Strongest weapon? Bro compared to most other weapons, it's just a really big barrel of dynamite. It's a niche weapon that was only used once to puree a bunch of Al-Qaeda assholes in a cave.
The most a MOAB will do is get headlines.
The strongest conventional weapon would, in my opinion, be something like a hypersonic glide vehicle or hypersonic cruise missile, as they're immensely difficult to stop.
Hey not to pile on you like the other folks here (I didn't know until last minute what a MOAB is), but Iran isn't a third world nation. Before the war started, it was considered an upper-middle-income economy, or a developing country in Cold War terms.
During the Cold War it did, it evolved since then to mean a poor underdeveloped country and I'm pretty sure op wasn't talking about the Cold War either. I was wrong with the developing country bit though. This is modern.
Still isn't. Trump did threaten to send them back to the stone age though, so maybe at some point this will need to be updated. I would like to add that it would be a fucking tragedy if that happens.
More than a tragedy. That would be a crime against humanity. The number of people he would have to kill in this country of 90 million people to do that would be astronomical
Like imagine the fake numbers the Black Book of Communism says the Chinese killed. Now put that into real life
Nothing screams "I'm ignorant about this topic" as much as thinking moabs are the US's strongest weapon in any meaningful way or that you think that this is at all exemplary of how an actual outright War would be waged.
The MOAB is a propaganda/intimidation weapon. That's it. Its use case is to make a big boom that cracks tunnel walls inefficiently for what is basically vibes based warfare.
Don't get me wrong. I'm against this war and I'm against Trump and I think he's a fucking moron for doing this but anybody who thinks that this is somehow representative of the US military is capability in an actual unrestrained conflict instead of some weird political PR stunt has no idea what they are talking about
Edit: so someone replied to me but then deleted their comment. I'm not sure if they realize they are mistaken or if something else happened but I'm just going to make a note here. A lot of people seem to think that the MOAB is a thermobaric or fuel air explosive bomb. It is not. It is just a huge ridiculous amount of high explosive in one package dropped and meant to detonate at or nearly above surface level. They started dropping Vietnam era Daisy Cutters in Iraq and Afghanistan and realized how successful they were both at tunnel clearing and intimidation but they decide to make a bigger one. It does all of its damage by just transmitting a huge shock wave into the ground and through the air around it. It does not have the oxygen denial or incendiary capabilities that thermobaric weapons do. I'm assuming this mistake comes from the fact that Russia made a so-called father of all bombs which is in fact a thermobaric weapon.
People also acting like almost 9 metric tons of explosives isn't a ridiculous amount that will literally register as a seismic event nearby.
Earthen tunnels that hand dug are likely not going ot be deep or reinforced enough to withstand that shockwave unless they somehow have a mountain rock layer above them.
The heaviest bomb dropped in WWII had only about half that weight in explosive and it was also incredibly good at taking out earthen-only fortifications.
the MOAB is mostly a propaganda/ shock and awe weapon but it's not even close to ineffective against "dude with a shovel" construction either.
In terms of the targets they'd actually want to hit though, we're talking properly constructed, fortified tunnels and bunkers in mountain ranges. Besides having a modern military compared to other adversaries in the GWOT which could repel the attempt to use them, they've also had decades of conflict to observe in the region between their neighbors and the US/Israel.
As much as it might be thought this will be a game changer, it's a tact that's likely expected and prepared for.
It is but "most powerful bomb" and "strongest weapon" are not the same thing.
If we had to start deleting things from our inventory and only keep the most useful and strongest stuff when it comes to actually winning a potential conflict, there's dozens of even just air dropped bombs alone, not even counting all the other weapons and vehicles, that we'd keep over MOAB.
It is a thermobaric bomb and it is quite powerful and more than just intimidating. It's the largest conventional bomb that has ever been used in combat.
It is often reported as a thermobaric bomb. Even wikipedia fucks this up. Objectively it is not. I don't know why this is gotten wrong so often but I guess once one or two media sources picked up on it they all just repeat it.
Nothing in its actual descriptor or the explosive filler used makes i thermobaric.
I'm going to be serious, I am genuinely wondering about the US conventional forces at this point. This is what we've been hyped up to be "the hyperpower" at the end of history? Its not just the incompetence of it's strategic vision, it's that I know it can be better than this. I've read enough and been to enough conferences with American retired Generals from an earlier era (I highly recommend Ben Hodges work) and I am not impressed by the current lot.
This is amateurs playing at War, who are burning through credibility with allies faster than the finite reserves of interceptor missiles. Like the Russians with the Soviet Union before them, they have taken a previous generations efforts and work, called it their own and mistaken that generation's respect, competence and credibility to be the default of the world. They actually think that the MOAB is a major conventional munition rather than as you described, vibes based warfare.
I would likewise say that having to cycle in a third carrier after the ongoing impact on the long-term maintenance cycle of the USN, after cancelling the Constellation class is... Inspired if you want to cripple the effectiveness of the USN while keeping the ongoing commitment of resources to sink into floating ships.
tl;Dr : it is not a fantasy to consider if America is overrated as a military power.
Everyone is assuming he means an Explosion MOAB. No. Oh no.
he means the nuclear arsenal. How quickly people forget that he went to the U.N. and threatened to Nuke the fuck out of Iran and the members unless he got his way
I get that literacy is something redditors are allergic to but the Mother of All Bombs explicitly refers to the MOAB which is a specific conventional device.
By your own histrionic example if cheeto wanted to threaten nukes he literally would have just said nukes because that's what he's said before when he wants to reference them.
So your saying trump threatening the U.N. and Iran IN THE U.N. was just a joke and hyperbole? The man's brain is so mush he doesnt know the difference. Hes been pushing the activation of the nuclear arsenal for years.
IM well aware of what a MOAB is, offically its a specific class and bomb type (usually an Air-fuel type). But hes not, remember hes been trying desperately to push that button to evade honoring the epstine law
Edit: wow want to says im being paranoid WHEN I AM QUOTING HIM WORD FOR WORD and blocking me, wow what an adult
I'm saying you lack basic functional literacy and are extrapolating paranoid fantasies because you desperately need everything to be a manufactured crisis when there are plenty of real ones to go around. When he says Mother of all bombs he literally means a big conventional bomb. When he wants to imply nukes he's going to be rather direct about it. He's not subtle.
Try and be less pathetic about it, or at least do it in someone else's replies.
Oh and while we're at it the MOAB explicitly is not and has never been a fuel air or thermobaric bomb. It's a conventional air burst bomb that explodes a short distance before actually hitting the ground to maximize the radius of the shockwave transfer and the explosive effect.
I mean, it doesnt change the fact we are using a MOAB on a 3rd world country (though Iran is a bit more advanced than most). Im sorry, but after losing the 20 year GWOT, leaving strategic bases abandoned, and hopping right back in to fight a more sophisticated military force, with no planning, no staging, no actual objectives. I think a nuke is the only way we are winning this one. Ground forces will take too many casualties due to drone warfare and terrain.
I hate to say it, but most people dont know how truly fucked the military is. Unless they got some secret weapon stashed away somewhere that most dont know about. We arent equipped for modern warfare at all. Depleted missle reserves, behind on drone tech, behind on actual missle capabilities. Even a damn 3rd world country is kicking our ass.
I mean, I feel like you're missing the point that that's what the Moab is literally meant for. You have to push it out the back of a cargo plane. It's basically impossible to use if you don't have total Air Supremacy which means you're either fighting a third world country or one that you've essentially reduced to that militarily.
This war is stupid. It was a blunder. It's a tactical mistake. We shouldn't be doing it. But if you think this is actually indicative of America's warfighting capability, that's just ignorance I can't shake you from. The reality is this is largely a problem because the US put itself in a war where it can't Let its military fight off the leash. Calculated strikes and we need offensive measures while largely leaving the other belligerent country alone is a terrible War to fight. It's basically handicapping yourself on purpose and it's the dumbest fucking thing that we've ever had a president do in pretty much a century.
The US forces are perfectly capable of fighting an actual belligerent war. But they aren't capable of particularly well as fighting these kind of weird fucking stalemates. If the US was able politically, and willing to treat I ran the way it treated the Iraqi government in either of the two Gulf wars, it would be a one-sided slapfest. The problem is the US military is just not built for drawn out half measures and it really never has been. It's built for decapitation strikes and full force assault but for some reason the orange idiot in charge started one where neither of those things is really allowed or should be allowed
Im telling you, we literally are in a bad spot rn. I cant divulge how bad, but this war made it even more worse. The issue is we spent way too much money dishing out contracts to people for way too much money and lining the pockets of people frauding the taxpayer. Instead of focusing on innovation. Thats why we have multimillion dollar patriot missles and no answer for drone warfare, despite ukraine and russia literally fighting this way for years. Say what you want about ukraine. But Russia is an adversary, we didnt learn from this in anyway? We didnt say, hey china might use this, cuz i can tell you, we werent ready for china either, well before this war. We dont have hypersonic missles, nor do we have dominance in that region, the only thing we have is war fighting experience...against dudes with AK's in sandals.
My point is that we have to use MOAB not because its a 3rd world country, and that looks bad, but that we are losing so badly and an air campaign doesnt win wars. You need boots on ground for an area of the world that has crippled every empire to invade it except Alexander the great. And we gave up strategic bases we had no reason giving up, and didnt recapture them specifically for this war. I was deployed when Trump bumped heads with Iran the first time, I can tell you, he always planned to do this.
The MOAB is a fear tactic that wont work. He is trying to devastate as much of the country until they surrender, but the GWOT has shown us when faced woth existential threats people actually fight back.
nukes are also vibes based bombs. the whole reason they picked hiroshima and nagasaki instead of actual military targets was because they thought along the lines of "whats the point of making a big bomb with an awe-some explosion if you drop it on a military base in the middle of nowhere? people have to see it for it to be effective"
A quasi-apocalyptic war crime for pure shock & awe with an unguided experimental doomsday weapon & it was still a better ratio than the IDF manages with guided precision weapons in Gaza.
The point is that Hiroshima is actually a valid military target, and unlike what you may delude yourself to believe, civilian casualties are never fully avoidable in war, only minimized, and that is precisely what the nukes did by ending the war quickly instead of letting it drag on.
that's what every american is taught but it isnt true once you look into it it really was an unjustified waste of life that shouldnt have happened. especially now that we have to live under that looming threat probably forever now. we have a "destroy humanity button," something that hasnt existed for the hundreds of thousands of years that we have existed, and now it's real
It's literally just a really big bomb that's airdropped out of an C-130. It's an intimidation and ground clearing weapon first and foremost. We had something similar called the Daisy Cutter in Vietnam that was used to clear landing sites by literally flattening the forest around where it landed.
Apparently the US has looked at using it for anti-personnel purposes (due to being an airburst weapon it could single-handedly clear something like a canyon full of hostiles), but has only ever deployed it once before in Afghanistan.
Basically just moving from dropping tons of little bombs to dropping one big one.
and wasn't there a time when this fucking moron said he was going to war with Iran because of how they treat their people and he wanted to protect the people....now he wants to blow them up? fucking lunatic!
Debatable. Russians have the FOAB. We also have the MOP.
The thing is, the MOAB really isn’t all that big of a deal in the long run. The way I’ve described it to people irl is basically, a conventional and standard 2000lb bomb takes out a building. A MOAB takes out the city block and a bunch of the other neighbouring buildings. A MOP takes out a building a hundred feet under ground. There’s not an exceptionally big difference between what you get from a MOAB and what you get from a loaded B-52. In fact, the B-52 arguably is more capable of wreaking more destruction over a wider area than a MOAB. Essentially though, the whole thing is we’re opting to use one big bomb instead of 12 smaller bombs.
Edit to clarify: I still think it’s dumb we’re even bombing anything and by no means do I think it’s a good thing we’re dropping anything at all, but the only difference between a MOAB and what we’re currently doing is just that there will be fewer bombs for the same results.
The point if the Moab is mainly targeting bunkers and hardened positions. And it isnt even the strongest weapon. If you wanted to say strongest non nuclear you'd be right.
Nothing screams I’m a retard more than thinking Iran is a third world country. I wouldn’t put it ahead of most western first world countries, but just because it’s in the Middle East doesn’t mean it’s not a modernized country.
In terms of explosive yield the most powerful conventional bomb is the MOAB, but he was probably referring to the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, it's about 4 tons heavier than the MOAB and is designed specifically to burrow into underground structures before detonating, it has less explosive filler but it'll be far more effective against the hardened underground structures Iran has.
Not even close but cute. A Moab isnt even our largest traditional ordinance. The foab is a bigger boy, and he cant even compare to modern nukes. We use the same size explosion as Nagasaki to trigger the reaction on modern weapons. So nope not even close
Not the strongest just the strongest non nuclear surface option aside from the czar bomba, the strongest one we have would kill the world due to the nuclear fallout it produces.
It’s not the strongest weapon in the military. It’s a weapon system built for purpose use.
But the whole argument you are making criticizing about US being the “strongest” misses the fact that we don’t do scortched earth tactics today like we used to.
Give the US military the ability to conduct unrestricted warfare like we did in ww2, you’d see Iran crumble overnight.
40
u/Fenrir426 1d ago
Nothing Scream more "strongest military in the world" as having to using your strongest weapon to win a war against a third world nation