backtop

Print E-mail del.icio.us 74 comment(s) - last by Mortal.. on Sep 15 at 2:22 AM

FOAB after impact and detonation
Russia tries to retake it's position on the world stage.

Yesterday, Russia detonated the largest non-nuclear weapon in history. The bomb is currently dubbed the “Father of all Bombs” as a play on the American Massive Ordnance Air Burst or “Mother of all Bombs.” Russia has not cited an official designation for the bomb, but it has already solidified its nickname.

The American MOAB is air dropped from the back of a C-130 cargo plane. MOAB uses 8 tons of high explosive to produce an explosion of roughly 11 tons of TNT. This was up until yesterday the most powerful conventional bomb in the world. Today it looks like Russia now holds that title.

The “FOAB” is dropped from a Tu-160 Strategic Bomber and uses just 7.8 tons of a new high explosive that produces an explosion equivalent to 44 tons of TNT. That is 4 times that of the American MOAB. The Tu-160 Strategic Bombers are the same ones that Russia restarted last month.

Both bombs are Thermobaric based. They use a “Fuel air burst” to scatter a cloud of fine explosive particles and then using a super heated explosion in the center cause a massive detonation in mid air. This process causes a massive shockwave that can destroy roughly 9 city blocks on the MOAB. The Russian “FOAB” has roughly twice the blast radius at 990 feet.

Both bombs consume all oxygen in the area during detonation, ensuring that even if you survived the blast, you will likely die from oxygen deprivation before the oxygen can fill the gaping space left by the bombs. Russia quotes the "FOAB" as environmentally friendly as it does not leave any fall out or radiation, but the explosion still would surely decimate the area it is dropped in.

Televised remarks from a Russian General state the new “FOAB” is comparable to a nuclear weapon in efficiency and capability. By comparison, the nuclear device dropped on Hiroshima had an explosion rated at 13,000 tons of TNT. Nevertheless, as far as anyone has confirmed, Russia now has the largest and most powerful air burst weapon in the world.

The U.S. military claims to possess several larger air burst weapons but none have been demonstrated publicly.


Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By Marlowe on 9/12/2007 9:37:18 AM , Rating: 5
Will the Americans answer with the even bigger GOAB? The Granny of all Bombs? Or maby the smaller, tactical nuke the DOAB, Daughter of all Bombs? Or the bomb that does no physical damage but sucks out everything you have in your pockets, the LOAB - The Lawyer of all Bombs?

Fill in your suggestion to the next bomb below!




RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 9/12/2007 9:42:05 AM , Rating: 5
GOAB - God of all Bombs


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By wordsworm on 9/12/2007 12:11:26 PM , Rating: 5
I suppose Iran would have to come up with the Allah's Reaper of All Bombs. ARAB.


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By porkpie on 9/12/2007 2:11:09 PM , Rating: 2
Good one! :)


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By LogicallyGenius on 9/12/07, Rating: -1
By marsbound2024 on 9/12/2007 11:52:16 PM , Rating: 3
Or maybe they should do that to you, especially since America is their biggest customer. LogicallyIdiot.


By cbo on 9/12/2007 3:59:15 PM , Rating: 5
Funny one, I must say but they are Persian.


By Misty Dingos on 9/12/2007 9:58:55 AM , Rating: 2
We get these two bombs together in a nice bomb storage facility with a few thousand gallons of vodka and pretty soon we get BOAB the Baby of All Bombs! Which will be a nasty little kid with a very short fuse. You don't want to be around for the terrible twos. It just isn't pretty.


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By Terberculosis on 9/12/2007 9:59:23 AM , Rating: 3
EOAB - End Of All Bombs

An Antimatter weapon that destroys the biosphere of the earth, ensuring no more bombs will be built (by homo sapiens at least).


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By PAPutzback on 9/12/2007 10:03:48 AM , Rating: 2
That's where I was going to go.
GFOAB - The Grand Finale Of All Bombs

How big of a bomb would it take on a fault line to trigger a huge earthquake to actually send a land mass to the Ocean. Some sort of wedge bomb.


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By masher2 (blog) on 9/12/2007 10:40:38 AM , Rating: 3
> "How big of a bomb would it take on a fault line to trigger a huge earthquake to actually send a land mass to the Ocean"

Land masses won't slide into the ocean no matter what. Eventually, California will likely break off and form an independent island, but it won't break off and sink.

For comparison sake, an earthquake registering 9 on the Richter scale releases the energy equivalent of 32 billion tons of TNT....so if you want to move a tectonic plate, you're going to need a rather large bomb.


By Inkjammer on 9/12/2007 11:35:24 AM , Rating: 2
And by then everything on the surface is dust anyway. =P


By djcameron on 9/12/2007 12:40:02 PM , Rating: 5
How about the ROOAB? The Rosie O'Donnell Of All Bombs... I think it would be bigger and nastier.


By codeThug on 9/12/2007 4:27:01 PM , Rating: 2
I'm thinking a "black hole" bomb would just about take care of things.

Mutually assured destruction at it's finest.


By arazok on 9/12/2007 10:55:29 AM , Rating: 4
The STFU Bomb. They could drop it on the Russian FOAB factory.


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By DEVGRU on 9/12/07, Rating: 0
RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By maven81 on 9/12/2007 12:44:28 PM , Rating: 5
How about you at least learn the language before teaching people a lesson?

For one thing you're wrong, a sumbarine is a she, as they call it "podvodnaya lodka"
A bomb is also female - "bomba" and in the few instances that they have named them it was given a woman's name... "tatyana" for instance.
True, a ship and an airplaine are masculine, however canon - "pushka", rocket - "raketa", and arrow - "strela" are all feminine.
There's no mystery here, this is basic grammar.

Anyway on to the subject at hand... this trully does feel like a return back to soviet times... pretty unnerving.


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By Ringold on 9/12/2007 1:38:28 PM , Rating: 5
At least the Soviet's we could deal with, bargain with, and generally get along with pretty well as long as we mutually, in public, continued to spit fire and brimstone.

These new kids playing on the international block don't play the same rules.. or any rules, for that matter.

Soviet's were, additionally, rationally acting players. There wouldn't ever be a nuclear war, except by accident, with Russia as they dont really want to be vaporized and neither do we. Whats to stop, however, a terrorist from using such a weapon? Only opportunity.

I therefore find a resurgent Russia rather comforting... Just as long as its relatively stable.


By maven81 on 9/12/2007 2:44:32 PM , Rating: 2
I completely agree with your assesment. But the way in which this resurgence is being carried out makes me sad. It wipes away much of the progress they have made towards democracy in favor of an almost totalitarian system... again... A system which will derive it's power from anti-western, ultranationalist rhetoric, which really has no place in today's world, especially considering they are now completely tied into the western economy.

Though one has to wonder whether they even want democracy in the first place. Seems generations of conditioning has taught them to prefer "the rule of a strong hand".


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By wordsworm on 9/12/2007 8:44:45 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
At least the Soviet's we could deal with, bargain with

You say this as if the US didn't invade Panama to take control over the canal, or Iraq on what everyone knows were false pretenses, or resumed space weapon technology despite a treaty with the Russians (formerly the USSR) forbidding such research. The US sees itself now as the world's only superpower. It therefore doesn't give $ .02 about international laws unless it applies to someone deemed an enemy of the state. This whole war on terror is a facade. It's pretty clear that there's no way a jet airliner can bring down a tower. This seems pretty obvious. Yet the US voted in for a second term the man who covered up the crime. Politically, it's the American juggernaut that is the world's biggest problem. America claims to support democracy, but refuses to acknowledge democratically elected governments like the one in Palestine right now. It consistently reports falsely on Iran, taking the president's words out of context to make him look like a monster rather than one of the great champions of his people. Most Americans don't really look at his record. They simply listen to the propaganda and judge him on that. Americans constantly have to remind themselves that they're free so that they can forget that more people are incarcerated in the US than any other country in the world. Mexico, a few years back, was about to legalize marijuana, but 'thanks' to US involvement, threats, etc., that sovereign nation quickly discovered that the US can threaten all kinds of nasty things if a government doesn't rule using American policies. The US is a big problem in the world today, while its people seem to imagine themselves as the saviors and police. So before criticizing other people's ways, perhaps you ought to first acknowledge that the US can't rationally look upon itself as a rule abiding nation.

Before anyone suggests it, I'm not Muslim, Arab, or even left wing. I'm descended from an orphan, so I don't know my ethnicity, I'm an atheist, so I don't care about religion, and I don't like either left or right wing politics. I believe in being objective and that both sides of issues often have pertinent points, and that rather than take sides based on what I'm told to believe by the state run propaganda machine, aka CBC, I actually remain objective.


RE: So after MOAB and FOAB, what's next?
By