Russia Tests World's Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb 632
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."
Who's your daddy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though, Russia has for many decades going back to just after WWII had a predilection for one upping the West in terms of military hardware. They have often defaulted to building bigger engines than just about every other jet fighter (Mig-25), the biggest cargo plane I've ever been in, the An-224 (though there is a bigger 225), bigger submarines (Typhoon class), the Soviet KV Big Turret Tank of 1942 (exception for the German Landkreuzer) and more. Those Bear bombers are pretty damned big aircraft too...
I'm actually not surprised to see weapons like this developed given the nuclear weapon treaties of the past 40 years, but if the participating members including Russia and the US continue pushing nuclear ambitions, we will have lost all credibility here.
Buzzword compliant (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Buzzword compliant (Score:2, Insightful)
You can if you bring the troops home.
So how big is this thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just another example in Russia's long history of impressive, unwieldy, and impractically large weapons. The Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever created and tested by man (even at half it's theoretical strength) broke windows hundreds of miles away and registered on seismic instruments all over the world even though it was detonated in Northern Russia.
Re:Buzzword compliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Another artifact of Bush's policies (Score:4, Insightful)
Having a President who gleefully revels in anti-intellectualism has its consequences, fellow citizens.
But, hey who cares! Freedom's on the march!
Re:Buzzword compliant (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course you can, very easily. But then you end up with another of those catch phrases: collateral damage.
Re:Enough with the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
And thus, Halifax's urban growth was stunted, causing it to be one of the smallest cities in the West today, (under 200,000 people), and yet because it is placed on a huge natural shipping harbor and has a nice climate, it has all the benefits of a major metropolis. --Yet it suffers from none of the congestion and other big city problems the rest of the nation has to deal with. It still has a small-town feel. Having visited, I must say it's easily one of the most wonderful cities I've ever seen. Cleanest city air I've ever breathed.
I bet New York, Chicago, Toronto and all the rest could have benefited from a city-leveling whollop a century ago as well. It'd be far, far nicer if people would just stop having so many babies and treat the land with a bit of reason and respect, but failing that, a ship full of munitions appears to do a fair job.
-FL
Work on your imagination (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd imagine being slowly hacked to death with machetes in Rwanda or fed into a paper shredder in Baghdad by Uday and Qusay might have been a little less pleasant.......
a small mistake... (Score:3, Insightful)
***Capitalism*** is evil. A harsh statement, granted. But when you see the 100s of millions of people it has enslaved for the benefit of the few people at the top, there's no other word for it but evil.
Re:Another artifact of Bush's policies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:quite possibly the cruelest weapon made (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:a small mistake... (Score:3, Insightful)
Exceedingly sloppy use of the concept of 'enslave' there. A distinguishing characteristic of that concept is, or at least was, the use of physical force to prevent the victim from disengaging.
If you proceed to lump America and Soviet Union into the same concept ("slave economies"), then that concept will cease to be useful, and you'll thereafter need a new word to describe the very important difference between "Do it our way or else go find a different job" versus "Do it our way or go to jail". I don't know about you, but *I* would vastly prefer the former.
It also seems silly to say that Capitalism has only enriched the people at the top, when in Western Capitalist countries the lower class has an objectively higher standard of living than the upper class does in Communist countries (not counting the handful of upper-upper-crust).
Lemme guess: you're still in school?
Re:Mostly useful (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Sell to other countries.
b) Act as a counter-balance to U.S. global hegemony.
No, of course you haven't.
Oh, but it has. Unfortunately they are completely useless for both purposes. Which, incidentially, is quite obvious.
Fighting terrorists with bombs (Score:5, Insightful)
Example: when 32 Chechnyen separatists took over the Beslan School and had 1200 hostages ( several hundred of them children ), Russian security forces used tanks ( firing - according to one of the tank comander's testimony - "antipersonnel-high explosive shells" ), flamethrowers, and at least one Mi-24 helicopter gunship.
At least 334 hostages died, and approximately 700 were wounded.
This is a weapon for political control as much as for war. They already have more nukes than they can reasonably use. What is the point of building a non-radiactive bomb this powerful? The only reason seems to be so you can retake the territory soon after. They're going to use it on their own territory.
Re:Fighting terrorists with bombs (Score:2, Insightful)
America going in opposite direction (Score:5, Insightful)
As others have noted, you generally get much more militarily useful effect with multiple small weapons rather than one large one.
Re:Typical Luck (Score:2, Insightful)
The quad core MOAB is coming out soon
Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep, they just burn and kill everything! Lousy, worthless weapons, those FAEs...
Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's just me, but I'd say that anything that can "clear the area of life" counts as doing a hell of a lot of damage.
Re:Fighting terrorists with bombs (Score:5, Insightful)
And the US sure minds "a few" casualties, eh? Ever looked at the number of civilian casualties in Iraq war? A war which was invoked using 9/11 and terrorists as one of the excuses.
Re:What a LOAD of shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whaddya know, bombers attacking ships. With cruise missiles! Oh the humanity!
The reality is that the Soviet Navy simply never hoped to match the blue-water capabilities of the US Navy, thus the use of the long-range bomber and the cruise missile as the primary attack weapon against surface combatants. Large numbers of Soviet bombers were tasked to naval aviation regiments throughout the Cold War.
And finally, the manned strategic bomber went the way of the condor in the early 80s. The Soviets had no illusions about their ability to successfully penetrate US air defenses, which is why they increased their ICBM throw weight enormously during the 70s and 80s. That was the actual "missile gap", not the one Kennedy claimed existed in the early 60s. Soviet bombers in the Cold War existed almost solely to fight the US Navy. You won't read that on Wikipedia, but you could read it on Jane's or FAS.
Re:Is Russia still a nuclear power? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's probably true; doesn't mean it's important (Score:2, Insightful)
mod parent-troll down (Score:2, Insightful)
As the most basic of examples, New York City tried to succeed from the union because its financial backers depended on slave cotton. The US was _built_ on slave labor after all (both african and asian).
Historically and currently, capitalism has gone hand in hand with physical slavery and poor working conditions/sweatshops that leave people no options other than the "choice" to work and that limit ethical/caring business owners from providing for their employees because major corporations have broad government support/subsidies and complete control of distribution systems.
Re:a small mistake... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, depends on how many different jobs are available, your chances to get one and how much help you get from the state in the meantime. Remember, majority of people is seldomly the highly educated top industry kind of people. It's usually the "lower class" and for them losing their job can be a sentence to poverty or in some cases death.
So just because I probably won't have as much of a problem doesn't mean most other people won't either.
The difference is real vs ideal (Score:4, Insightful)
Well that proves not to be human nature. It can work on a small scale, but as a whole humans are lazy and greedy.
Capitalism seeks to play one on the other. You don't get to have anything just for existing, you have to work for things. So if you want stuff, you work. The more you want, the more you need to work. It uses greed to overcome laziness. Not a perfect system, but it at least does seem to work and create a functioning economy.
In reality we don't go for unrestricted capitalism in any country I'm aware of, but even the more socialist nations are based on capitalism. The government may take more of your money, and more of the basics may be provided at a common expense, but you still have to work if you want more, and working can get you more if you are willing to do it.
Like it or not, it is just what makes economies grow and seems to make life better for everyone. While capitalism isn't good at ensuring everyone gets an equal slice of the pie, it makes the pie grow large enough everyone gets more. Communism is so concerned with giving everyone an equal slice (except the leaders of course) at all costs that the pie ends up being very small and you have less.
what a waste (Score:3, Insightful)
And isn't this a country that could use every penny to help their own people? Really sad, and pointless. I love to hear a good motivation why it would be useful. I can't think of any. And let's be honest, the only use for a bomb of this size would be death and destruction. Makes me so sad to think about it. Wars are useless too.
I love this quote and believe it with my entire soul: "What you resist persists. - Carl Jung"
Pure PC (Score:3, Insightful)
You're "shocked, just shocked!"?
Of course I wouldn't wish harm upon another person, and certainly not 10,000 of them. But that doesn't mean I'm incapable of seeing demographic patterns and making comments upon them. The world doesn't go away just because it happens to not fit with with moral code. Sheesh.
-FL
Defense... (Score:5, Insightful)
But if that neighbour puts the gun in the yard of your next door neighbour, then while it might still be a "defense system against you" and still not quite "gun to your head" "defense", it doesn't quite give you the same warm fuzzy feeling of "defense against you", hope you know what I mean
In other words it sure seems the US likes to do defense in an offensive manner.
Then look at some posters here saying the Mig 25 sucks because it has short range. While that "short range" might make it hard for a country like the USA to attack another country (naturally to defend itself from that evil country), that's not such a big problem if you're only using it to intercept stuff that's entered YOUR country.
Same for the big bomb - sure it's useless in destroying fortified stuff. But in your territory the fortified buildings are mostly yours, and the bomb sure works fine on "trespassers" (troops, supply vehicles, relatively lightly fortified camps).
Same for nukes that can't destroy hardened targets. Yes they're useless for a first strike, but if you have enough of them, maybe the USA won't do that first strike on you (or at least you can have bitter revenge).
A lot of that "crappy" russian stuff isn't so bad if you mainly have defense in mind.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the Russians are good guys (hah!), but at least they rarely go around pretending or believing they are.
Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:1, Insightful)
This truly is a glorious milestone in the cooperation of humanity for the betterment of all.
Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, yes. One could also say the same about the firebombing of Dresden.
I'd suggest that use of this type of ordnance in urban areas probably falls foul of the geneva convention somewhat, especially with modern urban combat.
That said, I did a FISH (Fighting In Somebody's House, previously known as FIBUA :p ) exercise once, and the though of doing it for real brought me out in a cold sweat, so I can see the advantages of it.
No they're not (Score:2, Insightful)
I suggest that in the future, you actually know what you're talking about instead of just acting like you do.
"Third-degree burns additionally have charring of the skin, and produce hard, leather-like eschars. An eschar is a scab that has separated from the unaffected part of the body. Frequently, there is also purple fluid. These types of burns are often painless because nerve endings have been destroyed in the involved areas."
See that "painless" part. Pretty much refutes your statement in its entirety.
As to the most painful, I think getting shot in the gut and dying a week later after your own feces has been leaking into your abdomen is pretty bad. In fact, that's what I've heard is the worst, but I'm not claiming it outright like you are because I'm smart enough to know I haven't done the research.
Lastly, if we really want to talk about painful, try VX
"Normally, an electric nerve pulse would cause the release of acetylcholine over a synapse that would stimulate muscle contraction. The acetylcholine is then broken down to non-reactive substances (acetic acid and choline) by the acetylcholinesterase enzyme. If more muscle tension is needed the nerve must release more acetylcholine. VX blocks the action of acetylcholinesterase, thus resulting in sustained contractions of all the muscles in the body. Sustained contraction of the diaphragm muscle causes death by asphyxiation."
All your muscles spasm pretty much simultaneously, so you take on something of a pretzel shape while having a heart attack and suffocating.