In 1944, the Third Reich steadily approached its death, Germany grabbed at any, even illusory, hope to change the course of the war, trying to implement the most impossible and fantastic projects. One of these projects was the project called "Schwarzenebel" ("Black Mist").
The initiator and main developer of this project was an inconspicuous railway employee named Johann Engelke, who had only four classes of the city school behind him, but possessed dexterous resourcefulness and adventurism. He turned to the German Ministry of Armaments with the idea of an allegedly effective air defense system.
In his project, he proposed using the effect of one well-known phenomenon, which in our time is called the effect of a volumetric explosion.
For a long time, people drew attention to one sad circumstance - often the most peaceful industries: carpentry workshops, coal warehouses, granaries, empty oil and kerosene tanks, and even confectionery factories - were scattered to pieces by explosions, the force of which far exceeded the force of ordinary explosives. The cause of these explosions, as it turned out, was the ignition of a mixture of air and combustible gas or a suspension of combustible dust. The combustion process in a very short time immediately covered a very large volume of the substance, and flour, sawdust or powdered sugar exploded, smashing everything into chips.
The essence of Engelke's idea was that along the course of enemy bombers' groups, which usually flew in a dense formation "battalion commander", he proposed using the Ju-88 to disperse fine coal dust and set it on fire with missiles launched from the same Ju-88 at the time of entry enemy aircraft in a coal cloud.
The command of the Third Reich considered this idea realizable and gave the go-ahead to work on the project.
Engelke "successfully" worked on this project until April 1945. Although, as the work progressed, it turned out that in order to create the necessary concentration of the coal cloud in the air, it was necessary to raise at least twice as many aircraft as it was supposed to be destroyed.
After the surrender of Germany, Engelke was arrested by the allies, to whom he, posing as a physicist and presenting a certificate of an employee of the Ministry of Armaments, offered his services.
He was placed at the disposal of the leadership of the national nuclear program, as in the German Ministry he worked in the unit dealing with the production of "heavy water". Here the "inventor" was quickly exposed, and he was expelled from service in disgrace. The idea of using the effect of a volumetric explosion for military purposes was forgotten for almost two decades later.
By the early 60s of the last century, the US military became interested in the effect of a volumetric explosion. For the first time, they used such ammunition in Vietnam for engineering purposes.
In the impassable Vietnamese jungle, the supply and transfer of troops were difficult and often impossible due to lack of seats. Clearing the helicopter pad took a lot of time and effort.
Therefore, it was decided to use bombs with the effect of a volumetric explosion to clear the areas. The effect surpassed everything, even the most daring expectations - one such bomb was enough to create a completely suitable landing site even in the most impassable forest.
BLU-73 - this name was given to the very first volumetric explosion bombs, they were loaded with 33–45 liters of ethylene oxide and dropped from a low altitude - up to 600 m. Moderate speed and stabilization were provided by a braking parachute. The detonation was carried out by a tension fuse - a thin cable 5-7 m long with a weight descended from the nose of the bomb, and when it touched the ground, it released the drummer's lever. After that, the initiating warhead was activated, generating a cloud of fuel-air mixture with a radius of 7, 5-8, 5 meters and a height of up to 3 meters.
These bombs were initially used by the American military for engineering purposes only. But soon the US military began to use them in battles with partisans.
And again the effect produced exceeded all expectations. A cloud of sprayed fuel generated a huge blast wave and burned out everything around, while it also flowed into leaky shelters and dugouts. The damage inflicted on people in the affected area was incompatible with life; American military medics dubbed them "the effect of a bursting frog". In addition (especially at first), the new bombs had a great psychological effect, sowing panic and terror in the ranks of Ho Chi Minh's army.
And although during the years of the Vietnam war, out of 13 million tons of ammunition spent, the share of BOV is negligible, it was according to the results of Vietnam that the new weapon was recognized by the Pentagon as very promising.
Traditionally, the US military has focused on bombs.
During the 70s, ammunition with the effect of a volumetric explosion of various designs, masses and fillings was actively developed in the United States.
Today, the most common American ODAB (volumetric detonating aerial bomb) are BLU-72 "Pave Pet-1" - weighing 500 kg, equipped with 450 kg of propane, BLU-76 "Pave Pat-2"; BLU-95 - weighing 200 kg and a charge of 136 kg of propylene oxide and BLU-96, equipped with 635 kg of propylene oxide. The Vietnam Veteran BLU-73 is also still in service with the US Army.
The creation of ammunition for missile systems was also crowned with success, in particular, for the 30-barreled MLRS "Zuni".
As for infantry weapons, in the United States they paid little attention to them. Thermobaric missiles were made for the M202A2 FLASH hand-held flamethrower, as well as similar ammunition for grenade launchers, for example, for the X-25. And only in 2009, work was completed on a projectile for MLRS MLRS with a thermobaric warhead weighing from 100 to 160 kg.
To date, the most powerful of those in service both in the US Army and on a global scale is the GBU-43 / B volumetric explosion ammunition, whose second official name is Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB for short. This bomb was developed by Boeing designer Albert Wimorts. Its length is 10 m, diameter –1 m. Out of 9.5 tons of its mass, 8.5 tons are explosives. In 2003, the US Air Force conducted two bomb tests at a proving ground in Florida. During Operation Enduring Freedom, one copy of the GBU-43 / B was sent to Iraq, but it remained unused - by the time it was delivered, active hostilities had ended. The GBU-43 / B, with all its advantages, has a significant drawback - its main carrier is not a combat aircraft, but a military transport "Hercules", which dumps a bomb on a target through a loading ramp, that is, it can be used only if the enemy has no air defense or completely suppressed.
In 1976, the UN reacted to the emergence of a new type of weapon, a resolution was adopted declaring the ammunition of a volumetric explosion "inhuman means of warfare causing excessive human suffering." In 1980, an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention was adopted, prohibiting the use of CWA "in places where civilians gather."
But this did not stop either work on the creation of new types of volumetric explosion ammunition, or their use.
Around the same time, vacuum ammunition began to appear among the US allies - the British were the first. Then Israel acquired them, which even managed to put them into practice: in 1982, during the war in Lebanon, an Israeli plane dropped an American-made BLU-95 BOV on an eight-story residential building, almost three hundred people died, the house was completely destroyed.
Other American allies have also acquired small quantities of such ammunition at various times.
The development (copying) on the basis of foreign models and the production of this type of weapon in the PRC is successfully developing. China has actually become the third country in the world to independently produce this type of weapons.
The Chinese army is currently armed with a whole range of volumetric explosion ammunition. Air bombs are analogs of the Russian ODAB-500, shells for multiple launch rocket systems, for example, for the ultra-long-range WS-2 and WS-3, whose hitting radius is up to 200 km, aviation missiles - including for the widely exported J-10.
A large number of standard thermobaric rounds are produced for Type-69 and Type-88 grenade launchers, as well as special missiles with a thermobaric warhead for firing from these Norinco grenade launchers weighing 4, 2 kg and with a maximum range of up to 1000 m. Melee NUR WPF 2004 by Xinshidai Co with a thermobaric charge, with an effective range of 200 m.
At distances of 3000-5000 m, Chinese artillery can meet the enemy Red Arrow 8FAE - a rocket projectile weighing from 50 to 90 kg with a warhead weighing up to 7 kg, equipped with ethylene oxide.
The PLA also has analogues (not copies) of the Russian RPO "Bumblebee" - the PF-97 and the lightweight FHJ-84 with a caliber of 62 mm.
According to reports, the Chinese intend to equip their newest DF-21 medium-range missile with satellite-guided volumetric explosion warheads.
At various times, Iran, Pakistan and India announced their intention to launch the production of such ammunition.
In the 1990s, rebels and terrorists of all stripes and calibers became interested in these types of weapons. In Colombia, guerrillas have repeatedly used homemade mortar mines made from household gas cylinders with homemade stabilizers and a ceramic nozzle instead of a sprayer.
According to some unconfirmed reports, at the end of the 1990s, in Chechnya, by order of Maskhadov, the issue of using the Smerch MLRS warheads for dropping from light aircraft was studied.
In Afghanistan, after the capture of the famous Taliban fortress Tora Bora, the American military discovered schemes of thermobaric charges and samples of mixtures of flammable liquids. It is noteworthy that during the assault on the fortress, the US military used BLU-82, at that time the most powerful ammunition, which had the name "Daisy Mower".
"Daisy Mower"
It is interesting that in the matter of theoretical studies of the effect of a volumetric explosion, Soviet scientists were the first to solve this problem while working on an atomic project.
Kirill Stanyukovich, a prominent Soviet physicist, dealt with the detonation of gas mixtures, as well as converging spherical shock and detonation waves, which served as the theoretical basis for the implosion principle inherent in the operation of nuclear weapons back in the mid-1940s..
In 1959, under the general editorship of Stanyukovich, the fundamental work "Explosion Physics" was published, where, in particular, many theoretical questions of the volumetric explosion were developed. This book was in the public domain and was published in many countries of the world, it is possible that US scientists in the creation of "vacuum" ammunition "have drawn a lot of useful information from this book. But, nevertheless, as in many other cases, having great superiority in theory, in practice we lag behind the West.
Although, having tackled this issue, Russia rather quickly managed not only to catch up, but to overtake all foreign competitors, creating an extensive family of weapons, ranging from infantry flamethrowers and ATGMs with thermobaric warheads and ending with warheads for short-range missiles.
Like the potential adversary, the United States, aerial bombs became the main focus of development. One of the leading experts in the field of explosion theory, professor of the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy Leonid Odnovol, worked on them.
The main models in the mid-1980s were ODAB-500P (the most massive sample), KAB-500Kr-OD (with tele-guidance), ODS-OD BLU (container with 8-cluster bombs of volume-detonating action).
In addition to aerial bombs, shells for the Smerch and Uragan multiple launch rocket systems were created, which has no analogues TOS-1 Buratino, the Shturm and Attack helicopter ATGMs, and the S-8D (S-8DM) aircraft missile.
Infantry weapons were also not ignored - the Kornet-E long-range anti-tank guided missile system and the Bumblebee infantry rocket flamethrower entered service with the Ground Forces. They also created a thermobaric ammunition for the traditional RPG-7 - the TBG-7V round. In the late 1980s, even RG-60TB volumetric blast hand grenades and grenades for VG-40TB grenade launchers with a caliber of 40 mm and a range of up to 400 meters appeared.
Mine-sabotage systems were also actively developed, but the collapse of the USSR stopped work at the theoretical stage.
The new items that appeared very soon underwent baptism of fire in Afghanistan, where aerial bombs and thermobaric shells for MLRS were actively used. Bombs ODAB-500P were used during the landing of helicopter assault forces, for demining areas, as well as against enemy manpower.
The use of such ammunition, as well as in Vietnam, had a considerable psychological effect.
Volume-detonation weapons were used in both Chechen wars, and on both sides: the militants used captured Bumblebees.
In August 1999, during the terrorist attack on Dagestan, a large-caliber bomb of a volumetric explosion was dropped on the Tando village captured by the militants. The bandits suffered huge losses. In the following days, the mere appearance of a single Su-25 attack aircraft over any settlement forced the militants to hastily leave the village. Even the slang term "Tando effect" has appeared.
During the assault on the village of Komsomolskoye, TOS-1 "Buratino" batteries were used, after which the special forces took it without much difficulty and with minimal losses.
TOS-1 "Buratino"
In the 2000s, after a long hiatus, Russia began to create new types of volumetric explosion ammunition. For example, the RPG-32 multi-caliber weapon system (aka "Hashim"), the ammunition load of which includes 105-mm volumetric explosion grenades.
In the fall of 2007, a new Russian super-powerful aerial bomb was tested, which the media dubbed "the daddy of all bombs." The bomb has not yet received an official name. It is known that nanotechnology was used for its manufacture. The Russian bomb is one ton lighter than its closest American counterpart, the GBU-43 / B, and has a fourfold greater guaranteed hit radius. With a mass of explosives of 7.1 tons, the TNT equivalent of an explosion is 44 tons. The temperature at the epicenter of the explosion at the "Pope Bomb" is twice as high, and in terms of the area of destruction it exceeds GBU-43 / B by almost 20 times. But so far this bomb has not entered service, and it is not even known whether any work is underway in this direction.
This year, in terms of constant readiness, infantry rocket flamethrowers of a new modification - RPO PDM-A "Shmel-M"
But, despite its high combat effectiveness, BOV also have a number of significant drawbacks. For example, they have only one damaging factor - a shock wave. They do not and cannot have cumulative and fragmentation effects.
The blasting effect - the ability to destroy an obstacle - is quite low for thermobaric ammunition. Even well-sealed field fortifications can provide a pretty good defense against a CWA explosion.
Modern hermetically sealed armored vehicles and tanks can also safely withstand such an explosion, even while at its epicenter. That is why BOV has to be supplied with a small shaped charge.
At medium altitudes, where there is little free oxygen, the phenomenon of a volumetric explosion is difficult, and at high altitudes, where there is even less oxygen, it is impossible at all (which practically excludes the sphere of air defense). In case of heavy rain or strong wind, the cloud is either strongly dispersed or not formed at all.
It can also be noted that in none of the conflicts where BOV was used, they did not bring any strategic or even significant tactical gain, except, perhaps, a psychological effect.
This ammunition is not a precision weapon of "fifth generation wars".
However, despite all of the above, BOV will most likely occupy a prominent place in the arsenals of the armies of many countries of the world for a long time to come.
