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."
Just in time too (Score:5, Interesting)
First up: Ukraine! Ukraine is weak.
Ohhh, shiny (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
- 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 [wikipedia.org] Halifax, and caused over 10,000 casualties.Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mostly useful (Score:3, Interesting)
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! (Score:4, Interesting)
quite possibly the cruelest weapon made (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
A "vacuum bomb"? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Who's your daddy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Money Shot? (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't tell if that statement is a.) a lie or b.) the result of extreme stupidity.
Clearly if they saw who was in the White House, or I don't know, maybe studied the past 200 years of American history, they'd have a pretty good idea that this would probably trigger an arms race... How often does America like to have its arsenal out-done by foreigners? How often is that translated into leverage used by politicians to justify further military spending?
Well, anyways, kudos Russia! Here's to the apocalypse...
Afghanistan (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Enough with the hyperbole (Score:4, Interesting)
- 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.
- 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.
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. Do you know that there are treatments available for paranoia?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.
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:Who's your daddy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sadly, you're right. I's never been gone, though - just lying low for a while.
BBC exorcising with extreme prejudice any footage and any mentioning of Russian
fire fighter planes during the Greek fires this summer
Do you have any more info on this?
Re:What a LOAD of shit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Great Fire of Chicago? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, Chicago *was* levelled by the Great Fire about a century ago. It's also far, far nicer than NY with (as the OP claimed about Halifax) big city facilities and a small-town feel. Interestingly, it's also a city on a major transport bottleneck (rails from the midwest / ships on the great lakes) which couldn't be abandoned after the disaster.
I guess the moral of this is, if you want a big city that's actually a nice place rather than a big pile of people in boxes, have it blown up a century ago.
Re:Who's your daddy? (Score:4, Interesting)
(yes, I know a joke when I see one).
Re:quite possibly the cruelest weapon made (Score:2, Interesting)
I had contact in university back in the 70's in Canada with a witness to the use of fuel-air bombs. He was my friend's locker partner (yes, enrollment was heavy back then). He had come from Vietnam after the war. He told me about witnessing the effects of a "CBU" bomb. He claimed that all people and animals in a 10 kilometer radius were dead. People who died still had cigarettes in their mouths. The weapons carried by the dead were in pristine condition.
I didn't think about this again until I read a news report years later about the U.S. use of fuel-air bombs in Vietnam that was released under a Jimmy Carter initiative. The news report claimed a 3 kilometer radius.
By the way, my friend (still is) was a Vietnam vet who left the States because he couldn't stand the craziness of the war and the politics. I still find it amazing that he was randomly assigned to share a locker with Tan Lee.
Both were only interested in women, math, physics and a safer, better world.
I just needed to share this. I can't really say why.
Iran has lots of fuel (Score:3, Interesting)