China's arms industry giant China North Industries Group Corporation Limited (NORINCO) has designed a large-yield bomb which Chinese media have dubbed the Chinese "Mother of All Bombs." The weapon was unveiled in its first-ever public display in a NORINCO promotional video, reported the Chinese-language daily Global Times on Thursday.
The video shows a Chinese H-6K bomber releasing a nearly six-meter-long bomb on an open plain.
An enormous explosion results as the bomb detonates on impact.
The bomb is said to be China's most powerful non-nuclear bomb, with the Chinese H-6K bomber being able to carry only one at a time. The undated photo shows a Chinese People's Liberation Army H-6K strategic bomber in flight. (Photo by Xinhua)
Citing military observers, the Chinese paper wrote that "the weapon will also spread fear among enemies if a weapon of this caliber is deployed."
Commenting about the weapon, Beijing-based military analyst Wei Dongxu said that "the massive blast can easily and completely wipe out fortified ground targets such as reinforced buildings, bastions and defense shelters."
Wei added that the munition can also be used to pave the way for troop deployment in obstacle-covered areas such as forests.
The weapon has been compared to the American GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), originally dubbed the "mother of all bombs," which was introduced to the United States military in 2003.
The US Air Force dropped the bomb on an alleged underground network belonging to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province from an MC-130 aircraft last year.
Russia unveiled its own rival large-yield bomb, nicknamed the "Father of All Bombs," in 2007. The Russian FOAB claims to have a blast radius double the size of that of the American MOAB.
Unlike its American and Chinese counterparts, the Russian weapon is thermobaric, meaning that it uses gas to create a longer lasting blast wave with a higher temperature.