Russia Tests World's Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb

mahesh_gharat writes "Russia has tested the "Father of all bombs," a conventional air-delivered explosive that experts say can only be compared with a nuclear weapon in terms of its destructive power.The device is a fuel-air explosive, commonly known as a vacuum bomb, that spreads a high incendiary vapour cloud over a wide area and then ignites it, creating an ultra-sonic shock wave and searing fireball that destroys everything in its wake."

Comments

Just in time too

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Now that Putin's dissolved that pesky and meddlesome parliament, his plans for the Russian conquest can proceed apace.

First up: Ukraine! Ukraine is weak.

Ohhh, shiny

[The Bungi]

This is nothing more than a large thermobaric device. Very few people call them "vacuum bombs" anymore. It's not the same technology as the US Air Force's "MOAB", which uses semi-conventional explosives. I bet it's also unstable as hell.

These weapons are nothing more than grandiose show-offs with alleged dubious psychological effects. They're not going to launch one of these on an ICBM any time soon, unless Russia started using Antonovs as ICBMs while I was on vacation.

This is the military equivalent of having a nuclear warhead that has to be set off with a match. Flashy but completely useless.

Re:Enough with the hyperbole

[chebucto]

If the Father of all Bombs is only 44t, it's dwarfed by the Halifax Explosion. Admittadly, the Halifax Explosion was an explosion of a munitions ship, not a single bomb, but it's far closer to a nuclear explosion than that firecracker the Russkies set off. If you trust Wikipedia, the explosion set off 2.9kt of explosives, and consisted of:

• 223,188 kilograms benzol
• 56,301 kilograms of nitrocellulose (guncotton)
• 1,602,519 kilograms of wet picric acid
• 544,311 kilograms of dry picric acid (highly explosive, and extremely sensitive to shock, heat and friction), and
• 226,797 kilograms of TNT

The Explosion leveled Halifax, and caused over 10,000 casualties.

Re:Who's your daddy?

[Harmonious Botch]

Yes, environmentally friendly in this case means no readiation. So they can come in and rebuild as soon as it cools. With a Russian economy that is growing at 7-8% per year, they are capable of big rebuilding projects, so this is a rather useful weapon.

Mostly useful

[javacowboy]

Has it ever occurred to you that Russia could be using these bombs to:

a) Sell to other countries.
b) Act as a counter-balance to U.S. global hegemony.

No, of course you haven't.

As for Russia being a superpower, they're getting closer to that status everyday, now that they actually have a competent leader.

Re:INVADE!

[religious freak]

Russia refers to their inanimate objects as masculine, the US feminine, and Germany as "it". It has always been such, for whatever reason.

quite possibly the cruelest weapon made

[SuperBanana]

preads a high incendiary vapour cloud over a wide area and then ignites it, creating an ultra-sonic shock wave and searing fireball that destroys everything in its wake.

Here's a slightly more accurate description of what it does....to people.

• People unlucky enough to be within the actual fuel-air mixture area are set on fire, both internally (lungs- they breathe in the fuel/air mixture) and externally (the infrared radiation immediately ignites their clothing, hair, and skin) while suffocating. That's pretty much the most painful way to die, hands down, that I can think of.
• Anyone within the shockwave and following vacuum is liable to either be thrown against other objects or be crushed by them, or structures that collapse. This is the greatest hope you have, as it is the quickest potential way to die.
• Anyone unfortunate enough to not be burned alive or crushed, will suffer from the pain of blown eardrums and collapsed or burst lungs, while simultaneously suffocating because all the air around them is devoid of oxygen; the fire consumed it. Oh, and everything around you that is flammable is burning whatever oxygen might be left.

They're indiscriminate and quite possibly the cruelest way of killing people save WW1-era chemical attacks.

The fact that the US and Russia are the only countries to use and develop them should speak volumes.

Re:Who's your daddy?

[WindBourne]

Actually, the russian came out and said that they did in fact have our plans. They were stolen in 75, and according to Russia, did play a part in building their shuttle. But as I pointed out, they made a number of intelligent choices, in particular the changes of the engine placement. I only wish that they had not killed off the energia.

A "vacuum bomb"?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

The device is a fuel-air explosive, commonly known as a vacuum bomb...

Nah...that type of thing is more widely known as a fuel-air explosive. Even my old flight sims from the late 1980s called them that. (Even back then the common target was Iran...)

Re:Who's your daddy?

[The Bungi]

tu-160 was a bigger version of the B1-A

The Blackjack might look like the Lancer but it really is a completely different aircraft. Not only is it bigger, it's also heavier, faster and carries a lot more ordnance.

The Soviet Union designed the TU-160 as a counter weight to the US carrier groups. If WWIII had actually started, those birds were the only thing in their inventory that could effectively counter a Navy task force. In fact their entire strategy for a land war in Europe depended on them interdicting shipping from the US across the GIUK line. The bombers would attack the escort ships with massive conventional cruise missile swarms, or single nuclear ones.

Bears, Bisons, Backfires and Blackjacks. That's why the Aegis cruisers were designed, and that's why the F-14 Tomcat and the AIM-54 Phoenix were rushed into service.

Re:Enough with the hyperbole

[the_womble]

have problems like in the Netherlands, or Britain; large swaths of people who refuse to assimilate, hold alien values

1. There are no large swathes of people who refuse to assimilate in Britain, a scattering of small communities is more accurate - look at numbers rather than hysterical tabloid newspapers.
2. It is a good thing. Most of the people who refuse to assimilate live in areas where the native culture and values can be summed up as having children (or being a confirmed petty criminal) by the age of 13, and then being a dole scrounger for the rest of your life.

   There are lots of Asians in places like Wimbledon (where I grew up): completely assimilated in a generation or two because a decent culture is something worth assimilating with.

Incidentally, I assume you deliberately not seeing the benefit immigration has brought to Britain. A far more vibrant culture (things like books and music), "alien" values like discipline and hard work (Have you ever met an Asian chav or dole scrounger?), and even better food.

and seek to destroy the nation from within.

Do you know that there are treatments available for paranoia?

Have you ever seen a 70 year old copy of the Daily Mail (British tabloid newspaper)? At that point they were saying that the Jews would over-run the country and impose their alien values etc. Now its Muslims/Asians. Apart from the irony, the pattern is pretty obvious.

Personally I think mindless xenophobes should be deported (perhaps we would bribe some poor country to take them?) and replaced with decent people from elsewhere.

Re:What a LOAD of shit.

[bentcd]

Strategic bombers did attack ships. The problem was they can't hit them! As far as I understand, this was an important part of the motivation behind the development of the Norden bomb sight at the time.

Re:Who's your daddy?

[arivanov]

Personal observations. All photos which showed any of the Be200ES, 6 or so Mi26, 2 Mi 8 or 5 Ka32 which have been there since the beginning of the summer lived at most 15 minutes on the site. After that the photo sequence for "fires in Greece" was changed with the offending photos being excorsized. Further to this, despite being the second largest firefighting fleet in operation (after Greece own aging Canadairs), they got 0 mention in all articles after this one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6917002.stm.

That is besides the fact that the plane shown in this one was in Bulgaria (which also contained its wildfires) and went to Serbia, not to Greece. Serbia, surprise, surprise managed to contain its fires. Actually not surprising considering that compared to this monster any other firefighting kit out there is a child's toy. Same as with the bomb actually - from the "mine is bigger" series.

As far as the fires this summer - just search the web (and gootube). It is full of pictures and videos.

Re:Who's your daddy?

[jridley]

There actually was a proposal back in the 50s to build a nuclear ramjet powered high speed unmanned multiple warhead delivery system. It got through a few rounds of discussion, but then someone said "Well, where does it go after it drops its last nuke?" One of the scientists said "Just have it zig-zag around the enemy's country as long as it can fly; it's cranking out enough radiation to kill everything it flies over." Then someone realized that it would have to fly over some allied countries to get to enemy countries, and they finally realized that maybe this wasn't a good idea.

(yes, I know a joke when I see one).