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Posted on 12/18/2001 7:33:59 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen

The tactical utility of the 15,000-pound BLU-82/B "daisy cutter" bomb used in Afghanistan (DAILY, Dec. 13) is relatively limited, officials say.

Developed in the late 1960s by Sandia Lab and the Air Force Weapons Lab at Kirtland AFB, N.M., to clear helicopter landing zones in Vietnam, the weapon is fearsome but it is not precision-guided and must hit within 500 feet of its target to kill or incapacitate and cause material damage. Its blast covers a 400-foot circle and can cause ear damage out to 500 feet, but beyond this its effects are temporary, although it can affect an enemy psychologically.

The weapon, parachuted on a cargo pallet from C-130 flying at about 8,000 feet, was designed to explode several feet above the ground, leveling everything in a circle 260 feet in diameter - including trees as large as four feet thick and 150 feet tall - instantly creating an area large enough to accommodate up to three Huey helicopters. A shallow crater six to 12 inches deep and 20 to 30 feet across typically forms at ground zero.

The bomb - also referred to as "Commando Vault," "cheeseburger" and "big blue" - is optimized for blast, not fragmentation. Most of its 15,000-pound weight - 12,600 pounds - is a "slurry" explosive, and its the walls of its squat soda-can shape are only one-quarter of an inch thick. Upon detonation, the body of the bomb stretches well beyond its normal size, not unlike a balloon, and most fragments are consumed. Lugs, bolts and other devices used to assemble the bomb, however, can travel significant distances.

Beyond the mission of clearing landing zones, an enemy's desire to avoid the weapon is considered enough to allow it to temporarily degrade his performance.

But, one source says, "The consequences of overestimating suppression effects may lead to a very risky operation for" special forces on the ground.

He cites Operation Just Cause in 1989, in which two F-117 aircraft each dropped a 2,000-pound GBU-10 bomb for "psychological effect" to "stun, daze and confuse" Panamanian Defense Forces. "The end result was not surrender but provocation," and U.S. Army Rangers had to fight the "moderately disciplined" PDF for over six more hours. "Having witnessed this effect," he said, "I wonder what the situation would have been like if the bombs hadn't been dropped."

He also said that "suppression effects must be maintained to be effective." Such effects nearly evaporated after the F-117s left, but reappeared when Special Operations Forces aircraft began hitting targets in the area.

Development of the BLU-82/B was spurred by shortages of the 10,000-pound World war II-era M121 bomb, which was used to clear helicopter landing zones in Vietnam until 1970. First use of the BLU-82/B occurred in Vietnam on March 23, 1970. A number of the bombs were dropped on targets in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. At least one was dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. One was dropped in May 1975 during the recovery of the USS Mayaguez.

A total of 225 BLU-82/Bs were produced by the Allison Steel Co. of Phoenix, Ariz., for about $1 million.

Starting in the mid-1980s, MC-130s of the Air Force Special Operations Command began using the bombs in certain missions. Eleven were dropped by C-130s during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 to help demoralize Iraqi troops. Training drops continued until 1993, but these ceased in 1994.

Although the BLU-82/B is big, it's not the biggest conventional bomb ever made. The British dropped the 22,000-pound Grand Slam bomb from Lancaster bombers in World War II, and the U.S. B-36 bomber of the 1950s carried the 44,000-pound T-12 Cloudmaker.

-- Rich Tuttle

The daisy cutter uses an explosive slurrry with a realatively low detonation velocity. The explosives original use was in quarrying operations where the charge must be buried to be effective.

The T-12 bomb used a much higher performance explosive. It was designed to be dropped from a B-36 against hardened concrete U-boat pens in Europe.

Pity we don't have a few more of these puppies in our inventory!

Don't worry, we have this one warming up in the bullpen!

A B-2 Spirit Bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., drops a B61-11 "bunker busting" nuclear bomb casing.

The B61-11 is a new modification to a nuclear weapon that has been in the Air Force inventory since the 1960s. The bomb can be used against a variety of enemy targets, including deeply buried underground command posts and weapons storage facilities. A new case design lets it penetrate the ground to a depth of 15 to 25 feet, where the weapon would then detonate.

The B61-11 is designed to burrow through layers of concrete by way of a "shock-coupling effect."

The design directs the force of the B61-11's explosive energy downward, destroying everything buried beneath it to a depth of several hundred meters.

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