MOAB

If you are a regular here at Future Firepower then I am sure you have heard of the MOAB or Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, coined the Mother of All Bombs. The MOAB is an eight ton non-nuclear weapon with a 450 foot blast radius. What you might not have heard is that Russia has recently unveiled the “Father of All Bombs” which is said to have a 900 foot blast radius, double what the MOAB boasts. Until the Russian military unveiled the FOAB the MOAB was the largest non-nuclear bomb in the world. The center of the explosion created by the Father of All Bombs is reported to be twice as hot as MOAB as well. The Russian military apparently created a weapon roughly the same size as the MOAB with twice the power! So it looks like the Russians have one-upped the American military’s largest non-nuclear weapon… or have they?

There are a lot of skeptics that believe the Father of All Bombs may just be a big hoax. The Russian military claimed the bomb was dropped from a Tupolev 160 bomber although the bomb and the aircraft where never seen in the same video. Recall that the MOAB is usually dropped out of a much larger C-130 or equivalent. “You’ve got to approach Russian claims with skepticism,” says John Pike, an analyst at the think tank GlobalSecurity.org.

Wired has a great article regarding inconsistencies in the video and the claims made by the Russian military. Psychological warfare?