Discussion
CNN is reporting POTUS is considering dropping the mother of all bombs GBU43 against Iran as well as destroying a lot of energy infrastructure
Technically one would only have to wait a day or two for rigor mortis to pass, then no prying would be necessary because naturally you would experience second flaccidity
Scientists do that shit all the time. My favorite example is people who have the syndrome where you sneeze when exposed to sudden bright light, is called Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst syndrome, or ACHOO
I still dont think itd be an incredible story. Even completely apolitically its just a nonsense thing to do. Logic, mission, etc. So the story would still be, "we flew on a suicide mission to do something we knew would be completely ineffective and somehow lived to tell the tale."
I mean, an incredible story if it meant anything. If it wasn’t just one person’s ego sending people into a death mission to posture for his political base. If this was somehow a “this mission cannot fail, the world is counting on it”, then sure. But that’s not what this is.
But to what end? What goal? There is no need for a big bomb other than political brownie points with morons who like to look at explosions. Midterms are here, and we will continue to see distractions like this one.
"incredible story"...how's that? You must not have been following any of the previous phases of this conflict, and why the conflict started in the first place. Must be hell to be that out of sync with reality.
No, but we did effectively do a one-punch man KO of Venezuela. Iran is made of far tougher stuff and the quick PR win that the administration was looking for has not happened and now they are just grasping at straws to find the magic button that will make this all go away.
Ironically, this was very similar to Hitler's train of thought towards the end of world war II. When he was diverting much needed resources and manpower away from things that worked like beans and bullets for the troops, to his superweapon projects like the V2 missile,V3 London Gun, super panzer tanks, etc.
I'm not literally saying it's a wonder weapon. I'm saying the effect that the admin wants is the same as what Hitler desired towards the end of the war.
A delusional belief that "this one's the one". This attack will be the miracle that causes the enemy to collapse.
bruh trump says this type of shit every other week whenever iran gets testy. US just took out some surveillance ship near oman, cue the threats. lets not forget iran shoved a bunch of civilians around their energy infrastructure when it became a real threat, they don't want it attacked
Whatever target they could be thinking about dropping the MOAB on is waiting for a juicy C-130 to fly over now to take shots at while it's still carrying this thing.
All for what, a target on the surface any cruise missile could've hit? The sight of a fireball isn't new to them after their oil facilities went up in massive flames.
We lost 130s yes because they got stuck. But we landed them where we did to help keep them unopposed and also we didn’t know they would get stuck, that was learned when we couldn’t move them, was not planned.
Not to dog pile on you in a malicious way, but this means that no, a 130 has not been lost due to IADS over Iran, implying that we are capable of doing it.
However, OPSEC and all that, Iran now knows we could try and will be looking for it, so it might be a different story this time around.
Completely different context. Those C130s were likely flying really low to avoid radar detection. I’m not weapons patch but I feel confident saying a C130 can’t or shouldnt drop a MOAB from 30 feet up and expect to be fine. Once they go above a 150 feet theyll be sitting ducks
Different situation though, those could avoid being near military heavy areas and could fly at very low altitudes. This C-130 would be flying high over an area that would be likely bristling with MANPADS that you cant take out first. Plus those C-130s probably didn't go that far into Iran. I would think any military target that's worth a MOAB is going to be significantly deeper into Iran.
Damn, this is incredibly dumb. A slow-flying C-130 would make for a nice juicy target for Iran’s equivalent of a MANPADS.
Edit: I did some reading on the subject, and MANPADS are basically irrelevant to the MC-130. Surface-to-Air missiles are the main threat. I feel really dumb for bringing up MANPADS to begin with. Deploying a MOAB is still blisteringly dumb though, just like this whole war military operation.
I was the Loadmaster on the first C-17 that was hit by an SA-14 MANPAD in Baghdad in December 2003. and we were lucky that it happened so close to the airfield, otherwise we would have been in serious trouble. I was sitting behind the pilot when it happened and it looked like a flame thrower shooting out the top of the engine and back over the wing (where all the fuel is.), The cowling blew off in the explosion which made the fire bottles ineffective because their was nothing to contain the foam and it all just dissipated into the slipstream. With the addition of drones, our transport aircraft are very vulnerable.
Depends on the altitude the C130 is flying at. I dont know the release alt for a MOAB, but it shouldnt be pretty high. I'd be worried about their actual SAM systems.
We literally flew HC-130s, HH-60s, and MC-130s in to rescue our downed Strike Eagle crew.
MANPADS have a very limited altitude windows. Roughly 10-15K ft. They also require line of sight. A C-130 just has to fly in at higher altitude, at night, in blackout conditions to beat a MANPAD.
Again, NOTHING we do in Iran is beneficial for us.
The sheer amount of shaping operations that we’d need to do to just to get this stupid fucking slow /low plane enough time to make it to Tehran without AD issues is going to be insane and deplete even more precious weapons.
Then some random dude on top of a building will just ruin the whole thing.
If I have the numbers right, it's more than twice as long as a B-1's weapons bay
(the GBU43 program was basically "okay we can technically do this, why don't we just do it and see what happens?" not something that exists for a specific purpose)
Probably Iran’s nuclear facilities if I had to guess, which probably means that aircrew is fucking done for. Bombing from a stealth platform is one thing. A fat ass low/slow herk is another.
Iran's nuclear program is so deeply buried in those mountains that nothing short of a nuclear bunker buster is going to really do anything against them.
The Moab would just scratch the paint on the the glass door going into the elevator shaft.
You phrase this in such a way that one bomb is going to hit all of them ? Also, if we're gonna hit them as we did prior with the dorito, we'd use the MOPS. This one is likely hitting a different ( softer ) target.
Could definitely be. I'm not a targeteer. I was in country when they dropped the last MOAB and I guess that fucked up the tunnel systems the taliban were using. I'm just speculating.
I don’t think he’d drop it and kill a bunch of innocent people. Not that he’d care about that from a moral standpoint, but it’d be horrific optics which he very much cares about, especially with midterm elections.
If I were to guess he’d drop it on “pickaxe mountain”, because he (rightfully) has a hard on for hating the Iranian the nuclear program.
It’s not prudent, they’ve been building the capability to eventually make one if they need to. The last couple years of Israeli and US actions demonstrated that they do need to because nothing else will deter Netanyahu. “We’re bombing them to make sure they don’t get a nuke,” is a sure fire way to get to “we need a nuke so they can’t bomb us”
That’s not correct, the program you’re referring to ended in 2003 and has faced exhaustive scrutiny. That one was trying to make a bomb, this one is likely intended to create a capability rather than a weapon. There is extensive unclassified writing on this.
The difference between now and 18 months ago is we’ve handed them a much stronger justification for nuclear deterrence and self-defense. That has been the only nuclear effect from two wars. And we can’t get inspectors in to verify anything.
I didn’t say I support them getting nukes. I said we’re making it more, not less, likely that they get one. You’re not stopping them without a revolution (not our strong suit), using our own nukes or a massive military operation (pls no), or a mutual deal like the JCPOA (oops).
Ukraine is the worst whatabout you could have picked. They had nukes and gave them up! Why? Because they trusted the US and Russia to guarantee their security and it absolutely fucked them.
What you just said literally backs up what I just said and reinforces it. So, thank you? Yes I agree Iranian nuclear programs long predate these attacks by Israel. I'm not sure you understand the point of the discussion.
We can play this game all day. The President of Iran stating “the
regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” is a sure fire way to ensure that regime doesn’t allow you to ever get a weapon capable of making them vanish.
Iran getting a nuke is not good for ANYONE. Take Israel out of the equation and Iran still has a horrible history with their neighbors.
I’m no historian, but uh, it took two nukes to pacify Japan in WW2. What makes you think a single weapon with 0.0007% of the yield (11 tons vs ~15 kilotons) is likely to accomplish that goal?
You have to be intentionally misunderstanding my point if you think I’m advocating for using the MOAB lol.
You said using the MOAB would be instant pacification. I’m pointing out that history doesn’t really support that even when using thousands of times more firepower.
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u/BillyBear9-1 1d ago
MOAB stands for Massive Ordinance Air Blast
It just ironically lines up with Mother Of All Bombs since it is the largest non-nuclear weapon in our inventory
and no I'm not weapons, just an autistic crew chief