Posted on 03/11/2003 5:44:26 PM PST by 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 thats in almost any stage of development, could be used against Iraq, said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US militarys 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 Americas 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.
Weve 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.
The Mother of All Penetrators?
Now GWB (Captain Ahab to the idiot liberals) has a special harpoon to stick up Saddam's ass.
THAR SHE BLOWS!!!!!!!!
The first test used 704 pounds of Tritonal, which is equivalent to 830 pounds of TNT, or roughly 2,200 pounds of a properly prepared ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO) mixture.
The test was conducted in relation to the investigation into the OKC bombing:
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