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The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, also known as the "Mother of All Bombs", has been dropped in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. It is the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal.
The US military has dropped an enormous bomb in Afghanistan, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission. A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, nicknamed MOAB, was dropped at 7 p.m. local time Thursday, the sources said. [...] A MOAB is a 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition that is America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb.
The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, according to the military sources. They said the target was an ISIS tunnel and cave complex as well as personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province.
Gen. John Nicholson, Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against [ISIS]." The statement said U.S. forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties.
Also at Fox News. The bombing came days after the death of a Green Beret in the same province, but a defense official said the bombing was unrelated. Another official had this to say:
The MOAB had to be dropped out of the back of a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane due to its massive size. "We kicked it out the back door," one U.S. official told Fox News.
Update: The Afghan defence ministry says that 36 ISIS fighters were killed by the strike.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday April 14 2017, @05:08PM (3 children)
To be fair it is comparable to the smallets of the small nukes [wikipedia.org] without the massive fallout in a small area (seriously those little nukes are basically a dirty bomb with some punch). To put things in a little more perspective a large mine will detonate substantially more explosives in one go than that. Some number I looked up because I was curious show that one of the large mines in my state will set off about 8200 cubic feet of ANFO [hutchk12.org] in one shot (120 16" bore holes that are filled to a depth of 49' with explosives). Assuming one cubic foot is about 7 gallons and assuming a gallon of ANFO weighs in at 4 lbs (pretty close to what fuel oil weighs so seems like a reasonable guess) that would give us about 115 tons of explosive or about 10 of these bombs.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday April 14 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
Mining? This is mining! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday April 14 2017, @06:49PM
Nice to know I'm not the only one who knows about those events. There are big explosions and then there are BIG explosions and those anti trench tactics were BIG explosions. For something a bit lighter there is always the Nuclear Potato Cannon [blogspot.com].
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @07:57PM
Petersburg, Virginia July 30, 1864 Battle of the Crater [wikipedia.org]
Considerable brain power was invested in this (e.g. using the chimney effect to provide sappers deep underground with fresh air) and a bunch of resources (a huge store of black powder).
...but after all of that, they handed the operation over to an incompetent commander for the assault.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]