US to test 700-tonne explosive(will send mushroom cloud over Las Vegas)

Breitbart.com ^

[Ramius]

Saturn V

Quite... but the Saturn only had a payload capacity of 130 tons.

Sounds like we'll have to build it in place and convince the Iranians to build a nuke site over it. :-)

[zarf]

Shockingly, it will be dropped from a Cessna.

[thackney]

Divine Strake is a high-explosive (HE) test sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and is scheduled for the summer of 2006 at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The test is a detonation of a 700 ton buried heavy AN/FO charge above a tunnel structure. The main purpose of the test is to study ground shock effects on deeply buried tunnel structures. Of secondary interest is the airblast produced by a buried charge and its modification as it propagates over the local terrain.

Non Ideal Airblast Effects from Urban and Natural Terrain
http://www.saviac.org/76th_Symposium/Abstracts/L-33.htm

[Fester Chugabrew]

Gee. I hope they don't harm any animals while making their film.

[ElkGroveDan]

Divine Strike.. love the name because it will drive the moonbat leftists nuts..

I would have preferred "Final Crusade"

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Another waste of the taxpayers' money!!!

[Ramius]

I think 700 tonnes is the yield of the weapon

I think you're right...

[Not A Snowbird]

mushroom cloud over Las Vegas

Duck, 'Face!

[xp38]

This is what the term "that's gonna leave a mark" was created for.

[Logical me]

Why test it? Never be used. No ba!!s in Government anymore. Can't even stop illegals much more than bomb a bunker.

[Centurion2000]

Do you suppose the timing of this test has anything to do with the demands made on Iran yesterday?

Of course it does, just like the announcement from today that we now have 5 times the smart bomb load for each B-2 that we have in the inventory.

[ElkGroveDan]

If we're gonna use something that powerful, why not use a danged nuke in the first place?

It shows them we can get to their nukes without playing the nuke card ourselves. Puts us in a great spot.

[danamco]

will send muchroom cloud over Las Vegas)

I've heard that they need more muchroom there. :->



They could save some good money if they tried it out in Bora Bora!??!

[MeanWestTexan]

"Do we have any planes that could carry 700 tons?"

No. I think a B-52 can carry something in the order of 30 tonnes, but that is a guess from memory --- assuming we're talking weight of explosives and not yeild.

I would think the only way to deliver this would be some sort of super-cruise missle --- basically 747 airframe or the like retrofitted to be little more than a mega-bomb that crashes into the target.

[traderrob6]

For comparison....

Compared to a nuclear bomb, the MOAB produces a tiny explosion. The smallest known nuclear bomb -- the Davy Crockett fission bomb -- has a 10-ton yield. The difference is that a nuclear bomb that small weighs less than 100 pounds (45 kg) and produces significant amounts of lethal radiation when it detonates. For comparison, the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 14,500 tons of TNT and weighed only 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) -- half the weight of the MOAB. See How Nuclear Bombs Work for details.

[balk]

"Better than to fight your enemy is removing his will to fight".

[Vaquero]

[Berlin_Freeper]

This is a good first version.

Next we need the cluster bomb version that will disperse hundreds of these suckers across Iran.

[reagan_fanatic]

George Bush will have one more reason to say to the mullahs in Tehran: "Now listen up, you primitive towelheads. See this? This... is my boomstick!"

[Lekker 1]

A 0.0007 Kiloton bomb in the Nevada Desert...Women and Minorities hardest hit.