B-2s being fitted for Bunker Buster Bomb - FOR IRAN???

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x296253
Thanks laststeamtrain

B-2s being fitted for Bunker Buster Bomb


A little noticed July 19, 2007 press release from aerospace and defense conglomerate Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) reveals that the company is undertaking the task of refitting a number of the US Air Force's B-2 Stealth Bombers with new bomb racks able to hold and deliver the Boeing produced 30,000 pound (13,600 kg) Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker busting bomb:

PALMDALE, Calif., July 19, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Air Force's B-2 stealth bomber would be able to attack and destroy an expanded set of hardened, deeply buried military targets using a new 30,000 pound-class penetrator weapon that Northrop Grumman has begun integrating on the aircraft.

The company is doing the work under a seven-month, $2.5 million contract awarded June 1 by the Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio.
<...>
The new Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which is being developed by The Boeing Company, is a GPS-guided weapon containing more than 5,300 pounds of conventional explosives inside a 20.5-foot long enclosure of hardened steel. It is designed to penetrate dirt, rock and reinforced concrete to reach enemy bunker or tunnel installations. The B-2 is capable of carrying two MOPs, one in each weapons bay.

The weapon is substantially larger than the previously deepest penetrating bunker buster, the 5000 lb (2,270 kg) GBU-28. It joins a select arsenal of massive non-nuclear bombs along side the famous "Daisycutter", the 15,000 pound BLU-82 bomb designed originally to create clearings in the Vietnam jungle to enable helicopters to put down, and which had a lethality radius of 300 metres, and the so called Mother Of All Bombs, the 30 ft (9.17 m) long, 21,000 pound (9.5 metric tonnes) GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), the hitherto most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed.

There has of course been much chatter lately that any air strikes intended to knock out, or set back the Iranian nuclear program, located at hardened underground facilities such as Natanz, would require the use of either small tactical nuclear devices, or conventional explosive bombs of a size and design hitherto never before used, like the MOP.


http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/5880/

[stillcool]

1. Oh Joy...

make the bombs and the enemies will come.

[global1]

2. 7 Month Contract Starting June 1 - That Means That They'll Be Ready.....

around Jan 1, 2008. Is that enough time for *Co to hit Iran and we still get the Nov '08 election off? Or if they do hit Iran - we'll that draw us into a conflict that will effectively allow *Co to call off the elections?

[John Q. Citizen]

3. Not to worry. The Dems just raised minimum wage to 5.72 an hour, so it's something for

everyone....

[Solo_in_MD]

4. So What

Like I said in that thread, the B-2 is the premiere manned bomber and the best penetrating aircraft in the US inventory. I would have thought this had already been done.

[defendandprotect]

5. These are NUCLEAR bunker busters -- right?

[originalpckelly]

7. No, it specifically said they're conventional.

Hence the 30,000 LBS, it's good news in a way, because they're not gonna use nukes to do it...and it's bad news because it makes an Iran attack far more likely.

[originalpckelly]

6. At least they're not going to use nukes.

Of course, this makes the whole idea of an Iran attack far more likely, so it's a mixed blessing:

1. No nukes = good, no nuclear fallout, no possible wider nuclear exchange
2. No nukes = bad, more likely Bush will attack Iran

[seemslikeadream]

8. Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/dshtw.htm

Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)
Direct Strike Hard Target Weapon / Big BLU
Boeing's Phantom Works is leading the effort to demonstrate the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). The three-phase technology demonstration builds on design studies that Boeing had conducted for the laboratory. Flight testing is envisaged around 2006. The 6 m <20 feet> long MOP features short-span wings and trellis-type tails. The 13,600 kg <30,000 lb> weapon contains a 2,700 kg <6,000 lb> explosive charge. MOP is designed to go deeper than any nuclear bunker buster and take out 25 percent of the underground and deeply buried targets. It is expected to penetrate as much as 60 meters <200 feet> through 5,000 psi reinforced concrete. It will burrow 8 meters into the ground through 10,000 psi reinforced concrete. Northrop Grumman is working on with Boeing to develop this conventional bunker buster. They are under contract to Air Force Research Laboratory's Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, and Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

While complete physical destruction may be desired, for some hard and deeply buried targets this effect isn't practicable with current weapons and employment techniques. It may be possible, however, to deny or disrupt the mission or function of a facility. Functional defeat is facilitated through better data collection and intelligence preparation against the potential targets. The defeat process includes finding and identifying a facility, characterizing its function and physical layout, determining its vulnerabilities to available weapons, planning an attack, applying force, assessing damage, and, if necessary, suppressing reconstitution efforts and re-striking the facility. New more lethal defeat options for Hard and Deeply Buried Targets (HDBTs) like the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, that can overwhelm target characterization uncertainties, are being developed and demonstrated to provide a 10x increase in weapon lethality and improved penetration capability compared to inventory weapons.

The Direct Strike Hard Target Weapon was described in 1997 as a 20,000 lb. class precision guided, adverse weather, direct attack bomb employed on the B-52 and B-2 aircraft. It will make use of the GCU developed by the JDAM program which uses GPS aided INS for adverse weather guidance. Precision accuracy will be attained by using differential GPS (DGPS) technology demonstrated on programs such as Enhanced Differential GPS for Guidance Enhancement (EDGE) and Miniature Munition Technology Demonstration (MMTD). The weapon will make use of the JDAM interface under development for the B-52 and B-2 aircraft and would be carried internally using new suspension hardware within the bay. The warhead will be a 20,000 lb. penetrator with dense metal ballast. This concept uses the Hard Target Smart Fuze (HTSF), an accelerometer based electronic fuze which allows control of the detonation point by layer counting, distance or time. The accelerometer senses G loads on the bomb due to deceleration as it penetrates through to the target. The fuze can distinguish between earth, concrete, rock and air.

The Air Force also investigated whether a similar size weapon could be used in a blast-only configuration, to replace the BLU-82 Daisy Cutter blast weapon dropped from the MC-130. This was eventually realized as the GBU-43/B "Mother Of All Bombs" MOAB - Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb

[Ready4Change]

9. I'd think Pakistan.

Lots of mountain hidey holes. That's what those things are good for. The noise has been to make another show of force against AQ groups said to be in refuge there.

An attack on Iran would start with a larger quantity of smaller guided munitions, so as to shut down lines of communications, etc...

SO I'd think Pakistan makes more sense. But I keep in mind that Afghanistan made better sense, but that didn't keep us from marching into Iraq.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Pakistan on the brink

Pakistan on the brink
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1415077&mesg_id=1415077