Posted on 11/09/2007 12:23:18 PM PST by Wuli
Longer than a Humvee and weighing more than two elephants, the latest and largest bunker-busting bomb is an attention-getter.
The $88 million request last month to speed up the operational ability of the MOP, or Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was noticed by some in Congress who saw a signal that Washington was on track for a war with Iran.
Presumably, its listing as an urgent operational need from theater commanders was noticed, as well, by Irans leadership.
The 15-ton weapon would be most tailored to blast away at deeply buried nuclear facilities. Defense analysts have predicted any attack on Iran would involve the B-2 stealth bomber using its radar-dodging ways to slip past Tehrans air defenses and drop bunker busters on places like Natanz, where nuclear facilities hum away 100 feet below the surface.
The jets could be MOP capable by late 2008, said a spokesman at Whiteman Air Force Base, near Knob Noster, home of the B-2 bomber.
In its October emergency appropriations request for $196 million more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House essentially sped up funding for the new bomb. Previously, only about $30 million had been allocated to develop it.
The administration listed the request under technologies to improve the survivability of U.S. personnel and equipment.
While American forces at times needed to blast through sturdy defenses during the very earliest stages of the invasions that ousted Saddam Hussein and put down the Taliban, those conflicts now are guerilla and counterinsurgency fights that demand a much lighter touch than a 15-ton bomb.
A high-ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee called the funding request a clear red flag. Rep. Jim McDermott, a Washington state Democrat.....
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
it takes time
rules
regs
specs
testing
design
contracts
manpower
scheduling
funding
technology
luck
boo-ocra-see
Tell Allah(who has lost every war against the West he has ever been in) ......
i’m not good with historical dates, but i think sometime like 1453 the turks won one for ol allah - not the first time either
MOP? Mother of all penetrators? They should mount a rocket engine on one of these to boost the kinetic energy.
You minimize the threat so flippantly...on what basis?
Iran's geology--and the regime's utilization of it--is not the same as Iraq's, and we definitely need the MOP, unless you know something I don't.*
*I was approached by a major military contractor about something like "mapping the geologic resistance to penetration weapons of an unnamed Middle-Eastern country" about 15 years ago. Although I didn't take the offer, I did look into things (soil/rock/structural/etc. info) on my own, and a bit more than just Iraq, and have followed the political developments since. I believe MOABs won't cut it there for the types of strikes that will be require, but that's just my rough non-expert opinion on unclassified data.
NICE!
...Good HUNTING!
(Please FReepmail if you want on, or off, this list. I certainly have no desire to increase anyones stress-level. Thanks!!!)
You can’t fool me. That’s the Arizona meteor crater
def
Can you send me a link to a crater in Iran... soon?
What you read in "Av-Leak" (aviation week and space technology) may not be so :-)......
Yeah! And they say it as if it was a bad thing! LOL!
To whom I respond, "DUH!"
Non Union labor too. /snic
Thanks for the ping!
Now that is down right funny.
Please trust an old Air Force guy when he tells you it could easily be done. Large numbers of bombs totaling much more than that have been dropped in combat before.
When Bagdad Jim McDermott thinks the bunker buster is a bad idea, it is a wonderful idea.Build it and use it or let Israel use it when the time comes.
Eavedropper McDermott sees “a red flag”?
I thought that sick scumbag only wants to see the US wave a white flag?
The only thing they need to do is reinforce the internal parts that hold the weapon in the bay. All of that weight from one single weapon will put a lot of stress in one location.
The bomb bays and doors on the B-2 are actually quite big so the bomb will fit inside. Some reinforcement work, some new software, and our bomber crews will be ready to bury a lot of nuclear scientists and facilities in their underground tombs.
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