Posted: 6/12/2006 9:34:17 PM EDT
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In NME's thread about Zarqawi, it was reported that "The cause of death was listed as "primary blast injury of the lung," with blast waves from the two bombs causing bruising and bleeding of the organs." So basically his lungs were pounded to jelly from the concussion? If so, how close do you have to be for the over pressure to do that? |
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oh somewhere between here and there. No clue really, i would think its all to do with the size of the bomb and if theres anything to break up the wave before it hits you, along with how close you are. Many factors. If you layed in a ditch but the bomb hit only a 100yards away would you still suffer a direct blast wave of would it ride over the ditch? |
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This made me curious because I read the Book Lonely Kind of War about forward air controllers in Vietnam, the author mentioned doing BDA's for arc light missions and seeing the NVA wander around drunkenly before falling over dead. I guess some of the guys were pretty mushy inside after something like that. Concussion must really suck. 
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The blast overpressure caused his lungs to pop, just like if you were scuba diving and accended to the surface extremely rapidly without exhaling. It would also blow his eardrums out and would be like getting hit by a baseball bat every square inch of your body at the same time. Deadly blast overpressures are usually don't extend out very far but that all depends on the amount of HE and if the blast isn't being defected in a certain direction. Being enclosed in a building would amplify the overpressures. |
Berms and ditches/foxholes are your friend, I have been close enough to some blasts that I saw frag and other debris flying over our position of course I had a very nice berm in front of me.
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Depends on what kind of bomb is used, too. FAE's have a much bigger overpressure blast diameter than conventional HE bombs of an equal weight, an FAE depends on that effect to kill. A cluster bomb speads a bunch of little bomblets over a varible area (depending on how high it was set to dispense) and depends on fragments to kill. |
I forget what its called, blast lung or something like that. Happens a lot to us in Iraq- IED goes off, and the shrapnel doesnt get through the armor, but the overpressure really fucks you up. One of our guys got that and actually survived it (very rare) but he was in a coma for a long time and isnt much better now. |