You quote this guy in your profile:
So, I'd say, right around my own!
Posted on 07/20/2007 4:49:03 AM PDT by biggerten
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. Northrop Grumman is the Air Force's prime contractor on the B-2, the flagship of the nation's long-range strike arsenal.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacewar.com ...
You quote this guy in your profile:
So, I'd say, right around my own!
Geraldo? The, who will pick the bananas in the US if we loose our illegals, Geraldo? That one?
I got the big red X, but I know what you’re talking about...lol
This 4500lb bomb was designed for penetrating the thick
concrete U-boat shelters. It was free-fall until a rocket
motor fired at 5,000 feet, pushing the missile to speeds of
2,400 feet per second upon impact. It could penetrate 20 feet
in solid concrete before explosion and was first used by
92nd Bomb Group on 14th March 1945.
(http://www.303rdbg.com/bombs.html)
Yes, Wallis’ version was the original “deep penetrator!”
Point of order.....
The article says 30,000 pound class and actual explosive weight of only 5,300 pounds of conventional explosives.
What is the definition of “class”
Does it mean the device includes an extra 24,700 pounds of additional material within the 20 foot cylinder? If so, it must be a very dense material.
When Chernobyl went up, a Ukrainian Jewish Family I knew was affected, the father was away and arrived in the town about 50 miles from the blast, about 3 days after.With the reports telling people , nothing to worry about comrade, but the street saying otherwise, they attempted to flee the area on a train.The trains were stopped.They then tried by car and got as far as the next big city, but the daughters and mothers hair started to fall out.The girl was just a about 6 and the mother was in her early 30’s.Some policeman noticed their condition and took them off to quarantine,the father was in a panic. He knew the system to well and went in through a unguarded entrance to the hospital, and snuck them back out.They went to a relatives farm near Odessa, and stayed there for 4 months before returning to the city.To this day the family shows only a few odd signs of health(more colds than usual-and some “private ladies-stuff”), the mother and daughter are quite beautiful, and have long hair that grows at a phenomenal rate.
Not sure how this climbed up in Front Page News.
Nothing new here, the dateline is July 20, 2007.
Best I can tell, the project to outfit significant numbers of B2 for MOPs awaits funding, with Bush having just pocket vetoed the bill to fund it.
Obviously, news of success in getting the MOP operational has major bearing on the likelihood of an attack against Iran, but THIS story is NOT such news.
Not as dense as steel. If it were solid steel it would weigh about 80,000 lbs.
Looking for a view of what Chernobyl looks like now, look here! This is a great story of a motorcycle riding gal that documented her several rides into the no man’s land around Chernobyl.
The device is made from case-hardened steel, remember. The rest of the weight is to a.) assist penetration and b.) protect the explosive package and keep it intact until the desired depth has been reached.
*sigh*
Now we can MOP up Iran.
Thanks for the link. I watched as Lena built her original site on Angelfire, adding fascinating page after page. It's too bad that the very interesting broken English (e.g., "I don't know how sound the silence to those tourists that they can not stand it, but to me after hitting a red line on my bike tacho it sound like all those ghosts cursing 1100cc kawasaki engin.") was "cleaned up" into the version that went onto the "kiddofspeed" site. (Not to mention many changes to cover up holes...read on...)
Note, however, that she was actually part of (with her husband) a bus-tour group to go into Chernobyl, but carried a motorcycle helmet and jacket to have her pic taken while in there. Many sites have pointed out the discrepancies in her story. For example, see this investigation and scroll down to the entry by "Pulse" (Tony Brown) [check out the panoramic image he posted, too!]. Elena felt that the poetic license was justified to tell the story. I don't know what parts were poetic license...I haven't corresponded with her, or anyone else, about this story in nearly 4 years.
If her story were real, I wouldn't doubt it a bit when Elena said: "I don't count those couple of times when 'experts' tried to invent an excuse to give me a shower, because those had a lot more to do with physical biology than biological physics." A pretty lady who knows how to conjure up excitement. I must credit her with the idea for this fiction.
Still, the photo essay is very interesting, and I recommend folks take a peek to see what that area was and is like.
I especially like the shots of Democratic National Headquarters in Washington, DC... ;-)
BTW, she wrote an Afterword with more detail, and her photos have been published in a book in Sweden.
We’ve got at least a little time in Iran, so taking the chance to cripple Iraq’s economy just to get an earlier shot at Natanz probably isn’t the best trade off. The B2/MOP solution is already in the can and tested good, now it’s just a matter of funding the hardware to put the operational capability online.
I think we can safely put the small number of boots on the ground, necessary to keep the Hormuuz open, in a chemical environment as late as mid April, and outside of classified targets, Natanz won’t require more than two B2 conversions at most.
If, and that’s a big if, considering the recent NIE, Bush is serious about ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, I’d guess the B2 conversions necessary to crack both Natanz and any other classified hardened targets are already complete, and this budget line item is intended to make up the shortfall that effort required.
never knew that, thanks
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