This article is about explosive devices. This can also refer to water bombs or volcanic bombs. Bomb is also a slang term.

A bomb is an explosive device which, although not containing more energy than ordinary fuel (except in the case of a nuclear weapon), generates and releases its energy very rapidly, as a violent, destructive shock wave. It is usually some kind of container filled with explosive material, designed to cause random destruction when set off. The word comes from the Greek βόμβος (bombos), an onomatopoetic term with approximately the same meaning as "boom" in English.

These are first and foremost weapons; the term "bomb" is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes (such as construction or mining). Note that many military explosive devices are not called "bombs". The military mostly calls airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons "bombs," and such bombs are normally used by air forces and naval aviation. Other military explosive devices are called grenades (such as hand grenades), shells, depth charges, warheads (in missiles), or land mines.

They have been used for centuries in warfare and are a central part of the terrorist's arsenal. They fall into three distinct categories: conventional (filled with chemical explosives), dispersive (filled with submunitions, chemicals or other disruptive agents which are spread on or shortly before impact) or nuclear (relying on nuclear fission or nuclear fusion for their effect).

A distinction is commonly drawn between terrorist 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 way each time. By contrast, terrorist bombs are usually custom-made, developed to any number of designs, use a wide range of explosives of varying levels of power and chemical stability, and are used in many different ways. For this reason, they are generally referred to as improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

The most powerful bomb in existence is the hydrogen bomb, a nuclear weapon. The first nuclear bomb ever to be used in combat was dropped by the United States to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The most powerful non-nuclear bomb is the United States Air Force's MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst).

The most powerful bomb ever was Tsar Bomba: ca. 50 Mt; it had a mass of 27 tons; it was dropped from a bomber for a test, but was for various reasons not very suitable for combat.

The first hydrogen bomb Ivy Mike (10.4 Mt) was even heavier in mass, 82 tons. It was too heavy to be deliverable by a plane or rocket, and therefore not very suitable for an attack.

Various bomb explosion power levels

Delivery

The usual method of delivering bombs to their target is by bombing, i.e. dropping them from a bomber airplane. Modern bombs, precision-guided munition, may be guided after they leave an airplane by remote control or (in the case of nuclear weapons) mounted on a guided missile.

Some bombs are equipped with a parachute, such as the World War Two "parafrag" (an 11kg {25pd} fragmentation bomb), the Vietnam-era daisy cutters, and the bomblets of some modern cluster bombs. Parachutes slow the bomb's descent, thus giving the dropping aircraft time to get to a safe distance from the explosion. This is especially important with airburst nuclear weapons.

A hand grenade is usually delivered by being thrown. A bomb may also be positioned in advance and concealed, e.g. in a car or truck or by the roadside, in a building (booby trap), in lugguage in a plane, etc. The Blue Peacock nuclear mines (also called nuclear bombs) were planned to be positioned during wartime, and be constructed such that if they were disturbed they would explode within ten seconds.

In the case of suicide bombing the bomb is often carried by the attacker on his or her body.

Detonation

The explosion of the bomb has to be triggered by a detonator (fuse/fuze), usually by a clock, a remote control, or some kind of sensor, usually pressure (altitude), radar, or contact.

Bombing

Bombing may be directed at military targets such as ships or armament factories or at civilian targets such as office buildings or cities. Bombing of particular targets such as ships or tanks is called tactical bombing; bombing of areas such as military bases or cities is called strategic bombing. Strategic bombing of civilian targets is controversial and considered a war crime by some and a defining characteristic of terrorism by others, see terror bombing. Area or carpet bombing of cities using Incendiary bombs may result in a firestorm and extensive casualties especially when it is windy.

Bombing of civilian targets

During World War II there were instances where civilian targets had been bombed—first, during the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Netherlands (Rotterdam), then following The Blitz directed at London and other British cities and the British bombing of German cities such as Dresden. Towards the end of the Pacific War, when air defense over Japanese cities had become weak, U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific engaged in extensive bombing of Japanese cities such as Tokyo. This campaign culminated in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic weapons, which would play a major part in ending the war. Due to the huge size of a nuclear blast, such weapons can either intentionally or unintentionally cause massive civilian casualties both from the initial blast and subsequent nuclear fallout.

• BLU = Bomb/mine Live Unit
• GBU = Guided Bomb Unit
• LGB = Laser Guided Bomb
• C4 = a type of plastic explosive

Bombing in peacetime

One use for bombing by aircraft in peacetime is to break ice dams that form on some rivers.

See also

• Category:Bombs
• Time bomb
• bomb disposal
• bomb threat
• car bomb
• cluster bomb
• dirty bomb
• gravity bomb
• hand grenade
• list of environment topics
• neutron bomb
• pipe bomb
• bat bomb

External links

• Bombs for Beginners

• How a bomb functions and rating their power