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London Sunday Times
June 22, 2008

Army 'Vacuum' Missile Hits Taliban

By Michael Smith

British forces in Afghanistan have used one of the world’s most deadly and controversial missiles to fight the Taliban.

Apache attack helicopters have fired the thermobaric weapons against fighters in buildings and caves, to create a pressure wave which sucks the air out of victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has admitted to the use of the weapons, condemned by human rights groups as “brutal”, on several occasions, including against a cave complex.

The use of the Hellfire AGM-114N weapons has been deemed so successful they will now be fired from RAF Reaper unmanned drones controlled by “pilots” at Creech air force base in Nevada, an MoD spokesman added.

Thermobaric weapons, or vacuum bombs, were first combat-tested by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s and their use by Russia against civilians in Chechnya in the 1990s was condemned worldwide.

The secret decision to buy the Hellfire AGM-114N missiles was made earlier this year following problems attacking Taliban fortified positions.

British Apache pilots complained that standard Hellfire antitank missiles were going straight through buildings and out of the other side. Even when they did explode, there were limited casualties among the Taliban inside, particularly when a building contained a number of rooms.

American Apache pilots overcame the problem in Iraq with the thermobaric Hellfire.

The weapons are so controversial that MoD weapons and legal experts spent 18 months debating whether British troops could use them without breaking international law.

Eventually, they decided to get round the ethical problems by redefining the weapons.

“We no longer accept the term thermobaric [for the AGM-114N] as there is no internationally agreed definition,” said an MoD spokesman. “We call it an enhanced blast weapon.”

The redefinition has allowed British forces to use the weapons legally, but is undermined by the publicity of their manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, which markets them as thermobaric.

When the American military bought them in 2005, President George W Bush said: “There are going to be some awfully surprised terrorists when the thermobaric Hellfire comes knocking.”

Despite the Bush rhetoric, it is unlikely anyone targeted by the missile would know much about it. The laser-guided missile has a warhead packed with fluorinated aluminium powder surrounding a small charge.

When it hits the target, the charge disperses the aluminium powder throughout the target building. The cloud then ignites, causing a massive secondary blast that tears throughout any enclosed space.

The blast creates a vacuum which draws air and debris back in, creating pressure of up to 430lb per sq in. The more heavily the building is protected, the more concentrated the blast.

The cloud of burning aluminium powder means victims often die from asphyxiation before the pressure shreds their organs.

Jim Gribschaw, Lockheed Martin’s programme director for air-to-ground missiles systems, said the thermobaric Hellfire was “capable of reaching around corners to strike enemy forces hiding in cases, bunkers and hardened multi-room complexes.”

Human Rights Watch argues they are “particularly brutal” and that their blast “makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter”.

Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: “It is staggering the MoD has added these weapons to Britain’s arsenal in cloak-and-dagger secrecy. Parliament has never assented to their use.”

He added: “Gordon Brown claimed the moral high ground when Britain supported a ban on cluster munitions but leaving a loophole for these weapons casts a different picture on the true position.”

The MoD said: “We are conscious of the controversial aspects [of this weapon] but it is being used sparingly and under strict circumstances where it is deemed appropriate by the commander on the ground.”

A spokesman added that it could “achieve objectives with the minimum coalition casualties and reduced collateral damage”.

Sounds like a bloody good piece of Technology to me. And one which is helping to keep these bloody "Civil Liberties" and "Human Rights" activists safe and sound in their little worlds where they do not see the horrible conditions of that crap hole of a country.

Sorry but I have no time for this "Human Rights" nonsense when it gets applied to people who are trying to kill me.

Nick

Hmmm, would they rather have it that we had used a Nuke against it .

Dead is dead. I don't get protests.

BadPvtDan wrote:Dead is dead. I don't get protests.

I agree, but history is replete with protests over 'horrible or barbaric' weapons. IIRC the cross-bow, gas in WW1, and of course, Nukes have been the subject of complaint. The Geneva convention and other accords have shown that somehow we think weapons should be legislated items.
But as Dan notes, "Dead is Dead". I would legislate those weapons where "Dead is Maybe Maimed." Shouldn't be any concern about a positive kill of COMBATANTS or their support chain.

You can't legislate 'barbaric'. I mean, what part of war do these people think is NOT barbaric?
Given a choice, I think I'd rather die from asphyxiation than having thousands of pieces of metal rip through my body.

We need a weapon that scares the crap outta them. It did the job in WW2.

Put (Operation linebacker) back in effect for Afghanistan,then whatever caves are left come in with the thermobaric......,anyways,great post and look forward to more of this subject,I am sure we will hear more.I am not a scorched earth advocate,but enough is enough,bring back some of those B-52G's sitting out in the desert and call it (operation linebacker3),fear can wreck havoc in an enemys mind...!!!!!For those that dont know what operation linebacker is just give a quick search online..Go AIR FORCE!!!!!!

Just heard this morning that their have been more coalition casualties in Afghanistan this year than in Iraq...........

If a "thermobaric" weapon is what it's going to take, I say order some more.........

This is what we need.

There is one thing that scares me about new weapons like this one. What would happen if the OTHER side would anyhow get them? Just imagine those ones would have hit the Twin Towers.

starlifterfan wrote:...For those that dont know what operation linebacker is just give a quick search online...

And Linebacker achieved what in the long term, exactly? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for awesome firepower, but carpet bombing achieves very little, other than making some people feel and/or look good.

I like the idea of this (not a) thermobaric weapon. As for the bleeding hearts who complain about weapons such as this, I have no sympathy for them or the enemy who hide behind old men, women and children in their caves. As for sympathy, it's in the dictionary, between s**t and sy*****s.

I know most of the crews who have used it in anger, and I know for a fact that it's not used indiscriminately, its' use is very strictly controlled.

I think most would credit Linebacker with bringing the NVN negotiators back to Paris. Carpet bombing worked pretty good at Khe Sahn also. As the former SAC Director of Targets I would say there are a wide range of ways to employ weapons. Sometimes an area attack is appropriate and effective. Sometimes precision munitions are best. Precision requires knowledge of both location and also targets of specific hardness. If there were a 'magic bullet' we would use it. The thermobaric bomb is great under appropriate conditions. So are Nukes and iron bombs. In my office I had a long shelf with a set of orange books called the JMEM(Joint Munitons Effectiveness Manuals). Those contained the data on very specific munitons effects. To determine a tactic, you look at all the target factors-hardness, area, etc the expected effectiveness of the crews, other limiting factors such as range to the target, weapons availability, expected enemy action (that introduces a whole other set of factors to determine Attrition). From all that ball of wax you can determine Probability of success for the attack. It all starts with an objective/target and the probabilies are only for estimating. Once the mission launches probability is out the window and you are running on real world information. Today buzz words are Kinetic and non-kinetic effects. Kinetic we all understand, that is essentially destruction by some physical means. Non-kinetic are 'other' effects. In earlier times that was defined by 'destroying an enemies will to fight' of such things as 'winning the hearts and minds' of the people. Those two terms get rolled into an objective statement defining a particular mission or campaign. Damn! I rambled on.