Thread: ACTUAL COST OF MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS

I was sitting here eating some beautiful chocolate cake, thinking about this big bomb and the repeated references to it costing $16 million. I'm trying to figure out why would it cost $16 million to produce that thing. No guidance system, no electronics, you drop it and it explodes above ground but due to the size of the ordnance inside, it explodes in all directions including downward, so why would it cost $16 million. I decided to finish my cake and research to see if I could find an answer.

Well, it does NOT cost $16 million. It costs $170,000. It cost $314 million to develop ... so the media even though they know it only costs $170,000 to produce them, they take the development cost and divide it by the small 15 number we have produced so far, come up with $16 million each, and report that number instead of reporting the whole story including the actual production cost. I guess they chose to do this collectively and in collusion with each other to deceive our Americans into thinking our military spent $16 million on 1 bomb blowing up some terrorist caves in Afghanistan to kill terrorists, collapse their hideout and ratway, and save the lives of American soldiers.

Think how happy Americans will be when they find out, the MOAB only costs $!70,000 not $16 million.

Shame on you, Media!

GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"MOAB" redirects here. For other uses, see Moab (disambiguation).

GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Burst
MOAB bomb.jpg
Place of origin United States
Service history
In service Since 2003
Used by United States Air Force
Production history
Designer Air Force Research Laboratory
Designed 2002
Manufacturer McAlester Army Ammunition Plant
Unit cost $170,000
Produced 2003
No. built 15
Specifications
Weight 9,800 kg (21,600 lb)
Length 9.1885 m (30 ft 1.75 in)
Diameter 103 cm (40.5 in)
Filling H-6
Filling weight 8,500 kg (18,700 lb)
Blast yield 11 tons TNT (46 GJ)

The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB pronounced /ˈmoʊ.æb/, commonly known as the Mother of All Bombs) is a large-yield bomb, developed for the United States military by Albert L. Weimorts, Jr. of the Air Force Research Laboratory.[1] At the time of development, it was touted as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal.[2] The bomb is designed to be delivered by a C-130 Hercules, primarily the MC-130E Combat Talon I or MC-130H Combat Talon II variants.

The first operational usage of the MOAB was during the 13 April 2017 airstrike against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants in Afghanistan.[3]

In 2007, the Russian military announced that they had tested a thermobaric weapon nicknamed the "Father of All Bombs"[4]; the weapon is claimed to be four times as powerful as the MOAB.[5][2] But its existence and specifications are widely disputed.[6][7][8][9]The MOAB is the largest conventional bomb ever used in combat.[10][11]

Contents

1 Operational use
2 Evaluations
3 Production
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Operational use
Main article: 2017 Nangarhar airstrike

On 13 April 2017, a MOAB was dropped[12] on an ISIL-Khorasan cave complex in Achin District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. It was the first operational use of the bomb.[3][13][14] Two days later, an Afghan army spokesman said that the strike killed 94 ISIS-K militants, including four commanders.[15] Former US military official Marc Garlasco, who served in the George W. Bush administration, reported that the US had never deployed the MOAB in combat until 2017, due to collateral damage concerns.[16]

Evaluations

The basic operational concept bears some similarity to the BLU-82 Daisy Cutter, which was used to clear heavily wooded areas in the Vietnam War and in Iraq to clear mines and later as a psychological weapon against the Iraqi military. After the psychological impact of the BLU-82 on enemy soldiers was witnessed, and no BLU-82 weapons remained, the MOAB was developed partly to continue the ability to intimidate Iraqi soldiers. Pentagon officials had suggested their intention to use MOAB as an anti-personnel weapon, as part of the "shock and awe" strategy integral to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[17]

GBU-43s are delivered from C-130 cargo planes, inside which they are carried on cradles resting on airdrop platforms. The bombs are dropped by deploying drogue parachutes, which also extract the cradle and platform from the aircraft. Shortly after launch, the drogues are released and bombs fall unretarded. GPS satellite-guidance is used to guide bombs to their targets.[2]

The MOAB is not a penetrator weapon and is primarily intended for soft to medium surface targets covering extended areas and targets in a contained environment such as a deep canyon or within a cave system.[18] High altitude carpet-bombing with much smaller 230-to-910-kilogram (500 to 2,000 lb) bombs delivered via heavy bombers such as the B-52, B-2, or the B-1 is also highly effective at covering large areas.[19]

Production

MOAB was first tested with the explosive tritonal on 11 March 2003, on Range 70 located at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It was tested again on 21 November 2003.[2]

Since 2003, 15 MOABs have been manufactured at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in McAlester, Oklahoma.[20][21]

According to the U.S. Air Force the bomb costs $170,000 per unit.[22] Many news outlets have ignored the reported production cost and computed the cost of each bomb to be around $16 million, based upon the total cost of the $314 million MOAB program, divided by the small number of bombs actually produced.

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

How much did it SAVE us by bombing the terrorists and their tunnels? BILLIONS? They will not report that.

Not really interested in your "cake" eating habits. Although, I am hopeful you enjoyed your Trump cake.

On the bomb we must consider the cost of research & development, production, storage/security, maintenance, transportation, and any other associated costs to arrive at the total taxpayer expense for delivering the payload to the intended target.

Geez, wish I could go out and buy a Lamborghini for a sum not to exceed its total cost in parts. Since that's not the way it works, guess I'll have to be satisfied with my Chevy Tahoe.

The reason this number is so important to know is because to replace the bomb will cost $170,000 not $16 million. But it wouldn't surprise me if you would take the stance that to replace the MOAB used in the Afghanistan attack, you would go to Congress and ask for $16 million instead of the actual $170,000 to replace it. Or if we wanted 10 more to add to inventory, you would ask for $160 million instead of $1.7 million.

Whatever they cost, they are still cheaper than nukes, and nukes are what comes next in terms of single delivery destructive power from an explosive device.

This thing is just another gizmo, a display. I can imagine Trump stuffing his face with chocolate cake and through that asking some poor general, "What's the largest bomb you can drop on these guys without it being a nuke?"

"Well," replies the poor sap, "There is the MOAB, Mr President."

"What's that?" Asks Trump.

"That's the MOAB, Mr. President, the Mother of All Bombs."

"Use that." says Trump.

Real bombing is done with massive delivery of smaller packages.

And busting up underground installations requires more creative proven solutions from the air which we should be using. Israel and Saudi Arabia destroyed a massive underground Yemeni bunker system using a system that was widely and erroneously reported as a tactical nuke. It was not a nuke.

Notice that for all the fireworks, the cave system was not completely destroyed and there were survivors.

You know the plain fact is - no amount of killing or weaponry is going to bring peace to the ME. We might totally destroy one section of people - one group. What good is that going to do?

These people are going to have to learn to live with each other and my opinion is - they can do that better without our interference. Let them make peace or let them fight it out. It really is not our concern. When we arm one side or the other, we simply prolong the horror - fan the flames.

But hey, war is good business (as in a lucrative business) and war is good for that business.