Sunday, May 25, 2014

Concrete bombs


An anonymous commenter at my previous post mentioned the use of concrete-filled bombs by US aircraft in the Middle East to strike pinpoint targets while causing minimal 'collateral damage'.  I was aware of this;  there have been several articles discussing it since the technique was first revealed in 2009.  Here's a useful one giving more information if you're interested.

I thought I recalled a National Geographic program that mentioned the subject, and a quick search on YouTube revealed that I was right.  Here's a short excerpt from their 'I Didn't Know That' series.  It's a bit oh-gee-whiz and over-the-top, but it's still interesting.





Thanks to our anonymous commenter for bringing the subject to mind.

Peter

5 comments:

Rich S. said...

Did anybody notice that they were about 50 yards from the first "bomb" and didn't even attempt to take cover until after it went off.

Just how "experienced" was their explosive expert? A pyrotech in the US would have set it up differently, I'd say.

Compare/contrast Mythbusters - who, admittedly, sometimes err on the side of safety.

Old NFO said...

Yep, they've been using them for a while... Sometimes also known as blue bombs.

Anonymous said...

Where do they find these twits?

drjim said...

Yep. "blue" as in "inert".

Or as Robby would say, "Yes, Morbius, a simple kinetic energy weapon".

Anonymous said...

I didn't know the US also had them.
The article I read only mentioned the British. The article stated that they were developed to avoid collateral damage, which only turned people against us.

- Charlie your friendly anonymous commenter.