Today, for the first time in combat, the United States military has utilized the largest non-nuclear bomb in their inventory. The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) is a 22,600 pound conventional bomb, packed with 18,700 pounds of Composition H6. This results in an explosive yield equivalent to 11 tons of TNT. The GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) may tip the scales at a larger total weight (30,000 pounds), but the MOP has a smaller warhead and blast yield than the MOAB.
The bomb was dropped on what government officials called an ISIS-K cave complex in Nangarhar Province, the area of Afghanistan where Special Forces soldier SSG Mark De Alencar was killed in action on April 8, 2017. The MOAB was designed to be dropped by the C-130 Hercules aircraft; most likely meaning a Combat Talon variant dropped the bomb at 7:32 PM local time. According to General John W. Nicholson, the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, “As ISIS-K’s losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers, and tunnels to thicken their defenses,” and the GBU-43/B was “the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R7TYV5YxzU&feature=youtu.be
