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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: 3, Informative) by Sulla on Friday April 14 2017, @02:16PM (13 children)
When I first saw news articles popping up about it yesterday I saw a lot of titles comparing it to a nuke. I looked it up on wikipedia and it hadsomething like 11 tons of tnt equivalent, in perspective Little Boy had 15 kilotons tnt equivalent. Seemed to me this was really getting overblown in the media and was probably another strike trying to scare NK.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @02:28PM
Same here. Being off by 3 whole orders of magnitude doesn't really help the media, whatever Narrative they're trying to have.
To be sympathetic, perhaps they were thinking of an Mk-54 [wikipedia.org] tactical nuke at 10 tons of TNT.
However, the media has to keep in mind that a reasonable person's basis for comparison will be the aforementioned Little Boy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @02:39PM (2 children)
'..and was probably another strike trying to scare NK.'
Scare the Norks?, listen, even if you dropped a thousand dual laser wielding Godzillas draped in Nippon-USian finery on NK they'd not get scared...If you could ressurect Kim Il Sung and turn him into some sort of Juche Ideal spouting undead you might just scare the current Boy Blunder of a leader, however the indoctrinated populace (the older generation, specifically) would follow old Juche man anywhere..
Anyhow, NK is way too close to China, and they're just that bit 'unpredictable' to annoy by pulling a stunt like this there(c.f. the way they intervened in the original war which created the current situation in Korea), however, if I was Assad this fine day, I'd be looking at taking an extended Russian holiday sometime real soon...way more pragmatic, the Russians, way more, and far less bloody inscrutable..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday April 14 2017, @05:56PM (1 child)
Here's the thing about Kim Jong Un: If he appears too belligerent, then his foreign enemies will attack and wipe him out. If he appears not belligerent enough, then his domestic enemies will engage in a coup/revolution and wipe him out. Kim is western-educated and not particularly stupid according to people who knew him before he became a dictator, so it's likely that he's acting more than a bit nuts and unpredictable as a way of protecting himself.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @06:40PM
If he appears not belligerent enough, then his domestic enemies will engage in a coup/revolution and wipe him out.
We only see the outside of the DPRK but that's just the tip of the iceburg.
Most people seem to forget that domestic politics is more important than foreign politics, especially the smaller the country because their ability to affect foreign politics scales down rapidly with size.
Being a dictator doesn't make you immune to domestic politics, if anything it makes your perch more precarious because falling off it usually results in death.
Kim has been killing off a lot of the competition since he ascended to the throne. The assassination of his half-brother being the most recent and visible.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday April 14 2017, @03:53PM (3 children)
Little Boy was still pretty large compared to many tactical nukes. Didn't immediately find any yield information on the new Russian tank shell, but the US's 155mm W48 155mm nuclear artillery shell, of which over 1000 were produced in the 60s, delivered only 100 tons TNT equivalent. Though to be fair the 8" W33, the only other nuclear artillery shell produced in large numbers (2000), delivered a more respectable 5-40 kilotons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_artillery [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 14 2017, @03:56PM (1 child)
Check out this story. [soylentnews.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday April 14 2017, @04:10PM
That's the one I was remembering - didn't see any yield information other than a speculation of "sub-kiloton range"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @04:47PM
Mass destruction is not respectable.
(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]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @12:36AM
the over-pressure and other effects are comparable in magnitude to low yield nukes. the combustion process maybe even moreso.