Moab sure sounds biblical.



Wasn't it the name of a whale or something?

The plains of Moab

I agree with OJ - although for comparison the 21,000 lb bomb is only .0105 kilotons (if composed of TNT. It probably is composed of a more energetic explosive thus raising its kilotonnage equivalent). One kiloton is, as the name implies, 1000 tons (2 million pounds) of TNT.

Yes - the morally significant aspects of bomb-dropping are its effects: killing people and destroying property. We should just judge the effects and not the technology that produced them.

For my own part, I think it's time to ask whether, with the advent of such weapons as the MOAB and the widespread availability of precision-guided munitions, small nukes might not possibly be on the way to becoming obsolescent. Why use an old, clumsy sledgehammer when you have a new, easy-to-wield sledgehammer?

I don't know much about weapons technology, but isn't some of the reluctance to use nukes due to the after effects of radiation? Do these super bombs also leave the gift that keeps on giving? Has the hazard of radiation been over sold?



I think it was inevitable that stronger bombs would be pursued since nukes are effectively kept off the table due to the public's perception that using them is despicable, but using old fashioned bombs is okay.

MOAB - Mother Of All Bomb...



Watch out Saddam's Army, here it comes.

Buttercup -- I haven't researched this question, but on general grounds I expect that the radiation from nuclear weapons is a huge spike at a single moment in time. The radiation from fallout is probably not significantly harmful.

Paul,

I don't know the facts, but if nuke's usage were unrestricted over the years we might now be dealing with significant genetic effects at this time.

I think the Japanese experience, medically, might give some pause on nukes use generally when conventional weapons could do the job. The negative for MOAB, currently, is delivering the package by pushing it out the back of a transport. Wouldn't work in Korea for example unless we totally destroyed their air support/defensives first, highly unlikely for the nature of the strike we would need to make.

The mayor of Moab, Utah, has objected to

the acronym, on the grounds that it besmirches

the fair name of Moab, Utah. Sigh.



MOAB has to be delivered by transport, but

as it is aerodynamic, can be dropped from

much higher altitudes and greater distances

from its targets than the Daisy Cutter.



But 10-12 tons seems to be about the practical

limit for conventional airdropped munitions,

for a variety of practical reasons.



Paul's right about effects. Abombs just kill,

unlike, say, Japanese soldiers, who rape and

then kill. But people seem incapable of

assessing things in this way. The reaction to

the pre-sarin poisonous gases, which were

rather less awful in reality than high explosive,

is a case in point.



For that matter, starvation won some of the

biggest wars of the 20th century, and it was

the babies and old people who were

disproportionately affected by that.

I have some expertise on this subject--I'm a USAF Fighter Weapons School grad, and have spent plenty of time around nukes.



Even if the total
effects of a nuke and the MOAB (the term daisy cutter is inappropriate--it refers to a three-foot impact fuse extension put on--typically--500 lb bombs, which caused them to go off right at
ground level. Hence the term "daisy cutter") there would be one excellent reason to go with a convetional weapon:



Cost.



Beyond that, one has to take in all
the weapon's effects. Never mind radiation, using a nuke will have political fallout.



Finally, nukes have almost no military utility. They are no more useful against above ground hardened targets than are precision guided conventional weapons. And nukes are completely useless against buried hardened targets.



Prior to DSI, Saddam spent a whole bloody lot of money building underground nuke proof bunkers, only to discover he was looking in the wrong direction.



Ultimately, precision is driving a reduction in weapon yields, notwithstanding the occasional MOAB exception.



Regards,

Jeff Guinn