Posted on 06/17/2025 4:10:40 PM PDT by marcusmaximus
Israel needs a 15-ton ‘bunker buster’ bomb to destroy the last untouched nuclear facility in Iran, but only the US has one.
Such a powerful weapon – the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal – is needed because the target, Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, is built some 300 feet inside a mountain near the city of Qom, two hours south of Tehran.
The heavyweight explosive is known as a GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator and was designed by Boeing for the United States Air Force.
Its huge weight means it can only be delivered with a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber – a jet Israel’s air force does not possess.
Its huge weight means it can only be delivered with a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber – a jet Israel’s air force does not possess.
“By weight and kinetic force, the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator is designed to penetrate a certain amount of distance into the ground before it blows,” said Spencer.
“That’s why these bunker busters are called Penetrators. They penetrate the ground before they explode. The explosion is strategically delayed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Push it out of the back of an Israeli C130J at 20,000 feet.
It has the lift capability.
I’m sure Eglin has a kit for it.
Lots of ways to defeat people and things hunkered down underground. Although I would guess that a modified c-130 , built to carry and release a 30,000 pounder could be available.
just eliminate the electrical supply, ventilation, and means of ingress and egress and problem is easily solved ...
Kinetic energy is the key to its success. The GBU-57 is so darned big because of the depth it must penetrate to allow a conventional explosive to damage the target.
While Ground Coupling works with conventional as well as nuclear it just isn't as great as the nukes, thus getting it deeper is a must.
If you destroy access off to it, that’ll slow um down for a good while.
Even if the regime completes its inevitable collapse before we can destroy Fordow, the MOP should still be used on the facility to ensure that it will never be available in the future to hide and protect any similar program, and to send a message to the CCP and even Russia that we can reach even the most heavily reinforced sites without needing to escalate to nukes.
As a (no longer active) glider pilot, I have a lot of experience with aerial towing. Anything that you want to tow by aircraft that has its own wings and aerodynamic surfaces requires either a pilot on board (probably not a good idea in this scenario) or some type of autopilot to keep it under control.
To use sailplanes as an example, from the ground it might look like the glider pilot has nothing to do but fold his arms and let the towplane drag him around the sky, but that’s not accurate at all. The sailplane pilot is very busy constantly adjusting pitch and airspeed to make sure that slack doesn’t develop in the towline, as well as carefully determining when to begin a turn after the towplane does so, to prevent tracking outside or inside of the towplane’s turn and thereby initiating an aerial version of “crack the whip.” Flying the tow is the single most difficult thing a new sailplane pilot learns to do. And I haven’t even gone into how the two aircraft become airborne at different points in the takeoff run.
Unless some very advanced automation was developed, I don’t think it would be possible to just tow any large bomb.
Yeah, that’s probs right.
Just kind of struck with the feeling of dread, that the site in question is in fact impregnable from the air.
Thereby necessitating a “boots on the ground” direct ground attack nobody seems willing to engage in. If disabling this particular facility is turning out to be the “sine qua non” of this whole affair.
“Are they accurate enough to repeat a hit on the same hole?”
Absolutely they are INS and GPS guided to a few meters CEP. They could put 4 down the same hole with two B2 bombers each carries a pair of these bad boys.
If we were really serious we would use the weapon designed specific to this task of collapsing under mountain bunkers the B61-11 it is designed to penetrate a classified distance into.solid rock then detonate it’s tactical.nuclear payload.in such a way to couple the blast energy downwards into the rock sending a supersonic shockwave through the earth itself. You cannot bury something deep enough to withstand a coupled shockwave. As the shockwave hits the density difference between the rock and the open air of the structure it detaches a layer of.rock at supersonic speeds inwards plus the shockwave itself propagating to the air crushing anything and everything in its path. This effect is exactly what the B61-11 is designed for its a leadership bunker killer. Some of our ballistic missiles are also equipped with means of digging a impact path at hypersonic reentry speeds just in front of the live TV with the warhead which days down the plasma hole left by the penetrator it’s already in 3000+ degree plasma it’s heatshield doesn’t know the difference. These special ICBM are also bunker killers and with CEP in the sub 90 meter range there is no escape from a 300+KT warhead.
The USA lacks the stones to use either but the capability is there.
Israel has C130J the newest ones they can lift 44,000lbs...They could put one of these GPS guided monsters in the cargo bay on wheeled pallets attach a drag chute to the back end and fly it at FL300 over the target. Once inside the GPS glide angle cone they open the back ramp , pop that.chute and pitch up into a climb. MOP and plane part ways just like we did with a C5 and a live minuteman 80,000+LB ICBM which was live fired from that drop so we know the technique works.
I'm all for bombing Iran's facilities, and ayatollah-assahola personally, but Boeing? That's a weak nail to hang one hopes of taking out the enemy.
No need for some crazy sail glider.monstrosity....
Israel has C130J the newest ones they can lift 44,000lbs...They could put one of these GPS guided monsters in the cargo bay on wheeled pallets attach a drag chute to the back end and fly it at FL300 over the target. Once inside the GPS glide angle cone they open the back ramp , pop that.chute and pitch up into a climb. MOP and plane part ways just like we did with a C5 Galaxy and a live Minuteman 80,000+LB ICBM which was then test fired into space from that drop so we know the technique works.
This is how they drop it without a B2. It’s the exact same physics. You just let the bomb go from pallets it’s nose down already. The GPS.fins do all the work for you then. You just need to be inside the elliptical cone that the fins can steer the MOP to be on target and vertical.at impact.
C5 dropping and launching a live 80000+lb missile.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xr2_cKfr8Sk
I would be good hard money if we don’t use our B2 they do this exact thing with a C130J
“Thereby necessitating a “boots on the ground” direct ground attack nobody seems willing to engage in. If disabling this particular facility is turning out to be the “sine qua non” of this whole affair.”
even if it comes to boots on the ground this is why we have Navy Seals and The Unit inside of Delta Force. You don’t need 500,000 troops in the desert. You need a platoon of motivated guys and some C4 or better yet a Special Atomic Demolition Munition. The Seals train for the SADM mission at least they did. Smuggle one in set the timer and poof no more bunker complex it is just collapsed rubble there would be no radiation cloud it’s all under thousands of tonnes of rubble.
Iran can never have a nuke that means direct action missions by the special warfare group so be it.
The ramp in a C130 can already take a 15,000lb airdrop no reason to think it cannot take a 30,000ib load in a slight climb.
The daisy cutters out a C130 it all it’s 15-000lb glory.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_upy14pesi4
Remember we dropped a Fing ICBM out of a C5 at nearly 90,000lbs total weight including the pallets and chutes so the physics is right.
Bank on this is the way if we don’t just fly the B2 over for them. Either way that facility must be rubble or they just pick up where they left off. Plus it is symbolic to the Republic of Iran and they must be crushed and a new regime in place before this ends nothing short of that is acceptable to Israel. If we don’t want them to go nuclear we must help them to that end. They will use nukes ask any Jew if using nukes against Iran is off the table to save Israel be prepared to be e your head snapped back with how fast they will tell you in no uncertain terms they will nuke Iran in a war. That war is here today right now.
The MOAB (GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast) weighs approximately 21,600 pounds, while the MOP (GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator) is heavier at about 30,000 pounds.
The MOAB is pushed out of the back of a C-130 which can carry 42,000lbs of cargo....just saying. And yes portable launch interfaces are easily adaptable.
Terminal velocity occurs when the forces of gravity and drag are balanced, resulting in terminal velocity. It doesn’t take 50k’ to do that.
Thank you for a very clear explanation of the technical problem. BTW, I was once involved in manufacturing the electronic triggers for detonation-after-impact devices like this back in the late 1980s.
So really, this is a psychological problem: The “lacks the stones” phenomenon is the decision to pull the “nuclear” trigger in deploying these weapons, which then lowers the political threshold for others possessing more conventional and broadly destructive nuclear weapons; i.e., Pakistan, India, North Korea, and Russia in Ukraine.
No wonder Trump wants the mullahs alive to “surrender.” Problem is: They’re crazy. They won’t. Then what? The “cut off the air and let them suffocate,” solution would be very difficult to execute. A new Iranian government could blow the place to our satisfaction; so I’m guessing that appears to be the least intractable option.
At this point, I still think the “give them guns” solution seems the most attractive, the ol’ WWII thing we did in France with the Liberator pistol. It’s cheap too. I really like the idea of the people of Iran taking it to the IRGC.
Interesting
“A C-130 would be much easier to modify.”
Probably so. But it’s ceiling is 33K feet; whereas a 777 is at least 43K, probably more if inclined to tinker with the engines.
That said, I was literally just thinking outside the box of the B-2. Israel has had a lot of time and inclination to modify or make something. And they are preparers.
My bet is there is a big ass stealthy-ish drone with a 60K ceiling that can drop this bomb. Iranian SAMS can hit (theoretically) 89K feet, so my assumption is a massive, broad based, attack would occur at the same time to make sure they don’t have any SAMSs in reserve.
I think that was bomb-after-bomb.
I do understand they have a “void” detector on the newest MOP so they go “boom” before they pass through a target.
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