this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
230 points (95.3% liked)
Technology
59285 readers
4819 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Wouldn't even technically be nuclear powered, it just has a nuclear payload. I feel like the use of "gravity" in this article was an unnecessary addition.
When most people think "bomb", they don't think immediately think of "guided missile", they thing something that is either planted or dropped from above, and in this case the latter describes exactly what kind of bomb this is.
Fair
These "bombs" likely fall dozens of miles through the air travelling at about a thousand feet per second. They absolutely have a guidance system to keep them on course, basically exactly the same as a missile except without the rocket.
The only real difference between a missile and a "gravity bomb" is they have to be closer to the target when they are "fired". Oh, and gravity bombs are cheaper. A lot cheaper.
Even if you never fire a missile they still have to be maintained. See Russia vs Ukraine war... It's estimated 60% of Russian missiles don't even explode at all. And the ones that do are often nowhere near the target due to a guidance system failures. If they were properly maintained they'd work better than that.