A GBU-39 bomb used by Israel to bomb Beirut failed to detonate. And sensitive war head tech is now left behind. Now that’s the best example of hubris and tone-deafness this week. US urges Lebanon to return undetonated GBU-39 | The Jerusalem Post
… why does there never seem to be any planned follow up military action to clean up situations like this? Equipment left behind in Vietnam, Carter’s rescue raid helicopters and equipment, ben Laden’s compound helicopter and equipment, all the equipment left behind in the Middle East over many years … I could continue …
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“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Generally when something sensitive goes down in hostile country the solution is to send in a jet and bomb it to smithereens. I guess that strategy won’t work in this case. That’s what they did when the F-117 was shot down in Kosovo. In the case of the Chinese P3 forced landing and the US drone forced down in Iran…there are sometimes complications.
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… one would think that there would some kind of self destruction abilities on these multimillion dollar pieces of equipment. But that is just me …
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There would be reliability and control implications to having self destruct capability. If the detonator for the GBU is less reliable than the fail safe…the detonator should be upgraded. If the self destruct is less reliable than the main detonator (esp after having been dropped from 10K ft)…what’s the point?
And, consider that we give these weapons to ‘our best ally’ who while (sarc) is grateful for them, they are suspicious of US controls…so they would likely defeat the function if provided. Good idea though.
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… so we don’t tell them that we have tracking devices in these weapons and then we hit them with DEWs. Problem solved.
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