Trump just dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan.

And the doomsday clock ticks a little closer to 12.

Discuss.

... this kind of a "so what?" piece of news.

So.... "so what?"

Whats a MOAB? I don't recognize the acronym.

Right.

Must have been a high value target. Those things are expensive as hell and mostly a lot less effective than a couple of smaller ones.

I wonder if they painted the TRUMP logo on it before the drop. Bigly boomboom!

Massive Ordnance Air Blast (GBU-43). Or Mother Of All Bombs.

So, was the explosion...yuge?

It was probably small... like his hands.

So what's this supposed to distract the media from - the repeated demands for his tax returns?

Trump: "Have we ever used one of those...what do you call it...NOAGs?"

McMaster: "You mean MOAB?"

Trump: "Yeah. That's it. That's that big bomb right? Yeah. That's it. Haven't we ever used one of them?"

McMaster: "No Sir."

Trump: "Why not? Let's use it. Let's use it in Pakistan."

McMaster: "You mean Afghanistan?"

Trump: "Whatever. Want some cake?"

Probably this.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...l-democrats-repeal-it.html?mid=facebook_nymag

Yeah. I have no problem with this.

Ah.

And this:

http://www.newser.com/story/241220/obama-memos-on-student-loans-revoked-by-betsy-devos.html

My guess is the Russia hijinks.

I never expected him to show his taxes.

Seriously. Tell me why this is news-worthy in any manner than just interesting military hardware trivia?

This is a bigger than usual bomb being dropped on bad guys we've already been fighting in an area in which we've already been fighting. This is neither a new issue, nor an escalation of an old issue.

They are designed to collapse underground tunnels and they were used to... Wait for it... Collapse underground tunnels.

Oh, how terrible.

No, you're thinking of Bunker Busters.

MOABS are for flattening towns.

That is one of their uses but it is also a percussion bomb. Do you know what that is? Do you know what percussive force does to underground tunnels?

Maybe you should find out before making pronouncements.

MOABs are just glorified bunker busters. They are used for exactly the sort of thing this one was just used for.

1) It's the largest non-nuclear bomb and its yield is almost on par with Little Boy (derp no it's not) so its use is quite newsworthy.
2) This was apparently the first time it has been used in the battlefield (i.e. not just testing it), and again that is quite newsworthy.
3) It was allegedly targeting an ISIS cave complex.

Not exactly. They are not designed to penetrate. They are designed to create a massive percussion wave which easily transmits through earth or stone which can indeed collapse underground tunnel networks. It was their original purpose in fact.

At least that is what NPR was saying this morning during my drive into work. Oh, and fuck the I805 because it has become a traffic nightmare.

I sense a disturbance in the crust...

Yes, the reason it's made so heavy is to be able to plow straight down into the earth before exploding, specifically to attack underground targets or heavily reinforced bunkers. Exactly the same as the 22,000 pound Grand Slam bombs the British used on the Nazi U-boat pens in WWII. This is nothing new, folks. Not sure why people get their nickers in a knot when we use one big bomb rather than a few dozen normal bombs.

Yep.

Ummm. No. Little Boy's yield (15 kilotons) is almost 1500 times greater than a MOAB (11 tons).

I thought it used an air burst (the AB in MOAB) like the old Daisy Cutters and used overpressure to collapse caves.

My apologies, I had my order of magnitude off when I was reading the stats. Still makes it newsworthy for being the biggest bomb short of nuclear weapons.

The Russians have a larger bomb they nicknamed the "Father of All Bombs". IIRC it is a fuel air explosive with a considerably greater yield than MOAB.

It does. Like I said it is not designed to penetrate.