http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -time.htmlBREAKING NEWS – U.S. drops 'mother of all bombs' on ISIS: America's most massive non-nuclear weapon is used for first time in combat on caves in Afghanistan
U.S. dropped its largest non-nuclear weapon after targeting ISIS in Afghanistan
The GBU-43 bomb weighs 21,600 pounds, is 30 feet long, contains 11 tons of explosives and carries a mile-wide blast radius
It can create a blast crater more than 300 meters wide after being dropped from a Hercules MC-130 cargo plane
Trump pledged in 2015 that if he became president he would 'bomb the s**t out of ' ISIS
The United States has dropped its largest non-nuclear weapon after it targeted ISIS a network of caves and tunnels in eastern Afghanistan.
U.S. forces used a GPS-guided GBU-43 bomb, which is 30 feet long and weighs a staggering 21,600 pounds.
A crater left by the blast is believed to be more than 300 meters wide after it exploded six feet above the ground. Anyone at the blast site was vaporized.
It has been described as the 'Mother Of All Bombs' – a play on the 'MOAB' acronym, which stands for 'Massive Ordnance Air Burst.'
The move marks the fulfilment of a 17-month-old campaign promise President Donald Trump delivered in Iowa, when he scoffed at ISIS terror forces and said he 'would bomb the s**t out of them' if he became president.
it also comes at a moment in the young Trump presidency when tensions are rising with Russia over its role in Syria, where ISIS has its headquarters.
The explosion will also send a saber-rattling message to North Korea and Iran that rogue states' nuclear-weapons ambitions could be met with brute force.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that MOAB is 'a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon' whose use was intended to collapse underground spaces used by ISIS terrorists to move freely and attack U.S. and allied troops.
'The United States takes the fight against ISIS seriously, and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space – which we did,' Spicer said.
He referred reporters' questions to the Pentagon and ignored a shouted question about whether Trump was aware the bomb had been dropped.
Trump said during a November 2015 campaign rally in Fort Dodge, Iowa that ISIS was 'making a tremendous amount of money' because of 'certain areas of oil that they took away' after the Obama administration withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
'They have some in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the s**t out of them,' he said to wild cheers. 'I would just bomb those suckers. That's right. I'd blow up the pipes. ... I'd blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.'
A specialized MC-130 'Hercules' cargo aircraft released the weapon at 7:00 p.m. local time.
It was too big to drop from a traditional bomb-bay door or release from an aircraft wing, so 'we kicked it out the back door,' a U.S. official told Fox News.
The weapon's sheer power produces a blast that can be felt miles away, largely because of its construction.
Engineers used an unusually thin aluminum skin to encase MOAB's payload, in order to avoid a thicker steel frame interfering with the impact on a target.
The U.S. fast-tracked the MOAB in 2003 for use in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but the Defense Department later decided that the enemy provided too little resistance to justify its deployment.
It was available to the Obama administration throughout the former president's entire two terms, but he never deployed it in combat.
Its first practical test was carried out on March 11, 2003 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Key stats:
Known as the 'Mother Of All Bombs'
The U.S. military's largest non-nuclear weapon
Each bomb costs around $16 million (£12.8 million)
Its explosion is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT and the blast radius is a mile wide
First tested by US forces in 2003
It is designed to destroy heavily reinforced targets or to shatter ground forces and armour across a large area
30 feet (9 meters) long and 40 inches (1 meter) wide
Weighs 21,000lbs (9,500kg) – heavier than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb
Leaves no lasting radiation effect
How it's deployed:
The bomb has ‘grid’ fins that fold into the body and then open up in flight to help control its descent
It can only be deployed out of the back of a large cargo plane due to its size
The bomb rides on a pallet, a parachute pulls the pallet and bomb out of the plane
The pallet then separates so that the bomb can fall to its target
It accelerates rapidly to its terminal velocity and is partially guided to its target via satellite
It explodes six feet (1.8 meters) above the ground
The idea behind this 'airburst' mechanism is to spread its destructive range
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
