# 'MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS': US drops massive bomb in Afghanistan



## Rifleman62 (13 Apr 2017)

This could be moved to another topic but I feel this has International implications.

IMHO Pres Trump is untying the US Military hands to engage and win everywhere. Additionally the use of this weapon tells NK that it's Army is probably not as secure dug into mountains as it thinks it is, let alone the msg to Russia, Syria etc.

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

*US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan after Green Beret killed*

By Lucas Tomlinson Published April 13, 2017 FoxNews.com


The U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, just days after a Green Beret was killed fighting ISIS there, a U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News.

The GBU-43B, a 21,000-pound conventional bomb, was dropped on an ISIS tunnel complex in Nangarhar Province.
MOAB Expand / Contract


The MOAB -- Massive Ordinance Air Blast -- is also known as the “Mother Of All bombs.” It was first tested in 2003, but hadn't been used in combat before Thursday.

_WHAT IS THE 'MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS'?_ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/13/what-is-moab.html

The MOAB is so massive it had to be dropped out of the back of a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane.

"We kicked it out the back door," one U.S. official told Fox News.

For comparison to the 21,000-pound MOAB, each Tomahawk cruise missile launched at a Syrian military air base last week was 1,000-pounds each.

"As [ISIS'] losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense," 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


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## jollyjacktar (13 Apr 2017)

I hope they don't dig their way out.


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## OTR1 (14 Apr 2017)

Pentagon has released a vide, here - https://youtu.be/mVihLVKkLyY


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## Old Sweat (15 Apr 2017)

And just for fun, here is the Second World War version, the RAF's 22,000 pound Grand Slam bomb:

https://shortfinals.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/a-bigger-bang-the-22000-lb-mc-grand-slam-bomb-brooklands-museum/


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## jollyjacktar (15 Apr 2017)

Afghans are reporting now that at least 94 barbarians were killed in the strike.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghanistan-mother-of-all-bombs-1.4071742


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## Colin Parkinson (15 Apr 2017)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> And just for fun, here is the Second World War version, the RAF's 22,000 pound Grand Slam bomb:
> 
> https://shortfinals.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/a-bigger-bang-the-22000-lb-mc-grand-slam-bomb-brooklands-museum/



yes being having to educate people on how 1944 wants it's bomb back.


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## George Wallace (15 Apr 2017)




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## tomahawk6 (15 Apr 2017)

The Russians claim to have the Father of All Bombs which packs 44 tons of TNT. They havent used it before so we dont really know much about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2FGA3Z-oYM

https://www.inverse.com/article/30308-father-of-all-bombs-mother-us-russia-bomb-missile-moab-foab

The specifics of the mythical Father of All Bombs have never been confirmed beyond Russian military claims, but it is purported to have a blast equivalent to a whopping 44 tons of TNT. This would give it a blast radius roughly twice that of the American MOAB, at about 300 meters. Like all other “thermobaric” bombs, it uses the atmosphere to power its fuel reaction, rather than incorporating an oxidizer into the fuel mixture in the weapon itself. This means that as the explosion progresses, it burns through the air to power its own chemical reaction, creating a super-heated, ultrasonic shock wave that literally vaporizes most anything other than rock.

Russia typically describes the FOAB as a nuke without the fallout — a chance to harness the destructive potential of a nuclear weapon without the messy radioactive contamination that follows.


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## Rifleman62 (15 Apr 2017)

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/04/13/gen-jack-keane-us-dropping-mother-all-bombs-afghanistan

*Gen. Keane: MOAB Is a 'Nasty Weapon,' Well-Suited for Targeting ISIS Tunnels *

T6 has probably seen and likes this. The main point is Gen (Ret) Keane saying military commanders no longer must request permission from "a 30 year old in the WH" to conduct Ops. Around 1:30 to 2:00


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## McG (15 Apr 2017)

From OS things that I have read of H-6 (the filler in MOAB), I would expect that it too is a thermoberic explosive.


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## tomahawk6 (15 Apr 2017)

Rifleman62 said:
			
		

> http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/04/13/gen-jack-keane-us-dropping-mother-all-bombs-afghanistan
> 
> *Gen. Keane: MOAB Is a 'Nasty Weapon,' Well-Suited for Targeting ISIS Tunnels *
> 
> T6 has probably seen and likes this. The main point is Gen (Ret) Keane saying military commanders no longer must request permission from "a 30 year old in the WH" to conduct Ops. Around 1:30 to 2:00



Yep its good that the grown ups are in charge again.


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## Rifleman62 (11 May 2017)

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/11/moab-damage-in-afghanistan-extreme-widespread.html

*MOAB damage in Afghanistan extreme, widespread* 11 May 17

Photos at link.

EXCLUSIVE: KABUL, Afghanistan –  It has been one month since the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear combat weapon -- the MOAB -- to eradicate ISIS from its base in Afghanistan's Nanganhar province. And still, the ghostly destruction zone is a vision that haunts. 

FoxNews.com has obtained exclusive images illuminating the bomb’s impact taken this week, showing the gouged and singed earth and even the limb of a dead fighter that had yet to be removed or buried. 

While the use of the MOAB, which stands for Massive Ordnance Air Blast, has been controversial, with analysts claiming it had little effect other than decimating Afghanistan's territory, others on the ground are still insistent that it worked extremely well, not only to kill more than 90 ISIS fighters, but to eliminate supply routes and squash morale within the terrorist organization. 

"This was very effective -- many of ISIS' training camps are gone, bunkers destroyed," Gen. Qadamshah Shahim, chief of the general staff of the Afghan Ministry of Defense, who just stepped down from his role following the Mazar-i-Sharif attack, told Fox News. 

But according to one high-ranking Afghan defense official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic, the decision to use the MOAB was not taken hastily. Rather, it was a carefully calculated move. 

The official said that a request to use such a weapon -- one designed to penetrate the earth's surface and thus destroy underground tunnels and dwellings -- was brought to the attention of Afghan officials several months ago, and wasn't given the green light until all other options were explored and potential collateral damage and effectiveness studied. 

"This was the only solution to bring stability to the area and avoid more bloodshed by this brutal terrorist group," said Commander Ahmad Muslem Hayat, a former military attaché for Afghanistan's British Embassy and current security adviser for the U.S.-based firm, TigerSwan. "This wasn't about sending quick messages to show strength to other threatening countries like North Korea. This was about saving innocent Afghan lives from ISIS torture."

Capt. William Salvin, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, defended the use of the MOAB, saying it was used for a “specific tactical purpose on the battlefield.”

Nonetheless, the area remains a no-go zone for all.

It is not yet clear whether U.S. forces -- which are currently revising the battle strategy toward the increasingly unstable Afghanistan -- intend to deploy such a large-scale weapon anytime in the near future. But there is a growing sentiment among the Afghan people for such attention to be devoted to defeating Taliban hubs, too, which they view as a much greater threat to their safety than the country's fast weakening ISIS branch. 

"Different flags, different names," noted Major Abadullah Karimi, spokesperson for the 202nd Shamshad Police Corps, the headquarters for operations in eastern Afghanistan. "But the same games.


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