US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan after Green Beret killed

[Teddy B 17,252]

Personally I like this move, I'm tired of our ground troops getting picked off over there when we have the ability to end it. This should get interesting.

 

Quote

US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanista.

 

The U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, just days after a Green Beret was killed fighting ISIS there, a U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox Newss. The GBU-43B, a 21,000-pound conventional bob, was dropped on an ISIS tunnel complex in Nangarhar Province.

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The Massive Ordinance Air Blast was first tested in 2003. (DOD)

The MOAB -- Massive Ordinance Air Blast -- is also known as the “Mother Of All bombs.” It was first tested in 2003, but hadn't been used in combat before Thursday.

WHAT IS THE 'MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS'?

The MOAB is so massive it had to be dropped out of the back of a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane.

"We kicked it out the back door," one U.S. official told Fox News.

For comparison to the 21,000-pound MOAB, each Tomahawk cruise missile launched at a Syrian military air base last week was 1,000-pounds each.

"As [ISIS'] losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense," Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against [ISIS]."

The statement said U.S. forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04/13/us-drops-largest-non-nuclear-bomb-in-afghanistan-after-green-beret-killed.html

 

Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

 

[Transborderwife 4,666]

Sigh...these bombs are scaring me 

[bcking 3,157]

As long as it is effective I'm all for it.

 

Do we have any information on what we hit and what impact it had? 

 

I can jump up and down on an ant mound. I'll kill some ants, but the colony will remain and will continue to expand and grow. So was my stomping effective?

[Teddy B 17,252]

11 minutes ago, bcking said:

As long as it is effective I'm all for it.

 

Do we have any information on what we hit and what impact it had? 

 

I can jump up and down on an ant mound. I'll kill some ants, but the colony will remain and will continue to expand and grow. So was my stomping effective?

Supposedly it was dropped in Nangahar province in eastern Afghanistan. There are supposedly numerous ISIS tunnels in this area. Not sure about anything else as of yet.

[bcking 3,157]

4 minutes ago, Teddy B said:

Supposedly it was dropped in Nangahar province in eastern Afghanistan. There are supposedly numerous ISIS tunnels in this area. Not sure about anything else as of yet.

From what I recall in Iraq I thought one of the problems is these "tunnels" can be quite deep, and even very large bombs may not "bust through" so to speak. So they are like the ants in my analogy. A "huge impact" (a foot stomping, which is huge for an ant) may do very little even though it is an impressive show of force.

 

I'm all for using force against ISIS. I just don't want to waste it. We need to be efficient.

[yuna628 9,676]

There is some discussion that using this type of bomb was a message directed towards NK. Rather a dangerous game to be playing here.

I haven't a problem with using it though, so long as it is actually effective and isn't a waste of money.

[OriZ 3,157]

42 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

There is some discussion that using this type of bomb was a message directed towards NK. Rather a dangerous game to be playing here.

I haven't a problem with using it though, so long as it is actually effective and isn't a waste of money.

That's exactly it, it all depends on what this actually hit and if it was worth it. For what it costs(I believe over $300 million) it better be a good target.

[bcking 3,157]

29 minutes ago, OriZ said:

That's exactly it, it all depends on what this actually hit and if it was worth it. For what it costs(I believe over $300 million) it better be a good target.

Ya hopefully 12 hours later we don't hear reports that the tunnels are reopened and operating again. That would be embarassing. 

[OriZ 3,157]

23 minutes ago, bcking said:

Ya hopefully 12 hours later we don't hear reports that the tunnels are reopened and operating again. That would be embarassing. 

Well even if not, I need to know what exactly was the benefit of destroying those tunnels. Were there a ton of fighters in there? Weapons? Al Baghdadi? Did the tunnels make it real easy for them to attack forces in different places? Right now I have no clue what's the deal really, so hard to say if I'm for it or not.

[IAMX 3,055]

2 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Well even if not, I need to know what exactly was the benefit of destroying those tunnels. Were there a ton of fighters in there? Weapons? Al Baghdadi? Did the tunnels make it real easy for them to attack forces in different places? Right now I have no clue what's the deal really, so hard to say if I'm for it or not.

They like tunnels, and they are quite secure from conventional bombs, hence the bunker busters utilized in the Afghan war early last decade. I'm suspecting this is not much different.

Edited April 13, 2017 by IAMX

[OriZ 3,157]

2 hours ago, IAMX said:

They like tunnels, and they are quite secure from conventional bombs, hence the bunker busters utilized in the Afghan war early last decade. I'm suspecting this is not much different.

Yeah then why not use those? There has to be a reason why they decided to use this one. Maybe it's to send a message. But without more details than we've gotten so far I have no opinion about it. I don't know how big these tunnels were, how far they went, how often they were used to attack US forces...we know nothing.

[IAMX 3,055]

3 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Yeah then why not use those? There has to be a reason why they decided to use this one. Maybe it's to send a message. But without more details than we've gotten so far I have no opinion about it. I don't know how big these tunnels were, how far they went, how often they were used to attack US forces...we know nothing.

Maybe. Time reveals all things. I would not be opposed to a message to NK that involved a legion of American, Canadian, British, German, Japanese, and South Korean military blowing KJU off the face of the Earth. Seems quite a bit more justified than Syria anyways.

[eieio 1,594]

http://ijr.com/2017/04/847666-first-reports-coming-afghanistan-moab-killed-100-isis-fighters/

 

 

first report..so hard to say

[Boiler 45,525]

A bigger bomb was carried by the Lancaster.

[Inikamoze 86]

Does the US have a large stockpile of these bombs. If it broke down their underground infrastructure then it has to be an effective way to deal with that particular issue, assuming it worked.

 

How much would this cost (not the whole operation but the MOAB).

 

Now I personally don't think it was used just to show NK the USA's military prowess but I bet the administration had one eye on that part of the world looking for any reaction.

Very dangerous game to play if Trump wants to call NK bluff.