MOAB Dropped In Afghanistan!

[E4 No More]

From Trump with love! http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04/13/us-drops-largest-non-nuclear-bomb-in-afghanistan-after-green-beret-killed.html

 

[TNWNGR]

Interesting weapon, I wonder how long it'll be before we know what the bomb damage assessment was after more intel becomes available to the public.

[E4 No More]

29 minutes ago, TNWNGR said:

Interesting weapon, I wonder how long it'll be before we know what the bomb damage assessment was after more intel becomes available to the public.

My guess is after the Taliban drags in some women and children to kill and claim that they were killed by the bomb.

A blast radius of 1 mile is no joke!

[Sam1]

There's no good videos of a MOAB exploding, here's the same type of fuel-air bomb exploding, 2000 lbs.  The MOAB is 20,000 lbs.

 

[TNWNGR]

Yeah, I've viewed a BLU/96 FAB video before and was impressed, perfect for clearing minefields and more. As I understood it the MOAB was supposed to be a bigger, better variation of the WW II Earthquake bomb and other seismic bombs

/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_bomb

If it collapse tunnels effectively then that's going to diminish concealing troops and ordinance in known or discoverable tunnel complexes.

[E4 No More]

1 hour ago, Sam1 said:

There's no good videos of a MOAB exploding, here's the same type of fuel-air bomb exploding, 2000 lbs.  The MOAB is 20,000 lbs.

 

I don't think it's a fuel/air bomb. It detonates when the probes on the front of it contact the ground.

[2.ooohhh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9H50tHiHjs

[Sam1]

1 hour ago, SWJewellTN said:

I don't think it's a fuel/air bomb. It detonates when the probes on the front of it contact the ground.

MOAB is a fuel-air bomb from what I understand, the detonation point doesn't effect it.  Fuel-air just means it uses some type of fuel/explosive that takes advantage of the existing oxygen near the target.  There was one, think it was called the daisy cutter they used in vietnam to clear landing pads for heli's that the MOAB was designed from.  Not good against hard targets (like a bunked buster), but amazing at doing nasty things to everything soft nearby.

[bersaguy]

41 minutes ago, Sam1 said:

MOAB is a fuel-air bomb from what I understand, the detonation point doesn't effect it.  Fuel-air just means it uses some type of fuel/explosive that takes advantage of the existing oxygen near the target.  There was one, think it was called the daisy cutter they used in vietnam to clear landing pads for heli's that the MOAB was designed from.  Not good against hard targets (like a bunked buster), but amazing at doing nasty things to everything soft nearby.

The Daisy Cutters were very similar but the Daisy Cutter was designed to detonate just before striking the ground and the blast would destroy every thing in it's path for about 1 mile in every direction. They used them to clear out places in the jungles for Huey's to have an LZ where there was not one 3 hours earlier. Yea they did kill everything that was soft such as enemy soldiers which was plus. From what I gather with this MOAB it sucks all the oxygen out of the tunnels and caves actually suffocating any enemy soldiers in them. I figure once the Leftist realizes what the bomb does they will be up in arms and screaming it's Inhumane and should not be used even though they are killing savages that cuts peoples heads off............jmho

[DaveTN]

This is what I said they should have used on the airbase in Syria. $85 million for 60 cruise missiles, $16 million for one MOAB. I would bet two MOABs with ground detonation would have done as much damage as we saw from the 59 missile strikes. I didn’t think there appeared to be much damage.

It will be interesting to see what this did, but I doubt it looks like much damage if they dropped it in the mountains to take out caves.

[bersaguy]

44 minutes ago, DaveTN said:

This is what I said they should have used on the airbase in Syria. $85 million for 60 cruise missiles, $16 million for one MOAB. I would bet two MOABs with ground detonation would have done as much damage as we saw from the 59 missile strikes. I didn’t think there appeared to be much damage.

It will be interesting to see what this did, but I doubt it looks like much damage if they dropped it in the mountains to take out caves.

With that type of bomb the destruction is the O2 that it sucks out of the caves and kills anyone in the caves with out really doing a large amount of material damage exept maybe close the cave entrances. It would not have done much damage to the air base and by using the Cruise Missiles they could take out specific targets and not harm other such as the Russian Helicopters that were parked at the far side of the airbase that were not damaged. Don't want to upset the Bear....................

[GlockSpock]

This is what I said they should have used on the airbase in Syria. $85 million for 60 cruise missiles, $16 million for one MOAB. I would bet two MOABs with ground detonation would have done as much damage as we saw from the 59 missile strikes. I didn’t think there appeared to be much damage.
It will be interesting to see what this did, but I doubt it looks like much damage if they dropped it in the mountains to take out caves.

The difference is that they flew a C-130 over Afghanistan to drop the MOAB.

The Tomahawks have a range of around 1,500 miles.

Syria has air defenses, much more than Afghanistan.

[Sam1]

3 hours ago, DaveTN said:

This is what I said they should have used on the airbase in Syria. $85 million for 60 cruise missiles, $16 million for one MOAB. I would bet two MOABs with ground detonation would have done as much damage as we saw from the 59 missile strikes. I didn’t think there appeared to be much damage.

 

Looks are deceiving at war.  This little hole would have killed everyone inside, along with anyone standing within 20-30 feet on the hit side of the turret.

 

[btq96r]

3 hours ago, CZ9MM said:

 

The difference is that they flew a C-130 over Afghanistan to drop the MOAB.

The Tomahawks have a range of around 1,500 miles.

Syria has air defenses, much more than Afghanistan.

To piggyback on this great point, the MOAB is only deliverable by MC-130.  That all but guarantees that it will never be used in any kind of contested airspace.

While it's a very cool explosion, and a statement that we mean business...it's big boom nature and delivery means limit the ways we can use it.  It fits a niche role, but that's about it. 

[Danger Rane]

In addition to the new administration's apparent desire to shake up the way we've been doing things (which I thing is great), we are at a point where a lot of our less frequently used ordnance (which happen to be he big ones) are coming up on their shelf life. Just like we all need to shoot or rotate out or EDC ammo periodically, the same applies to our national level "EDC". First use of a MOAB in combat....sounds way overdue to me.....plus it's good training.

[mikegideon]

On 4/13/2017 at 5:16 PM, Sam1 said:

MOAB is a fuel-air bomb from what I understand, the detonation point doesn't effect it.  Fuel-air just means it uses some type of fuel/explosive that takes advantage of the existing oxygen near the target.  There was one, think it was called the daisy cutter they used in vietnam to clear landing pads for heli's that the MOAB was designed from.  Not good against hard targets (like a bunked buster), but amazing at doing nasty things to everything soft nearby.

The daisy cutter is 15,000 pounds. They dropped several of them when the war in Afghanistan started. I don't think either one is big enough

Edited April 15, 2017 by mikegideon

[E4 No More]

14 hours ago, Sam1 said:

MOAB is a fuel-air bomb from what I understand, the detonation point doesn't effect it.  Fuel-air just means it uses some type of fuel/explosive that takes advantage of the existing oxygen near the target.  There was one, think it was called the daisy cutter they used in vietnam to clear landing pads for heli's that the MOAB was designed from.  Not good against hard targets (like a bunked buster), but amazing at doing nasty things to everything soft nearby.

Not fuel/air explosive according to Wiki. It's H-6.

 

Specifications
Weight	10,300 kg (22,600 lb)
Length	9.1885 m (30 ft 1.75 in)
Diameter	103 cm (40.5 in)
Filling	H-6
Filling weight	8,500 kg (18,700 lb)
Blast yield	11 tons TNT (46 GJ)

 

Composition H6 is a castable military explosive mixture composed of the following percentages by weight:^[1]

• 44.0% RDX & nitrocellulose
• 29.5% TNT
• 21.0% powdered aluminium
• 5.0% paraffin wax as a phlegmatizing agent.
• 0.5% calcium chloride

H6 is used in a number of military applications, notably underwater munitions (e.g. naval mines, depth charges and torpedoes) where it has generally replaced torpex, being less shock sensitive and having more stable storage characteristics. It is approximately 1.35 times more powerful than pure TNT.

[Sam1]

cool thanks for the info, I was thinking it was fuel-air because they designed it with such a thin skin.  It's basically just a balloon filled with a low speed explosive

[Sam1]

[diamondback]

Trump did say he would "bomb the sh*t out of them"

[tacops]

9 hours ago, SWJewellTN said:

Not fuel/air explosive according to Wiki. It's H-6.

 

Specifications
Weight	10,300 kg (22,600 lb)
Length	9.1885 m (30 ft 1.75 in)
Diameter	103 cm (40.5 in)
Filling	H-6
Filling weight	8,500 kg (18,700 lb)
Blast yield	11 tons TNT (46 GJ)

 

Composition H6 is a castable military explosive mixture composed of the following percentages by weight:^[1]

• 44.0% RDX & nitrocellulose
• 29.5% TNT
• 21.0% powdered aluminium
• 5.0% paraffin wax as a phlegmatizing agent.
• 0.5% calcium chloride

H6 is used in a number of military applications, notably underwater munitions (e.g. naval mines, depth charges and torpedoes) where it has generally replaced torpex, being less shock sensitive and having more stable storage characteristics. It is approximately 1.35 times more powerful than pure TNT.

...and this is why one should clear their browser history.

[bersaguy]

I heard on the news that the bomb killed 18 Bad guys and closed up 3 of the caves they have been using. Way I figure it I wish it would have killed 500 BG's and still would not make up for the 1 Green Beret that was killed in the battle for the caves.........jmho

[btq96r]

The other side of the MOAB story...and one the Pentagon is very much hoping the cool bomb hoopla distracts you from is that fact that Afghanistan is falling to the enemy and fast.  ISIS (or ISIS-K as they're called there apparently) being responsible for the death of a USSF Soldier is pretty disturbing by itself, but the Taliban is holding land in key regions of the country again.  That Afghan Army and government we sacrificed time, lives, resources, and money to establish isn't up to the task, and after 15 1/2 years we've got very little to show for our efforts in the country.  Everything after routing Al Qaeda in '01 & '02 was pretty much a waste, and shows again, that we're pretty good at the war part, but the occupying part isn't our forte because we lack the generational commitment. 

But please, continue to raise the table 6" because we dropped a big bomb and ignore the disaster that is our war in Afghanistan.

Edited April 15, 2017 by btq96r

[Sam1]

10 hours ago, btq96r said:

The other side of the MOAB story...and one the Pentagon is very much hoping the cool bomb hoopla distracts you from is that fact that Afghanistan is falling to the enemy and fast.  ISIS (or ISIS-K as they're called there apparently) being responsible for the death of a USSF Soldier is pretty disturbing by itself, but the Taliban is holding land in key regions of the country again.  That Afghan Army and government we sacrificed time, lives, resources, and money to establish isn't up to the task, and after 15 1/2 years we've got very little to show for our efforts in the country.  Everything after routing Al Qaeda in '01 & '02 was pretty much a waste, and shows again, that we're pretty good at the war part, but the occupying part isn't our forte because we lack the generational commitment. 

But please, continue to raise the table 6" because we dropped a big bomb and ignore the disaster that is our war in Afghanistan.

Playing whack-a-mole there will never work, Russia tried it for years, we've tried it for years, at some point it's time to get off the ride.

$2.4 trillion would have bought exactly 15 million MOABs.  According to Wikipedia, Afghanistan is 252,000 square miles.  If the MOAB has a blast radius of +/- 1 mile, we could have literally blown up every square inch of the country almost 60 times over.

[TGO David]

11 hours ago, btq96r said:

But please, continue to raise the table 6" because we dropped a big bomb and ignore the disaster that is our war in Afghanistan.

 

Meh.

I think the use of the MOAB weapon was equal parts testing it out, having some "fun" with a big ass bomb on some assholes who seriously deserved it, and sending a message to anyone who feels that a demonstration of our might and prowess is relevant to them and their interests.  An All Points Bulletin of sorts to say, "Hey check this out... we've still got toys we haven't even  popped on scumbags yet.  Remember us?"

As for Afghanistan, other than keeping ISIS, ISIS-K, SPECTRE, Hydra, HIVE, and any other miscreant organizations suppressed, who really thinks we have an end-game there that includes a stable democracy and a McDonald's on every street corner?  That's never going to happen.

The best we can hope for is that Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Legion of Doom are either wiped out or kept at bay, and the rest of the country somewhat peacefully goes back to the caveman #### they've been doing for eons.  Stuff like growing poppies for opium, screwing goats, subjugating their women, and dressing up little boys to look like little girls so they can screw them instead of goats.

Come to think of it, we should probably just rescue all of the women, children and goats, and then nuke the whole goddamn place.  We haven't used one of those boomsticks lately either and the world kind of needs THAT reminder too.