A Chinese MOAB?

Is China developing any Massive Air Ordnance Bomb (MOAB) "daisy cutters/Mother of all bombs"?

I am interested to know about this, I think it will be very effective incase the PLAAF launches strikes against the Taiwanese in the future.

bdmilitary said:

Is China developing any Massive Air Ordnance Bomb (MOAB) "daisy cutters/Mother of all bombs"?
I am interested to know about this, I think it will be very effective incase the PLAAF launches strikes against the Taiwanese in the future.

Click to expand...

The US MOAB bomb is 21,600 lbs. I'm not aware of any PLAAF bombs in that range. The H-6 can carry upt o 9,000 kg of weapons, but I don't think it can carrry a single 9,000 kg bomb.

I don't think China will be building any MOABs any time soon, although it would be interesting to see them do so. H-6s aren't really designed for MOAB carriage. If china is going to focus on large air-to-ground weapons at all, it will be ALCMs. These are more accurate and can hit targets easily wothout deviation, whereas U.S. MOABs in Vietnam didn't do American reputation with the Vietnamese alot of good...
A Chinese MOAB project will probably come much later, when China builds its first indigenous heavy bomber.

The US dropped them out of the back of C-130s in Vietnam, I suppose China could do the same with Y-8s or Il-76s. (They have rear loading, right?)

walter said:

The US dropped them out of the back of C-130s in Vietnam, I suppose China could do the same with Y-8s or Il-76s. (They have rear loading, right?)

Click to expand...

They do, but as I said, the MOAB is not the most accurate of wepaons, and if the Chinese did use it in a mass airstrike on Taiwanese citites, it would prompt fierce reistance from the Taiwanese. So it would make more sense to use precision missiles like ALCMs.

The US used the "daisy cutter" to create an instant landing zone in Vietnam, clear minefields in th GULF, and suck the air out of Caves in Afghanistan. In the first gulf war, some one mistook it for a nuclear explosion. MOAB is the next generation of "big bombs".

MOAB is much more accurate. It uses lattice style controls and GPS guidance. It has not been used in combat though.

These type of weapons are better used in psychological operations. Nothing says "abandon all hope" as having one of these explode near your fox hole. Well maybe a B-52 carpet bombing run...

Not to go offtopic but makes you think that the MOAB is not accurate? It is a GPS guided bomb, and no they may not be able to drop them in Hajji's lap while he's on the toilet, but they can hit a building/troop formation size target easily. And even if it lands 100 yards off, everyone that is in the blast radius will be killed from the concussion. Which is why it makes it such a great anti-personnel weapon, otherwise it should be used against fixed hard targets.

Whatever, it may not be inaccurate, but it has a very large blast area. If the Chinese used this in an invasion of Taiwan, it would kill a lot of civillians and detsroy a lot of farmland. And then Taiwan would become the Chinese equivalent of Iraq.

You don't have to use MOAB on or near civilians location. Usually MOAB is used on deep underground or well protective structure of military location. It will be anyone interest, that civilians casulties should be limit as much as possible.

DPRKPTboat said:

Whatever, it may not be inaccurate, but it has a very large blast area. If the Chinese used this in an invasion of Taiwan, it would kill a lot of civillians and detsroy a lot of farmland. And then Taiwan would become the Chinese equivalent of Iraq.

Click to expand...

I think that the US has made painstaking efforts to lower civilian deaths. THey have not used very powerful explosives so close to civilians.