6 tons and 11 tons. Serious business to carry around with a Lancaster.
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 ...
Terminal velocity must be pretty ding-dang fast!
200 feet of stone is tough.
Note I said 200. Fordam is 300 feet.
You still have to hit the same hole twice.
6 tons and 11 tons. Serious business to carry around with a Lancaster.
The U.S. hasn’t offered to sell them one!
Nothing says you have to drop anything. Once Israel controls the immediate area, they can use conventional drill rigs to put bombs of any size they want where they want at any depth they want, and that includes a hydrogen warhead which they possess.
I don’t think Iran has the bomb, Bibi’s poll numbers, rightly or wrongly, have declined precipitously, he needs another war to keep from ending up in court in Israel, he’s not going to stop in Iran even if he does take put Fordow, and regardless he lies like a rug:
We’ve been lied to about Iraq, how great things would be there, Libya, Syria, etc, after regime changes and in the end it’s Christians dying mostly w more and more refugees coming to America.
Bush officials said if we didn’t go fight in Iraq there would be mushroom clouds over America.
Btw...
👉 “9 minutes of Netanyahu lying to us (or getting duped) about WMDs before the US crushed Iraq. Then Iranian influence in the region grew, justifying more US aid/involvement in the Middle East. But we should trust Bibi this time, right? Water under the bridge after 20 yrs, right?”
https://x.com/KenTheroux/status/1713323011879645526
👉 Iran has been “days away from developing nukes” for more than 30 years.”
[92, 93, 95, 96, 2006...2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2022, 2024, 2025]
https://x.com/GarbageHuman24/status/1933366152845271321
This was from Tulsi Gabbard less than 90 days ago.
“... Iran is not building a nuclear weapon...”
https://x.com/Rothbard1776/status/1934760414979494126
👉 “Be clearly aware that Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, gave official testimony on March 26th, 2025 as follows:
“The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”
In other words, according to the entire U.S. intelligence community Iran is not pursuing the creation of a nuclear weapon.”
https://x.com/starseedastro/status/1934772324970189190
Simultaneously, locate & destroy emergency tunnel exits
Consistent US pressure.
Was Israel afraid the U.S. was going to cut off the cash flow?
Everyone assumes this MOP is the only way to destroy Fordow.
It’s narrow thinking and it’s nonsense.
The target doesn’t have to be bombed. Set up a perimeter and excavate it. Take everything, then fill the hole with concrete.
You are right about the Israelis and Mossad being more clever. Yesterday the Ambassador from Israel intimated that there will be a surprise, with or without, any penetrator bomb. My memory is that he said that there will be more surprises in this conflict, and they will make the beepers for Hezbollah seem simple. He also said to stay tuned on Thursday night and/or Friday. It made me start thinking about having dormant C4 inside beams in the complex, and will be triggered without warning. I do remember the scuttling of the nuclear program before by Stuxnet a few years ago.
It can't be much more difficult than bull's-eyeing womp rats in a T-16 ...
And cross your fingers you’ve picked the right spot!
Reportedly, from any given ground level entry/exit port/ports to the half-mile deep “grand engineering space”, so to speak, containing the uranium-enriching centrifuges (are there multiple such spaces? Reasonably distant from each other so as to render simultaneous destruction impossible?) there are multiple vertical and horizontal (and maybe diagonal?) zigs that zag in directions the Israelis are more than likely not adequately informed about.
If This Guy gets handed the mission by the IDF, he’s cooling his jets unless and until he’s got his hot little ChEng hands on a full set of blueprints. If a few Bothans need to die to bring us that information, so be it. We can’t afford to waste mini-me bunker busters on an incorrect lat/long.
Well, ya. Conditions attached by MIC. Not no-strings like USAID.
Could be
Like all the other countries lined to take U.S. taxpayer money, that bull shit needs to end.
Now you’re talkin’.
Much better plan.
Ironically, not entirely dissimilar to what the patient and methodical Romans did during their seige of Masada.
The B-2K The kosher bomber.
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