Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

Disclosure

  • Home
  • Your Survival
    • Special Report: FOOD SHORTAGE: Crazed Hoarding Is Not Preparing
    • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
    • Constitutional Carry
    • EMP Threat
    • Tucker Explains
    • Newport Gas Outage
    • Water
      • Emergency Water Storage
      • Let There Be Water
    • Get Your Gun and Your Training Now
    • Satellite Phones
    • Navy SEAL Survival Kit
  • Your Money
    • Coronavirus Infects Stock Market
    • Looking for a Better America
    • You Invest, They Win
    • Where to Keep Your Cash
    • Paris
    • How to Buy a Boat
    • Dead or Alive? The Future of Long-Term Investing
    • Is Vanguard too Big?
    • Cryptocosm and Life After Google
    • The Last Intelligence Report
    • The Truth Behind the S&P 500
    • RAGE Gauge
    • How Many “Retirees” Will Keep Working?
    • Your Retirement Life
    • You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life
  • Weapons
    • Self Defense
    • Every Family Should Own at Least One Shotgun: Here Are Three
  • About Me
    • Your Survival Guy: “Life on Main Street Hasn’t Been This Hard in a While”
    • Preparing for Times Like These
    • My Videos/Pics
    • Music
      • RIP Neil Peart: You Will Always Be Remembered as a “Modern-Day Warrior”
    • Your Survival Guy: Make Your Bed and The Hero Code
  • You
    • Our Cabin on Kodiak, Alaska
    • If You Are in Pain, this May Help. It Helped Me.
    • How to Save for a Grandchild
    • FIRE! Financial Independence, Retire Early
    • Compound Interest
    • Arithmetic of Portfolio Losses
    • Maximum Portfolio Withdrawal Rate
    • An Efficient Frontier
    • Retirement Compounders
    • Counterbalanced Total Returns
  • Survive & Thrive
    • February 2023: 4 Life Changing Words: “You Should Try This”
    • January 2023: Stacking Wood and Compounding Money
    • December 2022: Your Survival Guy Prefers Bombardier’s Global Express 7500
    • November 2022: Arriving in Style at Le Bristol Hotel, Paris
    • October 2022: Sink Your Teeth into These Bond Yields
    • September 2022: Do You Have the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People?
    • August 2022: “Watch This Boat off Our Stern,” My Dad Said “He’s Coming in HOT”
    • July 2022: MONEY TALKS: Your Survival Guy’s Best Service in Paris
    • June 2022: “I’ve Been with Richard Young for Over 30 Years Now”
    • May 2022: Survive “If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail”
    • April 2022: Dream On! Fishing the Double Down in Key West
    • March 2022: Your Survival Guy Hears the Craziest Investing Stories
    • February 2022: Your Survival Guy’s 2022 Super States
    • January 2022: The Least Affordable Housing Market in the U.S.
    • December 2021: Listen Your Survival Guy is not “Mr. Peanut”
    • November 2021: Joe Biden is Weaponizing Your 401(k) Against You
    • October 2021: Time to Get Your Lazy Cash Off the Couch
    • September 2021: What’s Your Survival Guy Investing in Right Now?
    • August 2021: To Where Will You Flee?
    • July 2021: This Bubble’s Popped Baby
    • June 2021: Your Survival Guy’s Summer Job, Inflation & You
    • May 2021: You’re Telling Me Friends Ask You This Question
    • April 2021: Is There One Best Place in America for ‘Liberty Retirees?’
    • March 2021: America’s Growth Corridors
    • February 2021: Troops in D.C. & Your Authoritarian Virtual Panopticon
    • January 2021: Are You Ready for The Great Reset?
    • December 2020: Disaster Prep in Our Newport Bunker and Your Survival
    • November 2020: Election 2020 Edition: Stock Market is Predicting a Trump Win
    • October 2020: You Invest They Win, AGAIN
    • September 2020: Proud to be an American: Pro-Trump Parade Turns Rhode Island Red
    • August 2020: The Clock is Ticking: You Must Protect Your Family
    • July 2020: What Will Her Life Be Like Now?
    • June 2020: Your Survival Guy’s Home (and Money) Protection Plan
    • May 2020: Future Look at Covid-20, or the Next Deadly Virus
    • April 2020: Only Trump Saw the Risk in America’s Relationship with China
    • March 2020: Coronavirus Infects Stock Market
    • February 2020: Escape the City: Live Small, Cheap, and Safe in America
    • January 2020: Is Your Cash Safe? Probably not This Safe
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • Welcome

BLU-82 Commando Vault “Daisy Cutter”

March 2, 2010 By The Editors

The BLU-82B/C-130 weapon system, nicknamed Commando Vault, is the high altitude delivery of a 15,000 pound bomb from a C-130. This system depends upon the accurate positioning of the aircraft by either a fixed ground radar or onboard navigation equipment. The ground radar controller or aircrew navigator as applicable, is responsible for positioning the aircraft prior to final countdown and release. Primary aircrew considerations include accurate ballistic and wind computations provided by the navigator, and precision instrument flying with strict adherence to controller instructions. The minimum altitude for release due to blast effects of the weapon is 6,000 feet AGL.

The BLU-82 [Bomb Live Unit-82] is a 15,000 pound bomb originally designed to clear helicopter landing zones in Vietnam. The warhead contains 12,600 pounds of GSX [Gelled Slurry Explosive] slurry. Gelled slurry explosives are prepared by forming a slurry of combinations of different ingredients. After this material has gelled, it is detonated by a high explosive booster. Slurry explosives are used in mining where formations to be fractured are wet, very dense, or strong. Slurries are very inexpensive compared with conventional military explosives and much easier to load into large casings. With slurry, filling a bomb is merely a matter of pouring the material into the casing. The slurry can be stored in non-explosive component form and turned into field-manufactured explosive as it is needed. Slurries, sometimes called water gels, contain ammonium nitrate partly in aqueous solution. Adding powdered aluminum as a sensitizer to slurries greatly increases the heat of explosion or the energy release. Aluminized slurries have been used in extremely hard rock with excellent results.

The bomb is detonated a few feet above ground level by a 38-inch fuze extender, optimized to clear vegetation while creating no crater. Nicknamed “Big Blue 82”, the weapon is frequently and incorrectly referred to as “Daisy Cutter”, a term which more properly applies to the fuze assembly for above-ground bursts.

In Vietnam it was used to clear helicopter landing zones about 250 feet in diameter. Also called the Daisy Cutter, the BLU-82/B was first used in Vietnam on 23 March 1970. Eleven BLU-82s were dropped during Desert Storm, all from Special Operations C-130s. The initial drops were intended to test the ability of the bomb to clear mines; no reliable bomb damage assessment exist on mine clearing effectiveness. Later, bombs were dropped as much for their psychological effect as for their destructive power.

As of 13 December 2001 the US had dropped at least four “daisy cutter” bombs in Afghanistan, mainly on tunnels reportedly holding top al Qaeda leaders.

Melvin A. Cook’s life is intimately connected with the history of explosives, he is a scientist,, inventor, teacher, businessman, theorist, consultant, expert witness, entrepreneur, and author. Cook’s personal involvement in both the theoretical and practical aspects of the field of explosives spans more than fifty years. Cook’s greatest commercial explosives invention was formulated in December of 1956, when he created a new blasting agent using an unusual mixture of ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and water. The safety and efficiency of this new explosive were apparent, and the use of water was revolutionary. Tests that followed resulted in the development of a new field of explosives: slurry explosives. This invention converted the commercial explosives industry from “dangerous dynamite” to “safe slurry” and dry blasting agents [ANFO]. In 1972 Cook developed the BLU-82, the largest and most powerful chemical bomb, using aluminized slurry. Cook, a professor of metallurgy at the University of Utah, was a businessman and author of works on explosives. He also published works on creationism, particularly on the relationship between science and Mormonism.

Specifications:
Class:
15,000 lb. Blast
Guidance: Ballistic
Accuracy: 32 meters
Autopilot: None
Propulsion: None
Weight (lb.): 15,000
Length (in): 141.6
Diameter (in): 54
Warhead (lbs.): 15,000
Explosive: Aluminum Powder (12,600 lbs.)
Fuze: M904 (Nose); M905 (Tail)
Unit Cost: $27,318
Aircraft: MC-130

If you enjoyed this post, email it to a friend:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp

Related Posts

Money 101

Trending

  • 4 Life Changing Words for Your Survival Guy: “You Should Try This”
  • Invest with Peace of Mind and Comfort
  • LOSING POWER: Your Survival Guy's Nightmare Scenario
  • Welcome to Hotel California, Where You Can Never Leave
  • Your Survival Guy's 2022 Super States
  • America's Super States and Stocks that Respect YOU
  • Stocks Go Up and Down: Get Paid Along the Way
  • The World Economic Forum's Record of Destruction
  • Don't Let Your Lazy Cash Eat all Your Food
  • The Rich Seek More from Bank Accounts

Must Reads

  • How to Avoid Going Back to Work after Retirement
  • Here’s Why You Need a 15-Year Retirement Investment Plan
  • Parents Are the New Tea Party. Bad Schools Are the New High Taxes.
  • Your Survival Guy’s Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget
  • FIRE AND ICE: Defeat the Cold by Stocking Firewood
  • Survival: Lost in the Woods Bending the Map
  • Your Survival Guy: Emerging Food and Energy Crisis
  • GET PAID: How To Invest in Biden’s Inflationary Market
  • When Markets Fall, All Is Not Lost
  • INTRUSIVE GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE: Does This Make You Feel Safer?
Only if You’re Serious
Crazed Hoarding Is not Preparing
How to Save Rainwater Effectively
Your Survival Guy in Paris
Your Survival Guy's Fishing Stories
Financial Independence, Retire Early
Money 101
Pandemic Creates Virtual Panopticon
Emergency Water Storage
Find Freedom in America
Second Amendment
How Can You Save Money for Your Grandchild
Great Reset
See Who's Missing the Boat
Richard  Young Reports
How You Can Save Money for Your Grandchild
Why Fidelity is Number One
The Best States for Survival
You Invest, They Win
Escape the City
Why Vanguard is Too Big for YOU
Island Life

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.