The MOAB was used to destroy a tunnel complex in Afghanistan. It killed around 100 people in a well fortified underground network. Imagine what it could do to a city or large town.
Your population density argument is bad, a third of the island lives in Nuuk.
And which conflict was resolved successfully by bombing?
Certainly Afghanistan was famously not resolved by aerial attacks, and the best result we have here so far is “its OK to miss with a $170,000 single bomb if it allegedly, unconfirmedly, kills between 0 and 90 people”
Not to mention this is a single data point and one debatably “accurate” hit does not suddenly make all air ordinance accurate.
There’s an old saying that ‘close only counts for horse shoes and hand grenades’. Bombs follow the same rule.
In this scenario the bombing would be solely for genociding the population, which wasn’t the goal in Afghanistan. Accuracy is irrelevant when your goal is total destruction.
I mean that’s what I’m saying - most bombs miss by more than is effective. Close counts for a hand grenade if you don’t throw it in totally the wrong direction.
Edit: …and so far the only counter argument is “once we dropped a single bomb that was too big to miss - a decade ago.”
you dont have to convince me, of course, I just remain unconvinced
Your entire point is irrelevant to the discussion, though.
If the goal was to only kill enemy combatants without harming civilians, it would be relevant, but that’s not what’s being discussed. It doesn’t matter if the bomb is a little inaccurate if your goal is the total destruction of a city. You just keep dropping them until the job is done.
your link is broken but the howstuffworks page is quoting from the Wikipedia, which sources the GPS guidance to an anonymous post on globalsecurity.org - itsself not a bad source - however the method of delivery is they open the back of the aircraft, push the bomb on a wooden pallet out the door, wait a few seconds, activate a parachute, wait a few seconds for the gps to kick in, whereby “fins” guide it to its location.
You’ll forgive me for being skeptical about 8m precision on a remote-controlled parachute from 35,000 feet at 400mph using rudders
The MOAB was used to destroy a tunnel complex in Afghanistan. It killed around 100 people in a well fortified underground network. Imagine what it could do to a city or large town.
Your population density argument is bad, a third of the island lives in Nuuk.
And was dropped approximately 100-200 meters (ie 1-2 football fields) off target.
Being off target is irrelevant when your margin of error is only 12% of the blast radius.
And most large area bombings aren’t a single bomb. Enough ordinance is typically dropped that it equals 10-20 MOABs.
And which conflict was resolved successfully by bombing?
Certainly Afghanistan was famously not resolved by aerial attacks, and the best result we have here so far is “its OK to miss with a $170,000 single bomb if it allegedly, unconfirmedly, kills between 0 and 90 people”
Not to mention this is a single data point and one debatably “accurate” hit does not suddenly make all air ordinance accurate.
There’s an old saying that ‘close only counts for horse shoes and hand grenades’. Bombs follow the same rule.
In this scenario the bombing would be solely for genociding the population, which wasn’t the goal in Afghanistan. Accuracy is irrelevant when your goal is total destruction.
I mean that’s what I’m saying - most bombs miss by more than is effective. Close counts for a hand grenade if you don’t throw it in totally the wrong direction.
Edit: …and so far the only counter argument is “once we dropped a single bomb that was too big to miss - a decade ago.”
you dont have to convince me, of course, I just remain unconvinced
Your entire point is irrelevant to the discussion, though.
If the goal was to only kill enemy combatants without harming civilians, it would be relevant, but that’s not what’s being discussed. It doesn’t matter if the bomb is a little inaccurate if your goal is the total destruction of a city. You just keep dropping them until the job is done.
Yeah, but I’m saying it doesn’t work. Accuracy is only one part of it - but also you can’t destroy a city without accuracy.
London, Dresden, etc have all been bombed for years at a time and still stand. I think you’re over estimating the efficacy of bombs.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/moab.htm
Actually is has an accuracy of about 8 meters. Is it GPS guided.
your link is broken but the howstuffworks page is quoting from the Wikipedia, which sources the GPS guidance to an anonymous post on globalsecurity.org - itsself not a bad source - however the method of delivery is they open the back of the aircraft, push the bomb on a wooden pallet out the door, wait a few seconds, activate a parachute, wait a few seconds for the gps to kick in, whereby “fins” guide it to its location.
You’ll forgive me for being skeptical about 8m precision on a remote-controlled parachute from 35,000 feet at 400mph using rudders