SASLess, quite, but wasn't that the road you used in 'man and then decided it was not good? I think we refused to broadcast body count in recent actions.

My point is how did they know? What if they bad guys hid one :)

I wonder how a pair of guided Tall Boys would work? One to kick the door in and the next to clear the basement. Or even 4, not that would rattle the cage.

@ Pontius, et al

I gave up on the body count when it got ridiculous, you know, one mission with trapped enema in a small wooded area they went to and the body count was over a hindred. I had many more "counts" when you consider 400 missions mostly CAS and not interdiction or such. So I soured on such "score". I just wanted to "win" and come home.

The big thing is to see the effect of the campaign/mission WRT achieving the "goal". So there are many things that determine military effectiveness.

Unlike Desert Storm or even 'raqi II, the most recent conflicts make it hard to determine the bad guys from the good guys and the innocent bystanders. Although I would personally move if I had known bad guys next door building IED's and sneaking about.

Gums opines...

https://youtu.be/R-Mm-zFW_nA

Now that is a penetration weapon.
Did they not drop one, or at least it's little brother, the Tallboy, on a German U-boat pen to great effect?

Who provided the KIA report? Russians? They (falsely) claimed half the Tomahawks missed/failed

And what is this absurd fixation on cost since Trump got into the white house? This was a military decision and the military simply does not factor in dollar cost in their tactical decisions. This complex was EXACTLY what this bomb was designed for. It would be beyond absurd to design, test and produce a bomb for a very specific task and then not use it because it's 'too expensive."

Albat, indeed, TB was better at that as it was a stronger bomb. On the viaduct attack GS was perfect for underground bursts.

You clearly have no clue as to the destructive potential of a platoon-ish sized group of well trained, experienced and well led fighters.

Good luck getting in and out in a C-130!

Yep, had that thought too!

CG

PN,

I would suggest the Oppo's removed fewer than the USAF did!

Probably more than a few shall only be a mere figment of some Mother's memory.

Bit of Vietnam Lore.....General Westmoreland (Sound of spitting heard) who was the architect of the Bodycount silliness, while inspecting the 1st Air Cav's CH-47 "Guns-A-GoGo" unit......asked a Door Gunner how many Enemy Soldiers he had killed....to be told "Thirteen, Sir!".

Westmoreland asked how the Gunner could be so sure of that....and the Gunner said "I soot them till something falls off!".

Which with a Ma Deuce (.50 Caliber Browning MG) is not that hard to do....would sound believable.

It is not how many you kill....it is destroying their capability and Will to fight that allows you to win.

Had we had Abrams from the outset instead of Westmoreland (Sound of spitting heard).....things would have been much different. Abrams was about Logistics and not mere attrition as a strategy.

Body count from boots on the ground. Raises a question, if you can put boots on the ground was MOAB the right weapon. I guess it avoided the need to clear the bunker with close quarter action.

@Pontius

We already had "boots on the ground" there, and have had for 15 friggin' years!!

Another of my Spec OPs neighbors parachuted into the 'stan a week or two after 9/11 and rode about on horses using a wooden saddle as he made friends with the Northern Alliance.

The VietNam generals that ran Desert Storm and their contemporaries like me made it clear there would be no protracted effort once the goal was achieved. Hell , General Horner was my first senior officer student in the Viper back in 1980. He was a full bird and I was an lt col. We all shared the same philosophy ten years later.

Somehow we lost that attitude and started all this "nation building" crapola. Ain't worth it unless you wish to occupy a place and emulate the old Soviets and the Wehrmacht.

If you really wanna get mean and play for keeps with the grunts, then you throw gas down the tunnels and caves, then a few thousand liters of kerosene followed by a match.

The MOAB has its place as an effective weapon WRT casualties in the appropriate terrain and it is also a great psychological implement. In fact, my neighbor that dropped the daisy cutter did so after the psyops folks dropped many leaflets over the Iraqi unit for a few days And then one night..........
+++++++++
This was good choice for employing the MOAB compared to some small village, dontchya think?

And oh, BTW, one of our boots on the ground was a neighbor closeby that was killed there just a few days ago.

Gums opines

PN,

Cookies from the Heavens with scant risk to friendlies and max risk to the Oppo's sounds like a good Recipe!

''Tis a shame we never fielded the Neutron Bomb.....several places today where a few dozen of those could be put to good use!

With the Donald talking of solving things I wouldn't expect a delivery to be made in isolation! A few targeted cruise missiles to create some confusion and degradation of command and control....cyber attack......?

Two MOABs were dropped in GW1 - although they were call Daisy Cutters then. We were told they would be delivered to avoid us going into NBC modes as we were in sight of the clouds.

MOAB
 

Wifey who is a tv news producer wants to know if its the first time moab has been used in anger? Apparently not?

There was a large bomb used in Vietnam which was referred to as a MOAB. I forget exactly what this stood for but at the time the troops said it was "Mother of all Bombs".

It was used for creating clearings in the jungle for helicopters to land and was dropped from a Sikorski Skycrane helicopter.

Perhaps one of the US guys can say more?

Polecat

Black Isle my point was simply that after 15 years of establishing Air Superiority against the mighty Toyota Hilux, things may be slightly different against a well organized Air Defence network and opposing air. I hope we haven't become too complacent in thinking we can just tip up over the drop zone without some preparation of the battlefield.

10,000 Pound Bomb with a ground level detonation.....dropped in the middle of the jungle and it created a very quick LZ for a Huey or Two....which then could be rapidly enlarged when Chinooks or Sky Cranes brought in Bulldozers.

The Bomb was dropped by C-130 generally.....with a try or two using a Sky Crane.

If memory serves me right....only a half dozen or less were ever dropped in anger.

Using the big bomb threw a monkey wrench into the NVA tactic of watching clearings most likely to be used for helicopter insertions of troops down to even LRRP Teams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nfCdTRXj10

The Atlantic magazine has an interesting take on it. ISIS forces in the region the bomb was dropped are or were in the number of 700. They are not popular within this region with local warlords and including the local Taliban. Its unlikely they would have gained a foothold anyway. Under Trump the recent number of USAF airstrikes has surged within Afghanistan anyway, possibly a reflection that this may deflect attention away from his other problems. Whatever, the local use of this weapon was entirely superfluous.

MOAB was designed to penetrate and destroy underground targets possibly nuclear or MMD within Iran or N Korea. Was the mission really to demonstrate to other nations that the USA has such a weapon and now intends to shortly use them elsewhere in the world? Who knows with the present Bash Street mob mentality of the POTUS and his family and friends.

I'm fairly sure that the big buggahs that were dropped in Vietnam were US built version of Tallboys without the tail unit and a gert big long probe with the fuse on the end so that it detonated at ground level.

Hangar....are confusing two different bombs?

Pretty sure he's describing the GBU-57 MOP, totally different bomb.

Good move with this GBU-43, IMHO.
No matter how many jihadists, mojahedeens and other rats were killed underground, it was a right demo showing that there was no shelter anymore there and that death is just a shot away. Demoralization of the enemy often matters more than "local arithmetics".
BTW, for those interested here is a comparison of this american "mom" with a russian "dad":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs

Gums, indeed, I think our paper said 5,000. Must admit I was thinking 'deep in bandit country' rather than CAS. I note it is Afg army units that have secured the site.

Quite; as demonstrated by 'Black Buck'.

HS, You are confusing two different bombs. GBU-43 MOAB is not a penetrator weapon. GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is the weapon designed to destroy hardened underground targets.

GBU-43

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43...ance_Air_Blast

GBU-57

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massiv...nce_Penetrator

Wonder why they didn't use the -57?

Basil, I would guess the nature of the target. A hardened underground target will have secure blast doors and probably a reinforced concrete shell. A bomb that penetrates such a structure before exploding will exploit the hardened shell thus increasing its effect.

A cave complex may be susceptible to blast overrepresented.

We can deduce the nature of this target.

Ah, so . . . cunning interpretation of intelligence :cool:

Daisy Cutter dropped by CH-54
 

If you talk about bean counters - here is a cheaper alternative to a MC-130J Combat Spear dropping it..Albeit might need an escort of AH-64D/E and the cost of turning Erickson Aircrane into battlefield use albeit same airframe has not been used for damn near 4 deacdes...and probably some decent CAP overhead,

cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2qLuASjKXo

Used to create an HLS, IRC

In GW1 (the 'honest one'), Schwarzkopf suggested use of the BLU-82 to clear Iraqi minefields. He was advised that "Everybody within 3 miles of the drop will be bleeding from every orifice of his body". Combined with suitable leaflet drops, the psychological effect on the Iraqis would be obvious....

One day we were told "Jake and Elwood will be playing the desert tomorrow!". Having no idea what that meant, it was only after the first 2 BLU-82s had been dropped that we realised that this was a reference to 'The BLUes Brothers'. They had an immediate effect on the rate of desertion, as did the B-52 attacks.

The GBU-43 has an even more devastating effect as the rats holed up in their Afghan tunnels have discovered...

Beags. Thanks for that clarification of what I saw. And I even paused to watch the B52's flying overhead ...and turning back, post mission drops, I imagine.
I can't remember the Blues Brothers being mentioned to me, but then, I was just a bloke with a spanner and would possibly only be fed half the info, if any.

Rigga, it was 'just' blokes with spanners like you who kept our ancient jets flying with such a high serviceability rate that I'm pretty sure we didn't lose a single AAR sortie due to tanker unserviceability...:ok: !!

When Jake and Elwood were dropped, it was later reported that an SAS team close to the area thought that Kuwait had been 'nuked'.

...I was one of those tented in the desert, surrounded by spams and Patriots.

I don't know much about bombs, but I did read that the body count was close to 100. One of the stated reasons for using the big bomb was the area was thick with IEDs.I guess the bomb took care of those as well as the tunnels and bad guys. Sounds like the military using the proper tool for the job at hand. It probably cost less than lots of sorties dropping lots of smaller bombs.

Salute !

Word from a USAF source said the weapon was under $200,000. Compared to AMRAAM, SLAM or Tomahawk or a B-2 sortie, sounds decent.

Gums sends...