One MOAB Costs $16 Million, Not $314 Million

This undated photo shows a GBU-43B, or massive ordnance air blast weapon, the U.S. military's largest non-nuclear bomb, which contains 11 tons of explosives. (Eglin Air Force Base via AP)

By    |   Friday, 14 April 2017 01:10 PM EDT ET

The Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or "mother of all bombs," dropped on ISIS targets in Afghanistan wasn't as expensive as users on social media think.

According to military information site Deagel.com, a single MOAB costs $16 million, not $314 million as many have stated.

That figure is actually what the U.S. military spent to design and produce 20 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, according to The Los Angeles Times.

According to The Daily Caller News Foundation, the figures in the LA Times article "only refer to the cost of the Air Force's biggest bunker busting bomb, the 5,300 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), or GBU-57, which is built by private defense contractor Boeing Company."

The Daily Caller continues to explant that "while the two bomb types are related, they serve different functions," and that "the MOAB, like its Daisy Cutter predecessor, can only be dropped out of a C-130 built by Lockheed Martin, and the MOP is deployed from the B-2, a Boeing aircraft."

An MC-130 dropped the bomb on Thursday, according to CNN.

An MOAB Air Force spokesperson told the Daily Caller that they "don't have a cost per unit" for the bomb.

"These munitions were produced in-house so we don't have a standard procurement cost associated with them."

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The Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or "mother of all bombs," dropped on ISIS targets in Afghanistan wasn't as expensive as users on social media think.
moab, mother of all bombs, cost, afghanistan
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2017-10-14
Friday, 14 April 2017 01:10 PM
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