Excuse me if I’m wrong but I read a story ab out two weeks ago championing the fact that Air Froce engineers and technicians have already made one B2 physically ready to carry the MOP and to be able to deliver it.
So one bird already has the capabilities and this may just be a request for the funding to do it on all of them.
The “one” jet is a test jet, and that means it is instrumented for test drops (cameras, telemetric instruments, safe separation validation, etc, as well as expenses for range scheduling and chase planes. . .etc)
Additional funds are for RDT&E. . .to ensure the MOP works as planned..
No...I hope you are right! It’s the one place we SHOULD be spending money....national security.
No the air force built and tested a MOAB, and build six are so bombs, they then trashed them for salvage. They were a waste of money. They also built a deep penetrator. “In a parallel program, the Air Force is working on a 30,000-lb. penetrator weapon, designed along the same lines as MOAB. Called “Big BLU,†it also is designed for launch from a B-2. The added mass would give the weapon greater penetration for hitting targets buried deep underground. Currently, the Air Force uses 5,000-lb.- class GBU-28s and GBU-37s as its largest penetrating bomb. “ Link to freerepublic post of this years back.is posted