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A question for the airforce or artillery guys
bpost
Member Posts: 32,669 ✭✭✭✭
I have seen several very large buildings dropped into a neat little pile in the Gaza strip. In one video you have to look close but you actually see a projectile, bomb or rocket hit the base of the building and the building instantly collapsing into rubble. It looks like the strikes are at the base of the buildings not through the roof.
What size bomb could do that type of damage with one hit? Can a rocket fired from a plane do the same? Can artillery do this type of damage with one hit?
Comments
Smart bombs come in a wide range of explosive weights from no explosives at all to 2,000 pounds and up. From the size of the blast I saw, it could have been something in the 500-750# range. (I have witnessed a shipload of those.)
I doubt that buildings in that area are up to much of a code. Put a bomb through the back door and into the basement and it isn't surprising that the whole thing would collapse.
I was in an artillery unit when I was in the army. 155mm round weighed 93 pounds, and could be fitted with different type fuses. Most common used was a contact/quick fuse, however you could put a delay on the fuse, and this allowed the round to penetrate deeper before it detonated. If you didn’t have a delay on the fuse when firing on a concrete building, or bunker the round would explode on the surface, not causing as much damage.
Now that you mention it the buildings I have seen turned to rubble are very heavy on the concrete and very light on structural steel and rebar.
Yep and some of these are gravity bombs. Some are WW II surplus Mk 117s and MK 82s. They are fitted with modern guidance systems (Fins & GPS) depending on the geology they can make a huge crater.
I worked fighters dropping a gazundle of Mk 82s, both finned and "high drag" which we called Snake Eye because of the way the bomb "hunted" on the way down with the drag fins deployed. -- the nose wobbled from side to side a lot like a poised cobra. Flight Lead would carry high drag 500s and his wingman would carry unfinned nape. Lead would make kindling and Two would light it up. We called it Snake and Nape, or Shake and Bake.
I also worked some of the last F-100s in country. They were normally racked with a pair of Mk 117 750-pounders. They could drop them singly, but it made them pretty unstable due to the unbalanced weight. They'd always pull up to the heavy side.
Nostalgia.
Nowadays, they don't even dive to drop; they enter the target coordinates or have the bomb lock onto a laser pointer and simply pickle one off from level flight. Bomb flies itself to the target. Boom.
Thanks for your service Rocky
IMHO, the whole concept of aviation warfare is changing at a rapid pace. Pilots cant take the G forces of the latest fighters, missiles, lasers, drones, MAPADs, and stuff we dont know about will all replace most of manned aircraft.
We did shake & bakes during Desert Storm on Sadams line in the sand at the Kuwait border: 3 Buffs wingtip to wingtip about a thousand feet apart dropping 117s with a 4th Buff trailing 1 mile dropping CBUs. The devastation was beyond imagination and its no wonder the Iraqis fled.
I know a guy who says the JASSM cruise missile works pretty well.
(2nd video is pretty cool!)
There is also an anti ship variant, called LRASSM.
The world has spent a lot of money and invented a lot of technology to kill people. One of these days when they get it figured out nobody will be left kind of like the dinosaurs disappeared. The AI sounds scary as it could wipe everybody out.
"Implosions" you see on TV are carefully planned to use minimum explosives to cause minimum blast effects byond immediate building. Military explosives are higher velocity and "Collateral damage" is not a concern.
The bomb and artillery rounds being used -- and often multiples are used -- shatter and demolish the support so things come down, especially if the building is not up to modern codes (as has been mentioned).
A 155mm artillery round in delay mode will dig a nice hole for walls, etc. to fall into. A bomb makes a bigger hold but it all brings things down quickly.
"Below grade" explosions are excellent for bring down buildings. Civilian blasters can't use them because of damage to water, etc. pipes. and adjacent buildings.
"Overkill" is not a concern in war.