PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN authorized the first nuclear attack in the history of the world, on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. Around 70,000 people, nearly all of them civilians, were vaporized, crushed, burned, or irradiated to death almost immediately. Another 50,000 probably died soon after. The bomb exploded with the force of more than 15,000 tons of TNT.
But the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its supporting strike group launched the “largest airstrike in the history of the world” from an aircraft carrier on Somalia in February, said Adm. James Kilby, the Navy’s acting chief of naval operations, while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations’ Robert B. McKeon Endowed Series on Military Strategy and Leadership on Monday.
The strike involved 16 F/A-18 Super Hornets that launched from the Truman as the carrier strike group operated in the Red Sea, a Navy official told The Intercept on condition of anonymity. When it was over, Somalia had been pummeled by around 125,000 pounds of munitions, according to Kilby. Those 60 tons of bombs killed just 14 people, according to Africa Command, or AFRICOM.
Is “largest” here just “most pounds of munitions”? Seems weird to compare it to “nuclear equivalent pounds of TNT”. Like, 1lb C4 != 1lb TNT anyway, right?
No idea what they’re trying to claim. I can’t see any dimension in which this was “larger” than the typical WWII era firebombing. There were more planes, more bombs by weight, more casualties, more of everything.
I was confused by this too, but I might have figured it out.
That was carpet bombing with strategic boomers at high altitude.
This is a tactical air strike, delivered by strike fighters, at lower altitude with more precession for each munition.
So this wasn’t in any way the largest bombing, just the largest air strike. In short, this is the biggest because pedantics.