71 years ago the RAF were dropping 22,000lb Grandslam bombs on German dams and U-boat pens. These were conventional bombs too, not FAEs. It’s amazing the song and dance the media is making about this and just how fucking terrible the research alot of these media operations do. Ive seen at least one article claiming it was bigger than Hiroshima.
While the MOAB is indeed more powerful than the Grandslam, yeah … it’s a big to-do about pretty much nothing and all the talk smacks of jingoism.
Coulter has aged pretty well. I thought that the dark side of the force made you freakishly ugly pretty quick, but her eyes aren’t even red yet.
I’m not sure what media you’re talking about, but the media I’ve seen suggest it’s noteworthy because such an indiscriminately powerful weapon hasn’t been one of our tools against the Taliban in the remote areas of Afghanistan, much less ISIS in a theater with more civilian bystanders at risk, not to mention friendly combatants like the 18 we just accidentally killed in that same theater. It’s basically overkill, which was probably a good idea against hard infrastructure like a dam in World War II, but smacks of pointless dick-waving in Syria and Iraq.
More to the point, it represents a notable change in doctrine the administration seems to be conducting behind the scenes. I am not cool with that and the media should definitely be running this story.
Which article is that? Because, yeah, there’s a lot of junkie media out there. Why are you reading that stuff?
-Tom
It’s my timeline is complaining about the media that Trump and his supporters read.
Against dams and stuff, it’s not really overikill, given the physics of the problem. I’m not sure it’s overkill against actual tunnel complexes, either, but that of course depends on a lot of factors, including proximity to non-military targets and the like.
And that’s the real issue. Instead of looking at the overall picture and what is actually being accomplished, the focus is on tons and size and bigness and what not. Total smokescreen for the the real issues that should be, but are not, being discussed. Like, what the fuck are we trying to actually do in these conflicts?
If that’s the case, why hasn’t it been used? What changed about those tunnels in 2017 that hasn’t been true since 2002? I’m sure we dropped some pretty big bombs on the Taliban, but the people in charge didn’t feel it was necessary to drop ten tons in one whack. This smacks of some dumb kid asking for the biggest firecracker at the firework stand.
By the way, why is it that shade of sports car orange? I guess that’s just a prototype or something?
-Tom
When your sole purpose is to explode into a fiery blast, perhaps one’s sense of style gets a little warped.
Reasonable points. As I said, other factors apply. It could be they didn’t have intel on the complexes. Or that the ones they had intel on were too close to villages. Or it could be that Trump is a fucking idiot and is thrashing about like a deranged octopus on crack.
Personally, I vote for the latter.
The MOAB’s predecessor, the Daisy Cutter, was dropped a bunch of times in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure, it’s “only” a 15,000lb bomb, but it’s also out of service now and the MOAB is it’s replacement.
Yeah, I believe we daisy cuttered a cave complex back in '02. The pressure blast would be enough to kill everyone inside.
So, how much is an ISIS fighter’s life worth? Around $400k, I’d say, given the $16mill GBU43 targeted just 36 enemy soldiers. Unless the US imagine the value of the destroyed cave infrastructure to be in the several millions, seems like an expensive dick measuring contest.
Well, I hear those ISIS dudes are like genetically-engineered super soldiers. Or something.
Okay. That must be what I keep remembering because in my mind we had kind of been down this road before. So this bomb is bigger than the big bomb we dropped before.
And I don’t have a problem with dropping it on cave complexes. I just don’t want them dropping it on some village when the drone is out of operation.
This reads like an Onion parody of jingoistic state news media, right down to Geraldo looking like he’s about bust a nut.
Given where the target was, I’m wondering if those killed by the bomb were operationally important to the extent that it justified the cost of about $2 million per person killed.
What is this thing with anchors waxing poetic about explosions? I feel like there’s some deep Freudian shit going on there.
I remember when Desert Storm broke out, and CNN’s hardware-fawning over it seemed a bit creepy. Such innocent times those were.