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Afghanistan: Massive US bomb kills 36 Islamic State fighters

The Man said:
And they'll never be able to count the ones who were vaporized and have no remains.

Besides, the goal was to destroy ISIS infrastructure, not maximum body count. If we wanted maximum body count, we would drop that bomb in a Muslim city. I can't even imagine the crying we'd hear about that though.
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The pshycological effect that Zyplin pointed out is the most important effect, IMO.
 
joG said:
I can't see any reaso for euphoria on present information. What would be interesting is, if it can be a game changer for any of our games. To know it had to be tried. But could it be used to remove the head of a rogue state like in NK and Syria or to knock out submeged nuclear research in tunnels as in NK or Iran? A non nuclear weapon for such jobs would be an advantage.
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This 21,000 lb. blast-effect bomb would not be useful for attacking underground targets. Its casing was purposely made just strong enough to hold the ten tons or so of explosive inside. But destroying deeply buried targets is just what another specialized U.S. weapon, the 30,000 lb. penetrating bomb, was designed to do. It is 5,500 lb. or so of explosive surrounded by twelve tons of metal.
 
apdst said:
The pshycological effect that Zyplin pointed out is the most important effect, IMO.
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True. As a nation, we are a little ***** cat, generally speaking, that can turn into a lion in an instant. Little ****hole countries and militant terrorist groups seem to forget that.
 
The Man said:
True. As a nation, we are a little ***** cat, generally speaking, that can turn into a lion in an instant. Little ****hole countries and militant terrorist groups seem to forget that.
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They've been given good reason to do so.
 
The Man said:
And they'll never be able to count the ones who were vaporized and have no remains.

Besides, the goal was to destroy ISIS infrastructure, not maximum body count. If we wanted maximum body count, we would drop that bomb in a Muslim city. I can't even imagine the crying we'd hear about that though.
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and if we want a high body count we can use the technique developed during the vietnam war ... nevermind
 
justabubba said:
and if we want a high body count we can use the technique developed during the vietnam war ... nevermind
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Ground troops? Nope. There was no MOAB in the Vietnam era.

Maybe we should send our troops into Muslim countries' shopping malls and concert venues and shoot them up just like they do to us and other nations? Would that be better?
 
Zyphlin said:
So jesus, where to start here....

First. The 8.72 million number you seem to get from dividing $314 million in production costs by the 36, but since the "production" was for 20, it would seem that math would be off. It would instead be X = (314 million / 20) / 36, with X being $436,111 per.
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Yes, because this is literally the first time that this weapon has been used. We spent 314 million to use a bomb for show once. Did you miss the small detail? You probably did.
 
The Man said:
Ground troops? Nope. There was no MOAB in the Vietnam era.
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agent orange and napalm was adequate to fry the vietnamese indiscriminately

Maybe we should send our troops into Muslim countries' shopping malls and concert venues and shoot them up just like they do to us and other nations? Would that be better?
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no need if all we want is a high body count
just do what we did in nam and speculate how many of the enemy were taken out
 
Hatuey said:
Yes, because this is literally the first time that this weapon has been used. Did you miss the small detail? You probably did.
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It's a $16 million unit cost per weapon and had a $300 million development cost. We have 15 of them (that are publicized), well 14 now. Active chemicals inside the weapon have an expiration date, after a while they just turn into 22,000 pound paper weights. We already had the bomb that was dropped in Afghanistan manufactured.
 
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justabubba said:
agent orange and napalm was adequate to fry the vietnamese indiscriminately


no need if all we want is a high body count
just do what we did in nam and speculate how many of the enemy were taken out
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And those are things that we no longer need to do with our current technology. That's why we don't drop a MOAB into a Muslim city. We don't need to at the moment, and hopefully won't ever need to.
 
The Man said:
And those are things that we no longer need to do with our current technology. That's why we don't drop a MOAB into a Muslim city. We don't need to at the moment, and hopefully won't ever need to.
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we have never needed to; that's the point
we could always fabricate the body count to be what we wanted
 
Cardinal said:
We've been bombing them back to the stone age for several years now. What changed here (besides the use of a big bomb)?
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We created 36 dead terrorists

Which makes the world a better place
 
justabubba said:
we have never needed to; that's the point
we could always fabricate the body count to be what we wanted
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A high body count is not important. Stopping ISIS from being able to operate is the goal. That's why the MOAB was used on important ISIS infrastructure that was away from mass population. If we wanted high body count, we would have dropped it in a Muslim city.

The psychological advantage for us, the USA, is that they now know for certain we could drop that same bomb in any one of their cities at our leisure if need be.
 
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The Man said:
A high body count is not important. Stopping ISIS from being able to operate is the goal. That's why the MOAB was used on important ISIS infrastructure that was away from mass population. If we wanted high body count, we would have dropped it in a city.
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if we wanted a high body count we would just make one up. vietnam taught us that
 
The Man said:
And we don't want a high body count, so that's irrelevant.
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really? we only want to take out a few of the isis enemy? who told you that lie?
 
justabubba said:
and if we want a high body count we can use the technique developed during the vietnam war ... nevermind
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I agree.

I am late to the game here so I may be beating the wrong drum, but if this administration goes the route of body counts to justify the deployment, they will lose the American people in a heart beat.

Since George promised to "chase 'em if the run, kill them if they hide, Afghanistan's purpose has been growing more and more obscure. What they are going to have to do is what they could NOT do in Vietnam, and that is destroy the cave-hiding Taliban and show America can defeat a small cadre of people who are already in the stone age and like it.

If Trump wants a second term, the thing that would secure it would be defeat of the Taliban and US forces come home.

Anyone want to give odds?
 
justabubba said:
really? we only want to take out a few of the isis enemy? who told you that lie?
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Taking out all of ISIS is the goal, of course, but this strike was intended to take out ISIS infrastructure to cripple their operation, not maximum body count, and to send a message of what we are capable of. That's why the MOAB was used. That's what it was designed for.
 
Fearandloathing said:
I agree.

I am late to the game here so I may be beating the wrong drum, but if this administration goes the route of body counts to justify the deployment, they will lose the American people in a heart beat.

Since George promised to "chase 'em if the run, kill them if they hide, Afghanistan's purpose has been growing more and more obscure. What they are going to have to do is what they could NOT do in Vietnam, and that is destroy the cave-hiding Taliban and show America can defeat a small cadre of people who are already in the stone age and like it.

If Trump wants a second term, the thing that would secure it would be defeat of the Taliban and US forces come home.

Anyone want to give odds?
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They aren't going for maximum body count. This MOAB strike was specifically intended for minimum casualties. It was to destroy ISIS infrastructure.
 
The Man said:
Taking out all of ISIS is the goal, of course, but this strike was intended to take out ISIS infrastructure to cripple their operation, not maximum body count, and to send a message of what we are capable of. That's why the MOAB was used. That's what it was designed for.
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Trump is a streetfighter and I suspect he not interested in *****footing around with the taliban the way bush and obama did



If he unleashes the US military we can kill a lot more taliban and foreign fighters
 
Mac77 said:
Trump is a streetfighter and I suspect he not interested in *****footing around with the taliban the way bush and obama did



If he unleashes the US military we can kill a lot more taliban and foreign fighters
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Trump seems to trust our military a lot more than the past few Presidents have. That is a good thing, IMO.
 
The Man said:
They aren't going for maximum body count. This MOAB strike was specifically intended for minimum casualties. It was to destroy ISIS infrastructure.
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You paid by the pentagon or the White House?

As an apologist you're right on top of things, but suspect as you have quoted no one.
 
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