various FAE weapons. But some were left in the inventory when the Afghanistan came along and the success of Daisy Cutters there, plus the new Russian research in FAE weapons, led to the new American research effort. There may be larger, or simply more powerful, FAE weapons in the works. But for the moment, MOAB, using pretty old-fashioned technology, is the biggest non-nuclear bomb around.

[JSteff]

"The B83 is 1.14 million times more energetic."

Than what?

[Cyber Liberty]

Thanks! You're all right! I have scientists I work with with less on the ball than you.

[JSteff]

Sorry Varmint Al. I should have read before I typed.

[snooker]

MOAB uses a parachute for extraction, drops the chute, guides to target with gps. Makes it far more accurate than the old daisy cutter which was on the parachute almost all the way.

snooker

[Jennifer in Florida]

Ain't FR great? I'm learning so much about all these cool things :)

[Libloather]

Ain't FR great?

Yes.

[Cyber Liberty]

This is a great brain trust. I've been told that I'm in the shallow end of the gene pool here.

[old-ager]

"Check the subtle message from the AF guy sayinghe was over 700 odd miles away and could actually hear it!"

No, no, no. He said that at the edge of the 700-some-odd SQUARE MILE base it was not loud. 700 square miles is only about 27 miles on a side, if it's a square. The nearest edge of such a square is less than 14 miles from its center.

[BushMeister]

I think that 2 versions of the MOAB are being produced: one for an airburst over troops/assets, and a penetrator version. Maybe the penetrator will be called MOAP for Massive Ordnance Attack Penetrator.

Can you imagine this thing being dropped from 40,000 feet in a hardened case, maybe even with a thruster-assist to increase speed? It might even be able to shake up Saddam down in his 300-ft.-deep bunker.

The fact that this 21,000 bomb is carrying fully 18,000 lbs of explosive shows us how far technolog has come compared to the Grand Slam of WWII.

[ThomWilkerson]

I only have one gripe with the military detonating the MOAB bomb at Eglin AFB today.

If we really wanted to make a statement to Saddam and the world, and especially to those jerks at the UN, we should have made the demonstration by dropping the bomb in the middle of the Champs Elysee.

After all, Pres Bush did say,
"You are either with us or you are with the Terrorists"

--and we certainly know whose side those worthless French frogs are on now, don't we???!!! :-/

[Varmint Al]

The B83 at 1.2 MT is 1.14 million times more energetic than the MOAB.