FACT FILE: Fuel/Air Explosives
The FAE bomb uses a principle called fluid dispersal/suspension
to achieve extremely violent blast effects in standard atmospheres. The
FAE is designed to eliminate entrenched infantry and other targets over
an area.
A bomb casing filled with a volatile mixture of flammable chemicals and a precision detonator is released above the target at a specific speed and altitude. The casing separates, allowing the chemicals to disperse throughout an area of the atmosphere. After a specific amount of time (usually a matter of seconds) the detonator ignites the chemicals, now suspended in the air. The resulting blast is actually an intensely hot cloud of flames as the chemicals burn rapidly over a large area.
What makes this weapon so brutally effective is that as the firestorm rages (it lasts for 15 to 30 seconds), the combustion draws all the oxygen in the surrounding area into the blast area to feed the fire. Once the fire has exhausted most of the oxygen in the immediate area, it extinguishes itself, leaving a huge area filled with smoke and fumes, none of which are breathable. This leaves anything in the target area (that breathes oxygen) a scorched and asphyxiated corpse. Anything that can burn does, instantly, and then is extinguished as the oxygen is depleted. The effects of an FAE strike are terrible, leaving a huge blackened area filled with smoke and charred remains, with only the areas around the edges still aflame (as they receive oxygen from outside the blast area).
Bomb Nomenclature
There is a very wide array of bombs available to the SFMC, but
they fall into general categories that each have there own designating
prefix for the bomb's nomenclature: LD (low drag), HD (high drag), GBU
(guided bomb unit), CBU (cluster bomb unit), AP (armor-piercing), FAE (fuel/air
explosive), M/A (matter/antimatter). The number that follows is particular
to the series of bombs in question and gets larger with the size of the
bomb's warhead. For example, HD-8500 designates a high drag (HD), high
explosive gravity bomb (8xxx series), with a 500kg warhead.
Some material on this page ruthlessly plagerized from the SFMC's Aerospace Branch Manual by Matt Kelley and available from SFMC Academy.
WebPage designed & maintained by Kevin "MAC" Nulty
