In 2008, reports revealed that the Pentagon had developed a weapon nicknamed "rocket balls" to attack underground facilities that store chemical or biological weapons. Each so-called kinetic fireball incendiary is a hollow sphere made of rubberized rocket fuel that, once ignited, shoots hot exhaust from a nozzle, ricochets at high speed through rooms, and can break through doors while filling enclosed spaces with intense heat. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency tested a 2,000-pound BLU-109 bunker-busting bomb packed with these fireballs against a multiroom bunker to see how well they could heat and scour its interior.
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