Talk:GBU-43/B MOAB

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Military effectiveness of large munitions?[edit]

My initial reaction is that one particular type of bomb does not justify a Wikipedia article. It should be a section within a more general article on extremely large bombs, perhaps restricted to aircraft-delivered bombs. Having said that, I also think that military effectiveness should be one of the topics covered in that article. That's what I was looking for, but have yet to find here. The obvious reason was to assess whether or not the recent first-actual-military-usage of the GBU-43 might have military justification based upon prior uses of such weapons. Obviously I have my doubts... Seems more likely that a certain noisy person just wanted to play with his new toys. I guess cost would also be relevant in that context, though I'm guessing these are pretty low-tech and inexpensive. Shanen (talk) 23:39, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

In case you're still interested, there are individual articles on the BLU-82 and M-121 as well. Those fall in pretty much the same category, and indeed they are the evolution of each other (M-121 → BLU-82 → GBU-43). The effectiveness is debatable, and very much dependent on the scenario: they can be effective in tasks from shock and awe to destroying tunnel systems, they can be successfully employed against large ground forces or against a specific target (since the GBU-43 is guided). They are however ineffective against hard target such as a bunker, for which there are other dedicated weapons (which also have their individual wiki page as well as a generic description, e.g. Bunker buster and Earthquake bomb). The use of large munitions is well documented, while their effectiveness depends on how they're used.
I think that they do deserve their own wiki page, and indeed that seems the practice (apparently every bomb, missile or munition has its own page). Maybe there could be a more general article on "large non-nuclear non-penetrating ordnance". Marcello Pas (talk) 11:38, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Surely the decisive factor as to having their own page should be a degree of noteworthiness. I'd suggest that 40 pages of news results when searching justifies notability. 83.100.188.53 (talk) 08:55, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Source for cost[edit]

The source given for the anonymous claim that the cost per unit is $170,000 is a link to an article with blatant typos in it at the "The Blaze".

I am removing the claim until a reasonable source is found for a number.

Here is what I cut, with "ref" tags and curly brackets removed:

The cost per unit is $170,000, according to an unnamed source in the US Air Force.

Cite news|url=http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/14/the-moab-that-was-dropped-on-afghanistan-costs-far-less-than-you-think/%7Ctitle=The MOAB that was dropped on Afghanistan costs far less than you think|work=TheBlaze|access-date=2017-04-15|language=en|author=Brandon Morse

If it is true I am sure we can find a stronger citation. Huw Powell (talk) 05:33, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you to however nailed down a much better reference for this. Huw Powell (talk) 07:01, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Why would we favor is Business Insider and The Blaze over The New York Times and The Guardian for this information?- MrX 11:26, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

It appears that the cost of $314 million refers to the cost of developing and producing twenty of a different bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/16/business/la-fi-bunker-buster-bomb-20111117 The cost of $16 million may have come from dividing $314 million by 20. Paranoid schizoid android (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Probably. I'm not sure which we should use, but if we use $170,000, I would like to see better sources.- MrX 12:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
As far as I know, the original source for the cost estimate is http://www.deagel.com/Defensive-Weapons/GBU-43B_a000978001.aspx, explicitly mentioned by some articles. Most likely, the 314 M$ figure includes R&D costs, and I think it would be wrong to get the unit cost just dividing the total by the number built. There are various measures of costs (see Flyaway cost), so it could be that 170 k$ is the production or the weapons system cost, while 16 M$ is the average total cost (that will decrease if more are produced). To be honest, 170 k$ seems to be the reasonable one, and 16 M$ is definitely too much: it's the cost of an F16! Hopefully there will be a more reliable source, such as the Air Force website. Marcello Pas (talk) 07:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
It's not unreasonable or unheard of to include R & D expenses when discussing unit cost. I think we need to look to high-quality sources that we trust for fact checking.- MrX 12:12, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
We can still keep the content until better sources discuss the matter. We can put such thing in a new "Cost" section, and wikilink to the section in the infobox. The section's content may be as follows:
The total programm cost was $314m, according to The Gaurdian[1] in which total of 20 have been produced. The cost of an individual Moab is reported to be $170,000, according to Bussiness Insider.
--Z 12:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Something like that would be fine for the article body, but we should leave cost information out of the infobox until there is a source that has reported it accurately.- MrX 12:42, 17 April 2017 (UTC).
Guardian one is very likely confusion with a different program, MOP aka GBU-57A/B. See http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/16/business/la-fi-bunker-buster-bomb-20111117. Produced by Boeing, the cost is the same, the number is the same, but totally different weapon. The name has the same two initial words though :) --Laboramus (talk) 19:17, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

The "Similar weapons" section[edit]

The section 'Similar weapons' is misnamed so as to be misleading. Grand Slam was a complete different type of bomb, as is the Cloud Maker. They are penetrators, while the MOAD design completely disregards that capability; FOAB is ostensibly similar but a lack of real information prevents a meaningful comparison. It should be renamed to something that conveys the section contrasts the device with other large bombs. e.g. Comparative weapons or Contrasting weapons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.188.53 (talk) 08:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The "Design and development" section[edit]

The section 'Design and development' doesn't actually talk about design or development so much. It discusses the deployment methods and targets much more. I would expect the design section to discuss details of the design such as the fact that it is a thermobaric type of weapon which is nowhere mentioned. What is the fuel? How is it ignited? Perhaps a new section should be created with this content called 'Targets and Methods of Use' and the 'Design and development' section given a do-over? Gnuarm (talk) 16:22, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

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