If there’s one country on the planet that can get the job done, it’s the good ol’ U.S. of A.
Recent footage shared on YouTube by Task & Purpose on Sept 27 shows the intense moment a 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, dropped from the sky and cut an entire ship in half.
The bombing of the ship was part of a test between the Navy and Air Force to see what would happen if they dropped the bomb on the ship and everything went as planned.
In fact, the footage was taken from on the ship and at a distance looking at the ship.
Task & Purpose said that the footage was actually filmed in April and was just recently released to show the world what it looks like to literally split a ship in half.
When the bomb hit the ship, it immediately caused it to rise in the air and split into two while a giant blast of water shot into the air and engulfed everything around it.
By the time the water settled the ship was basically already submerged under the water and headed down to the bottom of the ocean to become a new home for marine animals who live in the area.
Sonar imagery showed what the ship looked like at the bottom of the sea floor and it’s still broken in half, but because some remaining metal was still holding the two parts together, it didn’t completely sever and sank together as one.
The Air Force Research Laboratory calls the bomb that hit the ship the “Quicksink” for it in fact, sinks a ship very quickly.
As the Air Force Research Lab says, the Quicksink “aims to develop a low-cost method of achieving torpedo-like seaworthy kills from the air at a much higher pace and over a much larger area than covered by a lumbering submarine.”
Adm. William Benson, Chief of Naval Operations said at the time, “I cannot conceive of any use that the fleet will ever have for aircraft,” adding that “the Navy doesn’t need airplanes. Aviation is just a lot of noise.”