The MOAB
 

Story Link

I heard that they tested this thing at Elgin AFB this afternoon and were pleased with the results. Rumor also has it that this particular weapon may be used in our efforts in Iraq.

Now, I'm not saying I actually understand everything about what's going on between us and Iraq, but if our beef is because he's got WOMD, why are we obviously showing we've got them ourselves?

Dagney

I assume it carefuly dodges around civvies.

     Silly under-person there won't be any civilian casulties. Everyone in the blast radius will be official classified as terrorist. Perhaps not all intended to be Terrorist's, but we have evidence confirming that all baby bottles in the area have hidden explosives inside. All threats must be dealt with, including these.
     Learn from your own representitives, all should follow in the glory of the US. You may now kneel.

     Wow, rereading I sound a disturbing amount like Sycamore...

I'm not gonna kneel until you tell me what I have to do when I'm down there.

Dagney
*grin*

     Heh, I prefer using the response, "I'll get on my knees when you get on your elbows." Don't worry to much though, if it were anything bad I'd ask nice. Or at least ask Dave's advice on how I should approach it. ;]

I'm scared

Jag, what are you? Retarded? Nothing wrong at all with killing a couple of million civilians. That's what makes war so much FUN.

I dunno...other than using "silly," it sounds like something tw might say. (Okay, now we know he probably wouldn't say some shit like that, but the wording of it is...a bit too eerie.)

Fuel-Air Weapon
 

The Yahoo! story doesn't mention it, but the report I heard on NPR tongith indicates this is a huge fuel-air weapon.

FAs are very nasty devices; they have a one-two punch. The first is the blast that scatters the fuel and the second is the ignition source that, uh, ignites it.

The net result is that the oxygen in the blast area is sucked out very rapidly, causing a sort of explosive decompression/asyphixiation environment. It's a huge anti-personnel weapon, basically.

From the reading I've done, this is the big brother of the Daisy Cutter bomb used during the Vietnam War and recently our "Spelunking" expedition in Afghanistan.

Understandably, there will be auxillary casualties during any type of military activity. (Yes, innocent people will die....it's not excusable, but it happens) However, what I am wondering, is would we actually USE something like this in active warfare, or was this more an exercise in indimidation?

Disarm, or we'll steal your oxygen?

Dagney

They might use it, but not to kill lots of people. The idea behind the "shock and awe" strategy is that those are the reactions you get out of the enemy, so they are demoralized before they even start fighting. So don't land one of these on a military base, necessarily... land it a mile down the road, and an hour later drop pamphlets that say "that's coming for you if you fire on us."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/W...omb030225.html

Lets hope they don't build command bunkers under houses.

I like this one:
http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s795414.htm
http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/...arget=moab.htm
has a good summary and piccies. It's orange! Everything in a 400m radius is black wafterwards!

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2...-9085M-004.mpg
vid of it in action, for reason this thing facinates me.

I don't think a c-130 or a c-17 would be out on a battle field another article i was reading said that the bomb would be used mostly for the clearing of minefields. Hm... so it's a time saver?

Orange
 

I was hypothesizing elsewhere that it is orange because it is still not fully flight certified (we use the word "qualified").

The USAF paints items that are on an aircraft that have not met all of their environmental specification requirements orange to easily distinguish them from fully qualified items.

I've had to deal with orange bomb racks, orange bomb bay door control avionics, orange weapon release hardware, all kinds of stuff, so an orange bomb is reasonable, I suppose.

The USAF paints items that are on an aircraft that have not met all of their environmental specification

If i find it hilarious that a a 10 ton bomb designed to vapeorise everything within half a mile might not pass environmental specs =)

(SELECT * FROM persons WHERE clue Is Null)

Shouldn't that be WHERE clue = 0 ?
Is clue a true/false or is it scalar?
Quick! Move this to the philosophy forum!

Re: The MOAB
 

This isn't a weapon of mass destruction -- that seems to be a term reserved to what used to be called NBC weapons (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical). This is just a really big conventional weapon.

Besides, it's no secret that the US _DOES_ have weapons of mass destruction. Both chemical and nuclear. (Biological too, I'd bet)