There’s a new sheriff in town…

And I’ve got the feeling that ISIS hiding out in Nangarhar, Afghanistan found that out yesterday…

And the meltdown has started… In the MSM, that is. HERE.

US Air Force photo. Test unit at Eglin AFB, FL

With the equivalent of 11 tons of TNT from  9.35 tons of compound H6, and a low altitude (less than 50 feet) air burst, it’s designed for soft targets, intimidation, and overpressure of things like tunnels.

The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), commonly known as the Mother of All Bombs, was developed as a follow on to the GBU-82B weapon system, the official program was “Commando Vault”, but it was known as the “Daisy Cutter” in Vietnam and later in Afghanistan as an intimidation weapon. The white ‘probe’ off the nose of the weapon was the impact sensor that activated the bomb at a height of roughly 6 feet.

US Air Force photo, USAF Museum

Two hundred and twenty-five were constructed starting in 1970. I saw one dropped on Koh Tang island during the Mayaguez incident, by an MC-130 to clear a landing area on top of the island for the Marine forces. Sadly they didn’t use that spot, instead landed on the beach…

You can go HERE and see the B-roll from the MOAB test drop in 2003. Note how the C-130 ‘jumps’ when it gets rid of 21,000 pounds out the aft ramp! That has to be an interesting ride from the inside!!!

Contrary to what ‘most’ of the MSM is saying, actual reporting indicates the area where the MOAB was dropped is wild country, and where the Afghan Army has already been fighting ISIS, with few if any ‘civilians’ in the area.

Personally, I think this is a wake up call, not only for ISIS, coming on the heels of the TLAM strikes in Syria, but also a rather pointed warning to the DPRK’s Kim Jong Un that the US is no longer a paper tiger, but one with teeth that they are ready to use!

LL, over at Virtual Mirage, has a good precis of the North Korea situation, HERE. It’s worth reading as he does an excellent job of boiling it down into understandable terms.

Comments

There’s a new sheriff in town… — 21 Comments

  1. C130 rollin’ down the strip, MOAB gonna take a little trip.

  2. I saw the video of the explosion. It had to be a frightening thing to those who felt the blast wave in the village. Turned me on. Now Un is rattling his saber but scaring no one. I bet he is wearing Depends now days, too.

  3. Craig/LL- Yep, a ONE WAY trip! 🙂

    CP- The real question is, is he smart enough to actually think through what his ‘big’ display is, and the possible consequences?

  4. Some history, shamelessly borrowed from here–

    http://defense-training.com/

    13 Apr 17

    Embarrassing Truth!

    Since the fatal attack outside the British Parliament two weeks ago, visibly armed police are now posted at every entrance. An embarrassingly quiet “policy change” that came too late for Keith Palmer!

    The real reason Officer Keith Palmer, unarmed at the time, was murdered by a knife-wielding Islamic terrorist?

    A Parliament spokesman sheepishly admitted:

    “We thought guns would ruin tourist photos!”

    I wish I were surprised!

    In 1917, during the Bolshevik Revolution, the entire Russian Royal Family was abducted, and ultimately murdered, by Communists. It was all done in secret, a Communist MO, but the truth eventually leaked out. In fact, Czar Nicolas had previously pleaded with the British king (the two royal families were inter-married) for safe passage for him and his family to, and refuge in, England. He was turned down, insuring his eventual murder, and a noted above, the murder of his entire family.

    When these murders were confirmed and became widely known, it frightened the snot out of every royal family in Europe, including England, who had visions of the same thing happening to them!

    That was the beginning of the “gun control” movement in Europe, and particularly in the UK.

    When hoards of peons “stormed the castle with torches and pitchforks,” royalty wanted to be sure they were all confined to torches and pitchforks, while the “royal guard” had pistols, rifles, and machine guns!

    Indeed, Czar Nicolas himself had surely demonstrated the effectiveness of that particular arms imbalance in St Petersburg in 1905!

    Now, a century later, British politicians, after arrogantly bragging about their unarmed police for decades, are having to admit (in practice, if not in words) that they have been wrong all this time, and Officer Palmer, along with countless others, have paid the ultimate price for their smug vanity.

    Yes, it appears now that tourists will be taking lots of photos of British police who are visibly armed!

    I’m sure that upsets many snobbish, and comfortable, politicians. However, those same politicians will be receiving scant sympathy for Palmer’s family, and from families of so many other police and soldiers (not to mention civilians), who have been murdered while unarmed.

    When self-proclaimed members of the “ruling class” demonstrably care so little about their own police, one can only wonder how much they care about us “peons!”

    “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his own deception, the one who casually lies, with sincerity”

    Andre Gide

    /John
    _______________

    Jim, you might consider adding DTI to your sidebar. There is also a wealth of info in archives over there.

    • Unarmed police officers make no sense at all. In the US we call the the unarmed-yet-uniformed Walmart security guards.

      The police need parity with the suspects. If the suspects are Islamic terrorists, the police need to be armed to deal with them.

  5. I have no problem with the US military being able to adequately defend themselves and us. If the MSM doesn’t like it, they can go pound sand. I’m SO tired of their “may haves”, “woulda/coulda/shoulda” PC nonsense.

    And if the North Korans’ truly blast off a nuclear tipped missile on Saturday like NBC says they are going to do, I hope the Chicoms smack it down. If not, I’m sure the US Navy can deal appropriately with it. That dictator needs to be firmly put in his place…may be 6 feet under, I don’t care, but he needs to stop believing his own propaganda.

    My bottom line is you can’t make a cake without breaking eggs; if the US military is being allowed to do it’s job, some eggs will get broken. Que sara sara. None of these situations are exactly new, any thinking commander should have thought about what happens when you yank on the big dog’s chain too many times. After all, there were examples from 9/11/01 and the caves of Toro Bora.

    I’m going to go happily bake DH peanut butter cookies and a chocolate cake (it’s his birthday) and celebrate Easter.

  6. WSF- Yep, slightly ‘different’ technology. We have a thermobaric too, but not that big!

    RHT- Will do, and agree with LL too!

    Suz- Agreed! And are you sharing??? 😀

  7. Whoa, Nelly! I’ve never seen a plane ‘buck’ before.

  8. Just a thought–I wonder what we could do with a few
    MOAB(B)’s. (B)= bacon. I mean with a whole city plastered with bacon, somebody is going to taste it. Who knows, we might even get a few converts.

  9. Rick- One hopes!

    GB- 44.0% RDX & nitrocellulose, 29.5% TNT, 21.0% powdered aluminium
    5.0% paraffin wax as a phlegmatizing (Stabilizing) agent, 0.5% calcium chloride. It’s about 15% more powerful than TNT, pound for pound.

    RHT- ROTFLMAO!!! One wonders… 🙂

    • …and H6 is an Australian development – who knew!?!?!

  10. Happy to share. Come on up. Neither one of us needs as much as the recipe makes. I wont lie though, the cookies are from scratch, the cake was a mix…a very good mix, but not scratch. I’m getting lazy in my old age. 🙂

  11. Tim- ROTF… 🙂

    Suz- Heh, I wish I could! And we all look for ‘easy’ as we get older!

  12. Jim,

    I heard that in early prototype testing of MOAB in 2002/3 in Elgin AFB, they used portions of surplus Naval 16″ gun barrels. Apparently now the shell consists of thin aluminum? Can you confirm?

  13. Dropped a 37,000 lb test load from a C-130 back in the 80’s. It was to simulate a small bulldozer. That was FUN!

    Charles B., I think that was some penetration bombs they built back then to get down into underground bunkers like the kind Saddam Hussein liked to hide in.