"What is a thermobaric weapon?" A short guide to Putin's new toy

[jmowreader]

Someone in another thread asked this. So...here we are.

First: "Thermobaric" is derived from the Greek words for heat and pressure. As with many other evil things that aren't named Trump, the Nazis invented them. Fortunately, the Nazis had about as much success in getting them to work as we had getting Trump to not take top secret documents with him when he got evicted from the White House. Other terms for these are aerosol bombs, vacuum bombs and fuel-air explosives.

A thermobaric weapon, in the simplest of terms, is comprised of a can of fuel and two explosive charges. The first charge bursts the can and vaporizes the fuel. The fuel then mixes with air, seeps into buildings, goes down into foxholes and does all the other things a huge cloud of fuel vapor will do. The second charge ignites the mixture after a preset delay to allow the cloud to go into all these places.

When this finally detonates, it has a few really bad effects. First is the huge explosion. You've seen films of the huge explosions after airplanes crash. Well...that's from just the vapor in the fuel tanks. Turn the entire fuel load of a large jet into a cloud of vapor and see what kind of a blast you'll get. The shockwave from these bombs lasts longer than the shockwave from a regular bomb too, and we can't forget that there was fuel vapor in the bottom of your foxhole, your bathroom, etc., to go off.

But...here's the fun part. You don't just get the shock wave going out. You also get one going in. Regular explosives like TNT and C4 have their own oxidizers. Thermobaric weapons use the atmosphere for the oxygen they need to burn. This reduces the air pressure, and because Nature Abhors A Vacuum(tm) air from around the blast rushes in at extreme speed to replace it.

These are cheap to build and totally devastating...and it would be almost impossible to ban one since they can be made from simple materials you will find in any military base's ammunition supply point. You could also build these at home.

[getagrip_already]

1. Fwiw, we used these in vietnam....

Vietnam.... one use was clearing landing zones of vegetation. There were many uses.

They are also called a poor man's nuke.

[Ellipsis]

6. Were they called "Daisy Cutters"?

[getagrip_already]

7. no, daisy cutters were conventional bombs...

Very big conventional bombs. They were used for clearing landing zones as well.

The modern hellfire missile is a fuel air bomb. We have a lot of them in our arsenal.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. It's...not a new toy. Soviets used it in Afghanistan, U.S. used it in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan,

other armies have used it elsewhere. War sucks, y'all.

[COL Mustard]

3. I work with a guy

Who calls them "thermobarbaric". I think he's right.

[orwell]

4. Supposedly we used them in Afghanistan...

...so before we get up on the high horse here...

Our big one is called MOAB - the Mother of all Bombs.

The are also called poor man's nukes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon

[Xoan]

5. Thank God they're Nazis!

Fortunately, the Nazis had about as much success in getting them to work as we had getting Trump to not take top secret documents with him when he got evicted from the White House.

[getagrip_already]

8. our hellfire missiles are fuel air explosives......

We've used fae's in every war since vietnam. We just don't target civilians with them.

[sl8]

9. There is a thermobaric warhead available for the Hellfire, but most are not.

I believe that the UK used Hellfires with the thermobaric warhead in Syria.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. Use of these weapons should be a war crime

[getagrip_already]

11. How many weapons fall under that category?

Just curious. I can only think of a few. Chemical/Biological weapons mostly. There was also one bayonet design used by german troops in WWII that would prevent a wound from closing and the victim would bleed to death in almost every instance. I'm not sure if that was outlawed, but if you were captured carrying one it was instant death on the battlefield.

The world is funny when it comes to war. Nuclear weapons, cluster bombs, even land mines are sort of ignored in terms of war crimes.

We can never make war "genteel". We can never let it be clean. We can never let it be fought by someone else or mechanized to the point where most soldiers never see combat up close. If we do, it will be even more common than it is today. imho of course.

[sky_masterson]

12. MOAB

I remember that we dropped a few in Iraq.
Devastating Weapon. One that should never be used near civilians or even at all.
I wouldn't be opposed to completely banning them