The term "bomb" is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian- purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as "bomb". The military use of the term "bomb", or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces and naval aviation. Other military explosive weapons not classified as "bombs" include grenades, shells, depth charges (used in water), warheads when in missiles, or land mines. In unconventional warfare, "bomb" can refer to any of a limitless range for offensive weaponry. For instance, in recent conflicts, "bombs" known as Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS) have been employed by insurgent fighters to great effectiveness.
The word comes from the Latin bombus, which in turn comes from the Greek βόμβος (bombos), an onomatopoetic term meaning "booming".
Shock waves produced by explosive events have two distinct components, the positive and negative wave. The positive wave shoves outward from the point of detonation, followed by the trailing vacuum space "sucking back" towards the point of origin as the shock bubble collapses. The greatest defense against shock injuries is distance from the source of shock. As a point of reference, the overpressure at the Oklahoma City bombing was estimated in the range of 4000 psi.
Experts commonly distinguish between civilian and military bombs. The latter are almost always mass-produced weapons, developed and constructed to a standard design out of standard components and intended to be deployed in a standard explosive device. IEDs are divided into three basic categories by basic size and delivery. Type 76, IEDs are hand-carried parcel or suitcase bombs, type 80, are "suicide vests" worn by a bomber, and type 3 devices are vehicles laden with explosives to act as large-scale stationary or self-propelled bombs, also known as VBIED (vehicle-borne IEDs).
Improvised explosive materials are typically very unstable and subject to spontaneous, unintentional detonation triggered by a wide range of environmental effects ranging from impact and friction to electrostatic shock. Even subtle motion, change in temperature, or the nearby use of cellphones or radios, can trigger an unstable or remote-controlled device. Any interaction with explosive materials or devices by unqualified personnel should be considered a grave and immediate risk of death or dire injury. The safest response to finding an object believed to be an explosive device is to get as far away from it as possible.
Atomic bombs are based on the theory of nuclear fission, that when a large atom splits it releases a massive amount of energy. Hydrogen bombs use the energy from an initial fission explosion to create an even more powerful fusion explosion.
The term dirty bomb refers to a specialized device that relies on a comparatively low explosive yield to scatter harmful material over a wide area. Most commonly associated with radiological or chemical materials, dirty bombs seek to kill or injure and then to deny access to a contaminated area until a thorough clean-up can be accomplished. In the case of urban settings, this clean-up may take extensive time, rendering the contaminated zone virtually uninhabitable in the interim.
The power of large bombs is typically measured in megatons of TNT (Mt). The most powerful bombs ever used in combat were the two atomic bombs dropped by the United States to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the most powerful ever tested was the Tsar Bomba. The most powerful non-nuclear bomb is Russian "Father of All Bombs" (officially Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (ATBIP)) followed by the United States Air Force's MOAB (officially Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or more commonly known as the "Mother of All Bombs").
The first air-dropped bombs were used by the Austrians in the 1849 siege of Venice. Two hundred unmanned balloons carried small bombs although few bombs actually hit the city.
The first bombing from a fixed-wing aircraft took place in 1911 when the Italians bombed the Turkish lines in what is now Libya, during the Italo-Turkish War. The bombs were dropped by hand.
The first large scale dropping of bombs took place during World War I starting in 1915 with the German Zeppelin raids on London, England. One raid on the 8th of September 1915 dropped of high explosives and incendiary bombs, including one bomb which weighed .
The first significant bombing in the United States took place nine years later at noon on September 16, 1920 when an explosives-laden horse-drawn wagon detonated on the lunchtime-crowded streets of New York's financial district. The Wall Street bombing employed many aspects of modern VNSA devices, such as cast-iron slugs added for shrapnel, in an attack that killed 38 and injured some 400 others.
Modern military bomber aircraft are designed around a large-capacity internal bomb bay while fighter bombers usually carry bombs externally on pylons or bomb racks, or on multiple ejection racks which enable mounting several bombs on a single pylon. Modern bombs, precision-guided munitions, may be guided after they leave an aircraft by remote control, or by autonomous guidance. When bombs such as nuclear weapons are mounted on a powered platform, they are called guided missiles.
Some bombs are equipped with a parachute, such as the World War II "parafrag", which was an 11 kg fragmentation bomb, the Vietnam-era daisy cutters, and the bomblets of some modern cluster bombs. Parachutes slow the bomb's descent, giving the dropping aircraft time to get to a safe distance from the explosion. This is especially important with airburst nuclear weapons, and in situations where the aircraft releases a bomb at low altitude.
A hand grenade is delivered by being thrown. Grenades can also be projected by other means, such as being launched from the muzzle of a rifle, as in the rifle grenade or using the M203 grenade launcher or by attaching a rocket to the explosive grenade as in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).
A bomb may also be positioned in advance and concealed.
A bomb destroying a rail track just before a train arrives causes a train to derail. Apart from the damage to vehicles and people, a bomb exploding in a transport network often also damages, and is sometimes mainly intended to damage that network. This applies for railways, bridges, runways, and ports, and to a lesser extent, depending on circumstances, to roads.
In the case of suicide bombing the bomb is often carried by the attacker on his or her body, or in a vehicle driven to the target.
The Blue Peacock nuclear mines, which were also termed "bombs", were planned to be positioned during wartime and be constructed such that, if they were disturbed, they would explode within ten seconds.
The explosion of a bomb may be triggered by a detonator or a fuse. Detonators are triggered by clocks, remote controls like cell phones or some kind of sensor, such as pressure (altitude), radar, vibration or contact. Detonators vary in ways they work, they can be electrical, fire fuze or blast initiated detonators and others.
Other types of explosions, such as dust or vapor explosions, do not cause craters or even have definitive blast seats.
Category:Explosive weapons Category:Greek loanwords
ar:قنبلة bs:Bomba bg:Бомба ca:Bomba (arma) cs:Bomba da:Bombe de:Bombe el:Βόμβα es:Bomba (explosivo) eo:Bombo fa:بمب fr:Bombe (militaire) fy:Bom (wapen) gd:Boma ko:폭탄 hi:बम hr:Bomba io:Bombo id:Bom it:Bomba (ordigno) he:מטען חבלה jv:Bom ka:ბომბი kk:Бомба la:Bomba lt:Bomba hu:Bomba ms:Bom nl:Bom (wapen) cr:ᐸᐦᑭᓴᐊᐧᐣ ja:爆弾 no:Bombe pl:Bomba pt:Bomba ru:Бомба scn:Bumma simple:Bomb sl:Bomba sr:Бомба su:Bom fi:Pommi sv:Bomb ta:வெடிகுண்டு te:బాంబు th:ระเบิด tr:Bomba uk:Бомба ur:گولہ vi:Bom yi:באמבע zh:炸弹This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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