I just read that US troops have been dropping noise bombs on Fallujah during the past few days. What does this accomplish?
Haven’t heard the term before but any chance you’re talking about some type of big stun grenade aka flashbang?
They’re devices that make an incredibly loud bang and bright flash, disabling people who are nearby without killing them. Handy if you are a hostage rescue team storming a room with innocent people and you need to make sure that the bad guys can’t do anything nasty while also making sure that you don’t accidentally blow up the hostages.
In this case I can see that dropping king-size noisemakers all over the place would start to wear the opposing soldiers down while minimizing the risk of blowing up innocent bystanders. Imagine trying to sleep, plan an attack, etc. while somebody keeps lighting cherry bombs off outside your window.
Thanks. The complete story was on debka.com yesterday - didn’t say anything else about the nature of the bomb. Your answer makes sense.
Noise bombs are a psy-war tool. They disorient the victim and create a desire for hearing hip-hop recordings, which encourage the growth of democracy. :rolleyes:
I for one have never heard of a ‘noise bomb.’
A google on “noise bomb” turns up various references to crowd control techniques, mainly in the middle east, a picture of an airport employee deploying a “noise bomb” onto a runway to scare off the birds, and numerous references to bad music. There was also an interesting interview between Dick Cavett and David Bowie, in which Bowie discusses “Black-noise” noise bombs.