MOAB: Massive Ordinance Air Burst, the Mother of All Bombs, GBU-43/B all mean the same thing – the most devastating weapon short of a nuke, but what is it?
The MOAB is a high-explosive airburst weapon costing approximately $16 million per bomb. The weapon detonates above the ground (about 6 ft) to maximize the horizontal diameter of the blast.
The GBU-43/B had been developed and tested for the first Gulf War but never used in combat until today when it killed 94 ISIS fighters hiding in caves in an otherwise uninhabited area of Afghanistan near Kabul.
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Department of Defense thermal images of MOAB drop April 13, 2017 7:32 pm near Kabul, Afghanistan
Due to the bomb’s thin aluminum skin and 11 tons of explosives, the diameter of the blast is one mile and a mushroom cloud that reached 10,000 feet above ground in testing.
The History Channel released a documentary that goes into some detail on the bomb’s technical details.
Ah crap, while we’re at it, let’s just show a bunch of powerful stuff exploding:
