Free Republic

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Thursday it had "successfully" modernized the first B61 nuclear gravity bomb to increase the nation's air-delivered nuclear deterrent capability amid threats of war with Russia in Ukraine and China in the South China Sea and or in the Taiwan Strait. Over the years, we've been documenting (read: here & here) NNSA's $12 billion program to modify aging B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs for the modern battlefield. The weapons first entered service in the late 1960s and needed upgrades to be more effective and increase lifespan by another two decades. The...

As the world’s attention was on the first combat use of the conventional “Mother Of All Bombs,” the US National Nuclear Security Administration announced the successful field test of the modernized gravity nuclear bomb in Nevada. The NNSA and the US Air Force completed the first qualification flight test of the B61-12 gravity nuclear bomb on March 14 at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, the agency announced on Thursday. It seems the Trump Administration is very secretive about what it has planned, and that is the way militarily it should be. I don’t think anyone saw this coming. The...

Israel has developed a new 500 pound (227 kg) penetrator bomb, the MPR-500. The MPR-500 can smash through more than a meter (39 inches) of concrete, or four 200mm (8 inch) concrete barriers (floors or bunker walls) and then detonate. When the MPR-500 explodes, it releases 26,000 fragments, which will wound or kill out to 100 meters. While the MPR-500 is an unguided bomb, it is most useful when mated with a guidance kit to become a smart bomb. The most common such kit is the American JDAM, which converts 500, 1,000 (455 kg) and 2,000 (910 kg) pound unguided...

Despite the end of the Cold War, and the dismantling of over 25,000 nuclear weapons, NATO still maintains a stock of nuclear bombs in Europe. These are American weapons, to be used by NATO allies with U.S. permission. They are not covered by START (the strategic nuclear disarmament treaty) because they are not strategic, they are local, or "theater" weapons. NATO would like to negotiate a disarmament treaty to cover such non-strategic nukes, but to get the Russians to do that, it helps if there are some nukes under NATO control. Like with START, a treaty covering non-strategic weapons would...

The US Air Force could soon deploy a 226kg (500lb)-class guided bomb designed with a composite warhead to destroy targets while causing the least amount of collateral damage. The first 50 Precision Lethality Mk 82 bombs could be delivered by January 2011, with up to 750 carbonfibre-wound warheads designated as BLU-129/B to follow. The air force has issued a market survey seeking contractors that can deliver the composite warheads rapidly in response to an urgent request by Central Command, the US headquarters in the Middle East and parts of south Asia. The Air Armament Center could award a contract as...