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Headlines : CorporationsBoeing unveils lightweight bomb for urban combat
We’ve all heard this before: the military is developing more sophisticated weaponry that will dramatically reduce civilian casualties. This has been the U.S. military’s standard line since Vietnam, but as long as the military arms itself with weapons like depleted uranium and cluster bombs, there will be massive civilian casualties.
[Posted By senssensibilityr]Republished from Associated Press
Boeing Co. on Monday unveiled a line of small, lightweight bombs that the U.S. Air Force will use in urban combat situations like the war in Iraq.
The small-diameter bombs weigh 250 pounds and can be used by all Air Force bombers, according to Boeing. By using the smaller bombs, planes can carry about four times as many bombs and fire them from farther away. A B-2 Stealth bomber can carry as many as 80 of the small-diameter bombs.
The bombs also will help limit civilian casualties during airstrikes in urban areas, Air Force Col. Richard Justice said at an unveiling ceremony. Boeing said its own tests show the bombs hit within 4 feet of their target.
Justice said Boeing’s development of the bomb was one of the speediest and most successful weapons development in Air Force history. He said the bomb should be used in combat as early as this summer.
Boeing, based in Chicago but whose defense operations are based in the St. Louis area, said it will make 24,000 small-diameter bombs for the Air Force, which has contracted to buy them through 2015.
The small-diameter bomb contract is valued at about $2.5 billion, but Boeing has only won the first phase…
Posted by senssensibilityr
Student of German and Russian culture, history and language, emphasis on post-Dark Age European History.
German and Russian 20th century literature.
Studying Arabic.
Cannot wait to go to Freiburg to study @ Goethe Institut im Februar.
Well I for one applaud this latest innovation. It’s about time someone did something to improve the working conditions of air force ground crew. I mean, 250 pounds is still a hefty load to hoist, but it’s certainly an improvement from lugging those 500 pounders around – ‘can you say lower back pain’?
And the icing on the cake? Increased job security! They’re going to be making 24,000 of these little suckers. More bombs = more ground crew. (Unless of course they decide to outsource bomb loading to Bangladesh, but I can’t see how they’d make it work logistically.)
10000 pounds of bombs dropped will always do the damage of about 10000 pounds of bombs. Split 40 ways in an urban setting? “ will help limit civilian casualties “?
Well shock and awe
When you induce terror and leave them living does that make you a terrorist?
All bombing is terroism…no matter who does it.
Lets cut to the chase, exploding lollypops and candies are sure to bring down all medical facilities and demoralize any enemy. Cakes for big wigs. Smart bombs disguised as pizza deliverymen. Yea keep working DARPA nerds, yer so smart guys I pee my pants.
Truman on the number of lives saved by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki :
December 15, 1945: “It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities.”
Late 1946: “A year less of war will mean life for three hundred thousand-maybe half a million-of America’s finest youth.”
October 1948: “In the long run we could save a quarter of a million young Americans from being killed, and would save an equal number of Japanese young men from being killed.”
April 6, 1949: “I thought 200,000 of our young men would be saved.”
November 1949: Truman quotes Army Chief of Staff George S. Marshall as estimating the cost of an Allied invasion of Japan to be “half a million casualties.”
January 12, 1953: Still quoting Marshall, Truman raises the estimate to “a minimum one quarter of a million” and maybe “as much as a million, on the American side alone, with an equal number of the enemy.”
Finally, on April 28, 1959, Truman concluded: “the dropping of the bombs…saved millions of lives.”
END OF QUOTE
Source : Mickey Z WMD American-Style ( in which he reminds us that the reason the US MIC bombed Japan is to “impress” Russia).
What do you think? Is Dick Justice a great name for an air force colonel?
I heard Marshall told McNamara that “If we were the losers [against japan or germany] then we would be the ones in trial for crimes against humanity”
Anyways, I’ve to say is weird that while there’s a lot of yanks that fell bad for the bombing of japan and haven’t seen not even one japanese ashamed of what they did in china during the 30s and 40s.
Dick Justice sounds impressive. But it still goes boing boing bump.
How about naming that fruit of genius : The Collateralizer The Swiffer. Light Days MK II. Dextrous Mongoose. The Tweezer.
And a shopping bag lady to crash a champagne bottle smack on it to christen it.