The use of the GBU-43/B bomb on April 13th against an Islamic State (IS) tunnel complex in Afghanistan’s wild eastern province of Nangarhar has caused a flurry of excitement. In service since 2003, this was first time the Massive Ordnance Air Blast weapon (popularly known as the “mother of all bombs”) has been dropped.
It is the most powerful bomb in America’s non-nuclear inventory, weighing about 22,000 pounds and carrying an explosive yield of about 11 tons of TNT. With its blast area of nearly a mile in all directions, it was designed primarily as a weapon to clear concentrations of fairly soft defences. It works by creating blast overpressure rather than by direct explosive effect. It can only be used in relatively uncontested air space because it has to be dropped close to the target by a lumbering cargo plane, such as a C-130 or C-17.
As such, it is easy to see why it was the weapon of choice to help Afghan forces pitted against well-dug-in IS fighters in a part of the country where the risk to civilians was minimal. It is likely that there were also American military “advisers” with the Afghans: a US Army special-forces soldier had been killed...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2nMh5SZ
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