Posted on 08/03/2009 7:02:39 AM PDT by Strategy
Steel. To get that much penetration requires a lot of steel for mass and to compensate for ‘ablation’ as it travels through rock.
The other 25k lbs is whatever gets the payload thru several dozen yards of reinforced concrete, intact.
Carrying more than 5,300 pounds of explosives. it would deliver more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the 2,000-pound BLU-109
What in the world comprises the other 25k lbs?
At a guess, and considering the size of one of the B-2's bays, I'd say it's likely to be depleted uranium, or some alloy of same. Not only for penetration, but it burns real good when it gets there, too. Nice, flaming hole in the ground for BDA.
I gotta wonder though, with 3/4ths of its load capacity in one bay, won't the B-2 carrying one of these list on that side in flight? Not sure I'd wanna be herding a beast loaded like that 12 k miles.
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