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Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (ATBIP), nicknamed "Father of All Bombs" (FOAB; ), is a Russian-designed,
bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strateg ...
-delivered
thermobaric weapon A thermobaric weapon, also called an aerosol bomb, or a vacuum bomb, is a type of explosive munition that works by dispersing an aerosol cloud of gas, liquid or powdered explosive. The fuel is usually a single compound, rather than a mixture o ...
. This weapon was claimed to be the most powerful conventional (non-
nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...
) weapon in the world, more powerful than GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, which is often unofficially called "Mother of All Bombs" or MOAB. FOAB was successfully field-tested in the late evening of 11 September 2007.


Claims

The FOAB device allegedly yields the equivalent of 44 tons of
TNT Troponin T (shortened TnT or TropT) is a part of the troponin complex, which are proteins integral to the contraction of skeletal and heart muscles. They are expressed in skeletal and cardiac myocytes. Troponin T binds to tropomyosin and helps ...
using about seven tons of a new type of
high explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...
. Because of this, the bomb's blast and pressure wave have a similar effect to a small
tactical nuclear weapon A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territ ...
. The bomb works by detonating in mid-air. Thermobaric weapons differ from conventional explosive weapons in that they generate a longer, more sustained blast wave with greater temperatures. In doing so, they produce more damage over a larger area than a conventional weapon of similar mass. According to General
Aleksandr Rukshin Alexander () is a male given name, name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in anc ...
, the Russian Deputy
Chief of the General Staff The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) is a post in many armed forces (militaries), the head of the military staff. List * Chief of the General Staff (Abkhazia) * Chief of General Staff (Afghanistan) * Chief of the General Staff (Albania) * C ...
, the new bomb was smaller than the MOAB but much deadlier because the temperature at the centre of the blast is twice as high.


Analysis and veracity

Some defense analysts question both the yield of the bomb and whether it could be deployed by a
Tupolev Tu-160 The Tupolev Tu-160 (; NATO reporting name: Blackjack) is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing nuclear-capable heavy strategic bomber and airborne missile platform designed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The aircra ...
bomber. A report by ''
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'' says photos and the video of the event suggest that it is designed to be deployed from the rear of a slow moving cargo plane, and they note that the bomb-test video released by the Russians never shows both the bomb and the bomber in the same camera shot. There are also questions on what type of explosives it used. They quoted Tom Burky, a senior research scientist at Battelle, saying "It's not even clear what kind of weapon the Russians tested." He questions if it was what some experts call a
fuel-air explosive A thermobaric weapon, also called an aerosol bomb, or a vacuum bomb, is a type of explosive munition that works by dispersing an aerosol cloud of gas, liquid or powdered explosive. The fuel is usually a single compound, rather than a mixture o ...
or if it was a thermobaric weapon. "Fuel-air and thermobaric bombs differ in usefulness". Burky says that the weapon depicted in the video appears to be a fuel-air explosive, based on its shape. Weapons analyst Sascha Lange of German SWP speaking at ''
Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...
'' pointed out multiple discrepancies in the released Russian video and expressed his skepticism about the Russian claim. John Pike, an analyst at the think tank
GlobalSecurity GlobalSecurity.org is an American independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that serves as a think tank, and research and consultancy group. Focus The site is focused on national and international security issues; military analysis, sys ...
, says he believes the weapon is roughly as powerful as the Russians claim. What he does not necessarily believe is that the weapon is new. He says the Russians have possessed a range of thermobaric weapons for at least four decades. Robert Hewson, an editor for
Jane's Information Group Janes is a global open-source intelligence company specialising in military, national security, aerospace and transport topics, whose name derives from British author Fred T. Jane. History Jane's Information Group was founded in 1898 by Fred T. ...
, told the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
it was likely that FOAB indeed represented the world's biggest non-nuclear bomb. "You can argue about the numbers and how you scale this but the Russians have a long and proven history of developing weapons in the thermobaric class", he says.
UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...
claimed the device "would enormously boost Russia's conventional military capabilities".


See also

*
Massive Ordnance Penetrator The GBU-57 series MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) is a class, precision-guided munition "bunker buster" bomb developed by Boeing for the United States Air Force (USAF). Composed of a BLU-127 bomb body and an integrated GPS/INS guidance packa ...
*
Grand Slam (bomb) The Bomb, Medium Capacity, (Grand Slam) was a earthquake bomb used by RAF Bomber Command against German targets towards the end of the Second World War. The bomb was originally called Tallboy Large until the term Tallboy got into the press a ...
*
Soviet atomic bomb project The Soviet atomic bomb project was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II. Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov suspected that the Allied powers were secretly developing a " superwea ...
*
Tsar Bomba The Tsar Bomba (code name: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear aerial bomb, and by far the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. The Soviet phy ...


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Father Of All Bombs Modern thermobaric weapons of Russia Modern incendiary weapons of Russia Aerial bombs of Russia Russian inventions Military equipment introduced in the 2000s 2007 introductions