Vacuum bomb

Russia has been accused of planning to use thermobaric weapons – sometimes known as vacuum bombs – in its 2022 attack of Ukraine. This article examines what ...

The scientists found that those areas where a long ‘positive pulse’ added to a reflected ‘positive pulse’, but where they also found areas where the long ‘negative pulse’ added to a reflected ‘negative pulse’. What happened in between these long positive pulses and long negative pulses was of particular note – because it could cause a vacuum effect that was as devastating as the initial blast. If they are used against civilian populations in populated areas, this could be construed as a war crime under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Two-phase initiation with FAE adds complexity and the attraction of a thermobaric system is that it requires no separate secondary means of initiation. The full heat of explosion of a fuel is only realised when it is mixed with its chemical equivalent (stoichiometric) quantity of air. In contrast, a fuel-air explosion is a large cloud, which cannot be regarded as a point source and therefore the decay in peak overpressure falls much less rapidly with distance from the edge of the cloud. It is theorized that a multitude of handheld thermobaric weapons were used by the Russian Armed Forces in their efforts to retake the school during the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. As above, large air-launched versions have been made, specifically to target armed actors hiding in caves and tunnels – the use of this weapon in enclosed spaces is devastating. For many years, manufacturers of traditional explosive munitions sought a weapon design that aimed to increase the peak pressure – the so-called blast wave. In the mid 1990s Russia used a series of thermobaric weapons dropped by planes against Chechen separatists such as the TOS-1 Buratino against the capital of Grozny [4], to international condemnation. The US has also said a variety of thermobaric weapons have been ‘‘highly effective in Iraq [10]’’. In 2007, Russia followed suit and tested their own giant thermobaric weapon calling it the ‘Father of All Bombs [11]’. A government strike in 2012 in Azaz, Syria that killed more than 40 civilians was linked to an ODAB-500 PM, a 500kg fuel-air explosive bomb of Russian origin [15], and on September 29, 2013, a thermobaric weapon was dropped on a secondary school in Raqqa, killing at least fourteen people. This is in large part because they withdraw oxygen from the air around them to create an explosion with a longer blast wave that burns at a much higher temperature.

How does a cluster bomb work? Dr Lewis explained cluster bombs are a collection of 'bomblets' inside a single warhead that can open up at varying altitudes to ...

Thermobaric weapons spread fine carbon metal particles into the air before igniting them. However Putin is being accused of war crimes after cluster bombs were reported to have been used on civilian targets in Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv. Thermobaric bombs were formerly known as fuel-air explosives.

The weapons create devastating explosions which can be used against fortified structures.

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