The US military has drawn up new attack plans that include the potential use of the so-called “mother of all bombs”, the Gbu-43/b Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), to hit Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites, should President Donald Trump order the resumption of military operations before or after the mid-term elections. CNN writes it.
A possible escalation, amid doubts about effectiveness
The use, for the first time in the conflict with Iran, of the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, would represent a notable escalation, despite doubts about its actual effectiveness in achieving the strategic objectives declared by Trump or in tipping the balance of the war, according to reports from several sources familiar with internal military planning discussions on the potential use of the weapon.
What is the «mother of all bombs»
The Moab was developed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory and first tested in 2003, in Florida. It weighs approximately 9,850 kilos, of which approximately 8,500 are explosives, for a power comparable to that of 11 tons of TNT. A total of 15 examples were produced. The nickname recalls the “mother of all battles” evoked by Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War.
It is dropped not from a bomber but from a C-130 transport plane, with a parachute that extracts it from the hold, and is guided by satellite. It explodes in the air, above the target: it is designed to hit surface targets over large areas or in closed environments such as caves and canyons, not to penetrate deep into the ground. It has been used in combat only once, on April 13, 2017, against an Islamic State tunnel complex in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.