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The Grand Slam bomb is 26 feet 6 inches by 3 feet, 10 inches and weighs 22,000 pounds.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-07-28 13:31||
2012-07-28 13:31||
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#6 The idea of a MOP is to penetrate. Not blow up on the surface like a daisy-cutter.
I heard that, during Desert Storm, a number of the penetrators were made from spare barrels for 8-inch naval rifles. Heavy duty stuff, iow.
So it's probable that the casing, designed to penetrate many feet of reinforced concrete, takes up the bulk of the weight and only a small--relatively speaking--volume is left for explosive.
Still, 5k lbs of HE in an enclosed space will do a hell of a lot of damage, since, being so reinforced, there's no way for the blast to get out. Except an eighteen-inch hole.
The effect of confining the blast is dramatic. In OCS, the demo was a couple of little firecrackers about an inch and a half long. Two boards with a firecracker on each. One had a handful of mud on top. Bang. The tamped 'cracker split the board and the untamped one scorched the board. The tamping blew all over as a cloud of damp dust. IOW, the explosion was only slightly confined and still had a hell of a different effect.
Imagine a blast which, quite literally, cannot escape no matter what.
And, as somebody said, the folks have to get in and out. A Hellfire a day into the elevator shaft will prevent shift change. Making an exaggerated example.
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