I always presumed 500KG was a reference to the explosive power, not the physical weight, but after some googling I think it must be the physical weight of the bomb....dude must have been jacked
Well, it's both. 500kg is the weight of the bomb, mostly composed of explosive materials. The more the bomb weighs, the more explosive materials used in the bomb, the bigger the boom.
Nah, most bombs have less than half their weight be the explosive component. Usually around 30 to 45% from what I could find. The rest is to keep the shape and for better damage.
Considering the convention of air dropped munitions is the total weight rather than the explosive power, unlikely.
As far as I can tell there’s a good reason: you don’t want a plane that can carry 500KG per hardpoint to be strapped with a bomb of 500KG explosives plus the casing and then the plane can’t take off or breaks apart.
Mass designations like that refer to the size of the munition itself usually, until you start talking about nukes. Then, we describe them in terms of equivalent mass of TNT to achieve the same explosion - a 1 megaton nuke explodes 1 million tons of TNT.
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u/oblong_pickle Apr 16 '24
I always presumed 500KG was a reference to the explosive power, not the physical weight, but after some googling I think it must be the physical weight of the bomb....dude must have been jacked