High-res This is a 500-pound general-purpose bomb body, which contains 180 pounds of PBXN high-explosive fill inside an aerodynamic steel shell. It is one of the most basic tools of modern American war. Weapons like this one have saved many a pinned-down infantry patrol, killed countless Taliban fighters, and, when they have landed in the wrong place, killed civilians and destroyed property in ways that have fueled anger against the United States and contributed to public exhaustion with a war now in its second decade. You are looking at its nose end, into the forward fuze well, which is empty, because this bomb body is not yet, in layman’s terms, a bomb. As you see it here, it was on an assembly rack inside a magazine below the water line of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea. How are bombs armed and readied to drop?  Soon, on the NYT, a look at the work lives the U.S. Navy’s “red shirts,” who assemble and arm some of the most lethal weapons routinely used in Western war. (Without these ordnance handlers, one chief petty officer said, an aircraft carrier is nothing but an airport at sea.) ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH Inside the forward bomb-assembly magazine, aboard the U.S.S. John C. Stennis. By the author. Earlier his month. (Real pix soon by Tyler Hicks.)

This is a 500-pound general-purpose bomb body, which contains 180 pounds of PBXN high-explosive fill inside an aerodynamic steel shell. It is one of the most basic tools of modern American war. Weapons like this one have saved many a pinned-down infantry patrol, killed countless Taliban fighters, and, when they have landed in the wrong place, killed civilians and destroyed property in ways that have fueled anger against the United States and contributed to public exhaustion with a war now in its second decade.

You are looking at its nose end, into the forward fuze well, which is empty, because this bomb body is not yet, in layman’s terms, a bomb. As you see it here, it was on an assembly rack inside a magazine below the water line of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea.

How are bombs armed and readied to drop? 

Soon, on the NYT, a look at the work lives the U.S. Navy’s “red shirts,” who assemble and arm some of the most lethal weapons routinely used in Western war. (Without these ordnance handlers, one chief petty officer said, an aircraft carrier is nothing but an airport at sea.)

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH

Inside the forward bomb-assembly magazine, aboard the U.S.S. John C. Stennis. By the author. Earlier his month. (Real pix soon by Tyler Hicks.)

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