That sound? A million lefties' keyboards clacking away in outrage that we would dare use such dastardly weapons. Even though they seem to serve precisely the same function as flamethrowers did in WWII.

Al Qaeda: They deserve better!

Just noticed that article is from March 2003.
Oh well. New to me.

Sweet and nasty! Wonder if I could lob one of those over my neighbor's privacy fence and take out his six yippy little dogs with one shot.

I have a war-porn chubby now. Awesome.

Unfortunately, it just deflated due to the thought that Italian journalists will now decry this as another "chemical weapon" the US military is deploying against "civilians."

Here's an article that's a bit more recent.

This weapon (or one very much like it) was actually used several times in the assault on Fallujah. The AT-4 can deploy a thermobaric round, and the troops used it to good effect in knocking down concrete and brick structures during the assault. I think there's a variant of the MK48 grenade that also is a thermobaric munition.

You want something scary? Check out the MOAB, which mixes silver nitrate into an FAE. It's the largest non-nuclear munition in the US arsenal. A real crowd-pleaser, and used in the assault on Tora Bora a couple of years back. Cleaned out the caves quite nicely.

OK, I'm all tingly in my pants and I have a slight smirk on my face.

Is that so wrong?

A million lefties' keyboards clacking away in outrage that we would dare use such dastardly weapons. Even though they seem to serve precisely the same function as flamethrowers did in WWII.

The weapon's usefulness is limited. The US is already the greatest force in open-combat zones. Our modern-day enemies are the ones now that hide behind civilians. Weapons like this will work against us in that people will acquire them who will use them expressly for attacking groups of civilians. More worrisome are countries like Iran developing nuclear technology. The weapon's cool, don't get me wrong, but any soldier will tell you that it's all about using the right weapon for the job, and often what's needed are weapons that can be accurately deployed against small targets in crowd situations.

Yes, well, its shitty for baking cakes too.

The scarier our weapons, the harder our enemies need to think whether they really want to take us on.

lauraw, JohnJ:

Small thermobarics are *very* useful in urban fighting, especially in places like Fallujah where you have houses that are basically bunkers: concrete and brick. Insurgents hide inside -- in closets, under floors, etc. -- which requires "kick and clear" tactics by infantry. This is extremely dangerous for the attackers, and was the primary source of casualties in the Fallujah campaign.

Small thermobarics can clear a house out and kill or disable all inside without completely destroying the structure.

(I've never understood the argument that a weapon system had to be humane. WTF? I'm trying to kill my enemy, not make sure he lives to tell the tale. Whether I shoot him or crisp him with a flamethrower, he's just as dead either way.)

Monty, you have failed to address the weapon's cake-baking limitations.

Some may point out that if you set off a thermobaric device in a patisserie, certainly the croissants and brioche will be well cooked.

But I would argue that once vaporization takes place, the baking process has effectively ended, and you cannot actually inhale a piece of cake. That is just an expression.

Then it's all their fault for making us deploy these weapons against them. They should just quit and spare us the moral agonizing, unless, giving us moral agony is part of their plan! The dastards! We should kill them for giving us moral agonies about how we kill them!

Who's with me on that?

More to the point, Monty, why is it essentially more humane to maim than to kill? I can't imagine there are many quicker or more painless ways to go than being essentially vaporized in the blink of an eye. Being self-centered and a pussy, my humane test is to ask myself...would I take that death?

Flame thrower? Meh. Gut shot? Eep! Napalm? Hell no. Land mine? Maybe if I triggered it with my face. Vanish in a single bright flash of smoke and light? Yeah, okay.

If the weapon weren't useful, our forces would not be using it. Same thing as far as unacceptable civilian casualties go. Our military is not a pack of psychos and should be trusted to make good judgments in the field. As far as I'm concerned, if our guys want to bring down the house, the house comes down.

Laura,

It looks like it's pretty good at making brownies, though.

Monty, you have failed to address the weapon's cake-baking limitations

That sucker can bake a cake in 1.2 seconds!

If you ever want to see some nasty warmaking apparatus and weapons, look at the stuff they used pre-gunpower. Edged weapons, archery, siege towers, trebuchets, boiling oil, pikes.... And virtually no battlefield triage or medical help.

If you got seriously wounded in any battle right through World War II, you were probably a goner. Only the advent of sulfa drugs and modern medical practice have pushed the casualty survival rate from the low teens into the 80-90% range we see now.

Our current WIA-KIA ratio in Iraq is running at about 10-to-1, which is unheard-of for this kind of combat. Compare that to the insurgent ratio, which is probably more like 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 at best, and it's only that good because they have access to Western drugs.

Weapons are only part of the battlefield picture. In most wars in world history, far more soldiers have died of disease and privation than ever succumbed to wounds.

Monty, you have failed to address the weapon's cake-baking limitations

This calls for an example:

Let us say that Jihadi Jumal and his buddy Jihadi Jobu are baking a cake to celebrate Eid al Fitr. Their electric oven is on the fritz, however, because the American assault on their restive Iraqi town has knocked out the power.

As they ponder how to bake their cake with no oven, Lance Cpl. Joe Schmoe and Gunnery Sgt. Fugazi Rock are creeping up to the structure, taking advantage of a blind spot offered by an earthen berm nearby. G.Sgt. Rock has an AT-1 rocket launcher equipped with a small thermobaric warhead that can generate 3 MPa of overpressure and 3000F. temps.

The Marines hear Jihadi's Jumal and Jobu arguing about how their lovely chocolate cake will get baked with no power. Being the humanitarians they are, the Marines decide to help out. They fire the AT-1 missile into the kitchen window.

The AT-1 missle detonates and flash fries everything in the kitchen (including Jumal, Jobu, the cake, and everything else). It also blows out a back wall and buckles another; however, the structure itself is still sound.

The 3000F. temps have reduced the chocolate cake to a cinder (along with their erstwhile bakers), but L.Cpl. Schmoe and G.Sgt. Rock have brought along their MREs, which have lovely pound-cake snacks. They rest near the incinerated kitchen and enjoy their snack, as produced by an two jihadi bakers, an ubaked cake, and a themobaric rocket round.

Thus, in an indirect but still definable way, the thermobaric round has contributed to their cake-eating idyll.

My bad: not an AT-1, but a SMAW.

Loose shit.

According to Human Rights Watch, thermobaric weapons "kill and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a wide area.

SWEET

Ace, for a better idea as to what this weapon can do, check out this site: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/fae.htm
Scroll down to see the demo. This is an air-delivered example of a fuel-air explosive, also known as thermobaric. I understand that the first primitive versions were something like 55-gallon drums pushed out of a C-130.
Remember: Nothing smells loving like somethin' in the oven!

Anybody catch the bit in Allah's link about how we should vet the use of these weapons with various human rights groups before we use them?

WTF?

"According to Human Rights Watch, thermobaric weapons kill and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a wide area."

That is not a bug, that is a feature.

Well done Monty.
I shouldn't have said anything.

But I would argue that once vaporization takes place, the baking process has effectively ended, and you cannot actually inhale a piece of cake. That is just an expression

Laura kills me.

Lauraw understands that it is a metaphysical cake we're dealing with here; ergo a "vaporized cake" has no meaning as it is in the realm of the actual and thus has no real bearing on the larger philosophical point.

Thus, "I baked that jihadi's cake, but good!"

Thus, in an indirect but still definable way, the thermobaric round has contributed to their cake-eating idyll.

The SMAW-NE. Is there anything it can't do?

"...it is in the realm of the actual and thus has no real bearing on the larger philosophical point."

DARRR
DERR

What he said.

I for one look forward to the day when disdainful looks are the only weapons needed to keep my country safe. But until that time, I would prefer to be able kill a lot of my enemies while safely eating Doritos. Noone so far has mentioned the dorito capacity of these things, so I don't know how effective it is in real world situations.

As for cake baking, I think these are among the 3242 things that offends muslims (cakes and baking, to be specific). I think cake is a beheading offense. Its a little known fact that the band Cake actually offends Sharia law 43 times and should be beheaded 9 times.

Thermobaric warheads are actually quite common. The Soviets and then the Russians have been making them available for their guided anti-tank missiles and multiple-launch artillery rocket systems for decades. These are the "anti-personnel" versions of these weapons. No big deal, really.

The US Army ordered a thermobatic version of the Hellfire missile this summer. Here's an article from eDefense Online. Registration required, so here's an excerpt:

US Army Orders Thermobaric Hellfires

by Brendan P. Rivers
Aug. 24, 2005

Lockheed Martin (Orlando, FL) announced on Aug. 23 that a thermobaric version of its Hellfire II missile has been cleared for full-rate production for the US Army, particularly for use in ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Following the successful completion of a production-readiness review by a government-industry team of the thermobaric warhead, the US Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $90-million contract for the production of 900 AGM-114N thermobaric Hellfires, along with 180 AGM-114K high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) Hellfires. In addition, the contract calls upon the company to convert 100 existing HEAT missiles to the thermobaric version. Lockheed Martin is responsible for the missile bodies themselves and the integration of the thermobaric warheads, which are produced by Alliant Techsystems (Rocket Center, WV).

According to Mike Dowty, Lockheed Martin's Hellfire business-development manager, the thermobaric warhead works just like the other warhead variants of the semi-active laser-guided Hellfire II, with one difference: the explosive effects. The explosive material in the 27.5-lb. thermobaric warhead consists of a combination of traditional explosive, PBXN-112, and "energetic" material – in this case, a fluorinated-aluminum powder mixture. When the PBXN-112 detonates, the fluorinated-aluminum mixture disperses and burns rapidly, an effect that is extremely effective against enemy personnel.

This recent contract represents the first production buy of the thermobaric variant of the Hellfire, which was designed specifically for use against buildings and structures (whereas the AGM-114K was designed to engage heavy armor targets). According to a spokesman for the US Army Aviation and Missile Command (Redstone Arsenal, AL), experiences during current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq prompted the Army to request additional quantities of the new thermobaric missile to support those operations.

If you grew up in the Midwest, you've probably heard of a big thermobaric explosion that can happen spontaneously: grain silos can explode if too much grain dust accumulates and a fire gets started. This actually happened once when I was a kid and we heard the blast almost two miles away. I've heard of the same thing happening with confectioner's sugar and flour silos, as well.

In the style of movie ads quoting a reviewer:

"KILL and INJURE in a particularly BRUTAL manner over a WIDE AREA!!!" -- Human Rights Watch

"Two THUMBS UP!!!" -- Ebert and Roeper

"KICKS BUTT like Jet Li CHANNELING Russell Crowe!!!" -- Mingo Junction Weekly Shopper

I've had it happen by accident, very very small scale, with a little flour spill near my lit stovetop.

Quick little flash in the air. Nifty.
I couldn't make it happen again on purpose.

a little flour spill near my lit stovetop.

Maybe we're looking at the whole cake issue from the wrong angle?

Think our military should take a second look at weaponizing cake itself, VRWC?

"Run, Mustafa! They've got Death by Chocolate!!"

weaponizing cake

Actually, I think fruitcake is classified as a deadly munition in forty-two of the fifty states. It kills hundreds of people every year, you know.

Yeah, the Russians have had a shoulder-fired thermobaric weapon for about 25 years, the RPO-1. We had some fuel-air thermobaric aerial bombs in our arsenal but started developing new systems using thermobaric warheads after 9/11, mainly with caves in Afghanistan in mind. But they're great for urban warfare, too.

Wonder how far they've gotten with the rifle-fired stuff mentioned in the article.
That sounded very exciting.

We're looking at the propaganda angle on this all wrong.

Fact: Most Star Trek fans (i.e. "Trekkies") are liberals.

Fact: Among liberal Trekkies, "The Next Generation" is the preferred version of Trek. ("Kirk was such a macho barbarian!")

Fact: The most often featured political entity in Star Trek is the Federation. The Federation is known for being peaceful, fair, and humanitarian to all sentients in the galaxy.

Fact: Liberals view the Federation as the model we, as a planet, need to strive for. In the eyes of liberal Trekkies, the Federation is the exact opposite of out current American Imperialistic Bush=Hitler Theocracy.

Fact: The primary sidearm of the Federation military (i.e. "Starfleet") is the Phaser (i.e. "Phased Energy Rectification").

Fact: Liberal Trekkies love the fact that your standard-issued hand phaser has a Stun setting, which can be used to render your attacker unconscious yet unharmed.

Fact: Phasers also have a Disruption setting, which can vaporize man-sized targets with ease.

So, following liberal logic...

Modern thermobaric weapon = Star Trek Phasers.
as such
USA = Federation

That should make their head explode.

"Run, Mustafa! They've got Death by Chocolate!!"

I can picture our brave men and women of the batter batteries raining round cake rounds on the enemy. Thermo-licious!

fruitcake is classified as a deadly munition in forty-two of the fifty states.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the Geneva Convention bans its use.

Monty, any type of dust with significant hydrocarbons present can explode if it's dispersed properly in the air. Next time you tie one on, spill a packet of non-dairy creamer over an open flame and watch the resulting fun. Don't do this in a confined space, and keep your head tilted back or you'll be penciling in your eyebrows for a few weeks.

Back in college, one of my classes took a tour of the local coal-fired power plant. Their initial processing room (where the coal was augered up towards the roof and spilled onto a screen for dispersal into the furnace) was the weak link of the process as far as blasts go. The designers tried to minimize the damage a blast would do to the structure by hinging the roof along one side. Any blast occuring in that room would simply lift the roof to allow the blast to escape, and hopefully spare the rest of the facility from damage.

As far as the new weapon goes, I'd like to know when it will be available for civilian use. We've got a biblical infestation of gophers on the back 40 of the home place, and this looks like the best way to send them off to meet gopher-Allah.

"kills and injures in a particularly brutal manner" - isn't that what weapons are more or less supposed to do?

You silly fools. Don't you realize that every new weapon developed will kill or at least threaten Americans someday? Why do inventive and efficient new ways of killing people excite you so much? Isn't bloodthirst a bad thing? Would Jesus get an erection from thermobaric weapons?

Don't you realize that every new weapon developed will kill or at least threaten Americans someday?

Alien 1: It seems the earthlings won.

Alien 2: Did they? That board with a nail in it may have defeated us. But the humans won't stop there. They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails, and soon, they will make a board with a nail so big, it will destroy them all!

[both aliens laugh evilly, for quite some time]

-- `The Monkey's Paw' in ``Treehouse of Horror II''

Why do inventive and efficient new ways of killing people excite you so much?

Saving lives and advancing our righteous cause just kinda work for me.

Would Jesus get an erection from thermobaric weapons?

Or hot drunken lesbian cheerleaders?

We first saw the F/A mixture bimb in Vietnam. It was great for clearing a landing site in the jungle - it knocked down all the trees etc for a large radius. Weapons tend to have a lasting effect - especially on those on whom they are used. To quote "The Great Santini" on attacking ground troops from the air:

"How do you know you got them?"
"Easy," The Great Santini said. "They were running - it's a good sign when you see the enemy running. There was another good sign."

"What was that, Dad?"

"They were on fire."

We first saw the F-A mixture weapon in Vietnam. It could clear a large landing sight in the jungle by knocking down all the trees etc. Weapons tend to be brutal and have a lasting effect on the folks they get used on. That's why we use them. This qoutes "The Great Santini" on attacking the enemy from the air.

"How do you know you got them?"
"Easy," The Great Santini said. "They were running - it's a good sign when you see the enemy running. There was another good sign."

"What was that, Dad?"
"They were on fire."