For those of you interested in such things, this is an excerpt of an email going around discussing the damage that the Israeli military is inflicting on Lebonese targets. It is perportedly from a global security consulting organization (linked below):

The damage to Beirut International Airport is even more telling. While the strikes are precisely placed at runway intersections, almost none appear to be the work of the French-designed BLU-107 Durandal anti-runway bomb. The IAF employed the Durandal’s predecessor with dramatic effectiveness during the Six-Day War in 1967. Once the Durandal is dropped, a series of parachutes deploy. Once the bomb reaches the proper orientation (30 degrees from perpendicular — enough to prevent ricochet), a rocket motor ignites; the bomb drives itself through up to 15 inches of concrete and detonates, causing massive buckling of the entire road bed. A single Durandal can damage 2100 square feet of runway, making it unusable for flight operations and requiring expensive, long-term reconstruction. What we see above are surface explosions of general-purpose bombs creating small craters — which can be quickly and cheaply filled in and patched up.

Photos source: Stratfor

h/t: subzero

tags: beirut israel Lebanon Hezbollah

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 11:41 am by Insider and is filed under War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.