Does anyone remember when in Gulf War I Saddam predicted the “Mother of All Battles”? Me thinks this might be a jab at him and not some deep Biblical reference…
I’d agree, Rhum. But the interesting fact is, it’s really not much more than a Fuel-Air Explosive.
Another interesting fact is that much of the ‘recipe’ for the FAE came from the Russians, who have a broad range of ‘thermobaric’ weapons, from shoulder-launched, to guided ATGMs, to city-busters that were used to good effect in Grozny.
Detente at its finest!
You know, I asked about that in a thread in GQ the other day, because some of the reports I had read made this thing sound like a fuel air job, but then when you see it, and when they describe it as a penetrating bomb and what not it looks like just straight up HE. In GQ it was said that it was just a HE bomb, albeit a big one. Do you know for sure what it is? I am still unclear, but it seems to not be a fuel air bomb.
(For those of you who don’t know what a fuel air bomb is, it works by dispersing a cloud of vapor and then detonating it, great for clearing minefields since it creates a high preasure over a wide area. Don’t think it would do much to penetrate a bunker though)
Well, the Blooie-82 was a FAE bomb. If this is a decendant of it, and it pretty much has to be, because you can’t MAKE a bomb that big with the impact it has and not have it be an FAE, then it’s a FAE.
It may not penetrate a bunker, but it will collapse it.
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/iraq/article.jsp?id=99993495&sub=News%20update
This seems to say FAE.
I quote,
Technical details of the MOAB are said to be classified, but the device is described by military officials as “similar” in design to the BLU-82, or Daisy Cutter. This was first used by the US military in the Vietnam War and most recently in Afghanistan.
The seven-tonne BLU-82 contains an explosive mixture of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminium in an aqueous suspension. This is detonated a few feet above the ground after the bomb is parachuted from low altitude from the back of a Hercules transport aircraft.
From your link…
I think it is just a big bomb, though not the biggest. Have you seen this? I couldn’t find much more on it on the web, but this site mentions it and calls it the T-12 Cloudmaker, a 44,000 lb bomb. Wow. I don’t think the picture in my first link is the work of photoshop, but it is so big it almost looks that way. I like the way they call it “General Purpose” 
The BLU-82 (“Daisy Cutter”) isn’t a Fuel-Air Explosive:
Here’s some more information on fuel-air explosives.
This cite claims MOAB is not FAE.
Ah, on preview I see that MEBuckner has similar info, but I’ll post this anyway.
Hmm, you have end quotes but no start quotes, so is this a “quote” from the bible or not? If it is, it’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. The daughters get blamed for getting pregnant by their father? He was just an innocent bystander?
[quoteJust a clean kill. We Americans are so thoughtful.[/quote]
Given an alternative of a horrible, living decomposition of radiation poisoning, yes.
Regardless, it seems this will likely not be available for the Gulf War II, and won’t be needed in any case, but they might drop one or two if they get the opportunity to hit some Republican Guards.
The bible actually says that his daughters got Lot so drunk he passed out and then slept with him, so he was an “innocent bystander” in that regard. As for Lot’s daughters, it wasn’t so much that they made an error of judgement or that their judgement was warped, but that they were ignorant of the facts. See, when the cities of the plain got destroyed, Lot’s daughters thought that G-d had done the same thing everywhere…that He had wiped out the entire human race, and so the three of them were the only three people left alive in the world. Therefore, they felt that they had to do what they did to continue the human race. Here’s the actual biblical verses, without the paraphrasing.
[quote]
Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.” That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today. [/quote0
The bit from Isiah about baldheads and beardless faces is a ritual for grieving,not an allusion to nuclear warfare.
However if Moab is a ''cleaner,clinical bomb" then I will purchase that Brooklyn Bridge and the check is in the mail.
[Minor Hijack]
Am I the only one who is utterly astounded by how consistently the Bush administration comes up with labels, quotations and terminology deriving from the Bible? However much a Christian Shrub might be, he is also the selected leader of a polytheistic nation. A country that specifically owes it grandeur to freedom of and freedom from religion. Whether it be calling the early anti-terror campaign a “crusade,” quoting Biblical passages over the lost shuttle crew or allowing a monstrous bomb specifically designed for the disruption of WMD to be named after a central Judeo-Christian reference point, all of it is incredibly stupid to the point of being dangerous.
Bush idiotically puts America at increased and further risk of terrorist attack by portraying this country as a Christian nation. Combine this asinine convolving of church and state with the very potent fear that an “end times” mentality may pervade the White House and the needless endangerment of our population becomes outrageous. This is an utterly just war being fought by an imbecile with all of the wrong motivations. I am absolutely revolted by how these executive secular religious references are painting crosshairs [pun intended] on our backs. It is nothing short of hideous.
[/Minor Hijack]
<hijack>
Just an interesting tidbit, the USAF actually dropped a bomb called the “TX-14” on 40 different occasions in 1952 from a modified B 36 bomber. The TX-14 was 50,000 lbs in weight. Another experimental bomb, apparently never dropped, was the TX-16, reported as weighing 63,000 lbs.
</hijack>
This has got to be the most jaw-dropping rant I’ve ever seen, aside from being very illogical. In any event, I doubt the soldiers and engineers who came up with the name asked Bush about it.
Ah, we’re getting into tight nomeclature, then. In which case, true, it is not a FAE, as it is self-contained, but it is mechanically similar to one in significant ways; that is, as opposed to your standard bomb, it’s still an “explosive mixture of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminium”, if in an aqueous solution with an oxidizer, rather than using air.
Which is what I was getting at. I’m not sure if there is a term for this type of bomb, though.
And it certainly is cleaner and more clinical than a nuke.
[quote]
Would you like the army to develop a bomb that spreads joy and scatters flowers and money about the target? What exactly do you think bombs are for? Party favors?
The GBU-XXX-6969-2KEWEL-4-U ---- “Party Bomb”
Also, “Divine Retribution” or “Pagan Killer” Heh.
Coding pirate strikes again. Sorry, MEB, I’ve had a bad week.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Beagle *
**
When they fly missions to drop it, instead of playing Wagner, they play KISS and Beastie Boys.