Max:
>>Before the war started
>>there were press accounts of a terrifying, inhumane weapon the Iraqis
>>might use. I forget the name but it entailed spraying a fine, flammable
>>mist over a wide area, then igniting it, creating a huge fireball. Of
>>course, it was the U.S. that used this weapon.
There was great agitation about the skills and military might of the Iraqi Republican Guard, honed in the recent conflict with Iran, too.
>Fuel-Air Explosive. Nasty, evil shit. Did the US use it in the Gulf War? I
>wasn't aware of that.
Fuel Air Bomb, whatever. The US isn't the only nation to have used this weapon, see http://www.igc.org/hrw/press/2000/02/chech0215b.htm or http://www.aeronautics.ru/img001/odab500pm.htm
this is neat, http://www.halcyon.com/wfrazier/iraq.htm
<excerpt>
During the Gulf War, some of the weapons systems deployed are considered
the most powerful weapons short of a nuclear bomb. One is called a fuel-
air bomb. The bomb works thusly: there are two detonations; the first
spreads a fine mist of fuel into the air, turning the area into an
explosive mix of vast proportion; then a second detonation ignites the
mixture, causing an awesome explosion. The explosion is about the most
powerful "conventional" explosion we know of. At a pressure shock of up
to 200 pounds per square inch (PSI), people in its detonation zone are
often killed by the sheer compression of the air around them. Human
beings can typically withstand up to about a 40-PSI shock. The bomb
sucks oxygen out of the air, and can apparently even suck the lungs out
through the mouths of people unfortunate enough to be in the detonation
zone. Our military used it on helpless people. The U.S. also dropped a
bomb called "Big Blue," with a specialized high-tech explosive mixture
that can produce up to a 1,000-PSI shock wave, a magnitude only exceeded
by nuclear weapons.(29) That kind of shock wave turns a body into
hamburger, even if no shrapnel hits it.
Reese