With a name drawn from the combination of the Greek words for "heat" and "pressure," these bombs combine the power of both forces to greatly expand the potential for destroying more inaccessible targets. Although the term "thermobaric" is often used for a wide variety of enhanced explosive devices, it's most accurately used to describe bombs that mix a monopropellant fuel explosive with some type of highly combustible, energetic particle such as powdered aluminum.

The result is an intense concentrated fireball combined with devastating blast overpressure. Thermobaric bombs are ideal weapons for packing massed heat and pressure into a tight space, either to limit collateral damage or reach targets deep underground.