Bunker-Busting Nuke is Officially Dead

I have been saying for some time now that theres no way congress will let this go, and it happened, last year the cut the "mini-nuke" budget in half and now they completely cut it, mainly beause people dont want radiation spread everywhere. It was officialy called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, and tens of millions went into it, its pupose was to eliminate deeply buried bunkers.

Our current bunker buster bombs arn't what they sound like, they should call them basement busting bombs, because the can only destroy so much, and if your bunker is at least several stories under then you would hear the boom and feel the vibration but thats it.

The military hoped that they could try and tag this bomb as a terrorist cave killer, but its obvious this is way over kill for a cave. But the military new that getting this weapon was a strectch, so they also developed the 30,000 lb bunker buster, which will probably need a C-17 to deploy.

Mini nuke is DOA

Stinger or Cruise Missiles have been effective so far. I don't see the need of a nuke to kill a few terrorists (if any) in a cave...

Originally posted by Nexus
Stinger or Cruise Missiles have been effective so far. I don't see the need of a nuke to kill a few terrorists (if any) in a cave...

Those missiles do nothing to a bunker, and is you use a million dollar missile on a cave you better have damn good intel that its full of terrorist or Osama is sitting ouside of it on a rock next to his camel.

This Mini nukes only purpose was bunker busting, and i'm sure it would have done a good job, but even the word nuclear has suck a bad wrap that anything with that name will get canned, dispite how good or revoluitionary it is.

So instead of mini nukes they will just go with very large convential bombs to bust bunkers. I think they will have close to the same end effect if we make them big enough with the plus of no radiation.

What about the MOAB? How much damage can that do?

Ever hear of the Pershing II missile system, eliminated due to the Salk agreement. Those missiles could be tipped with the W-86 earth penetrator, with a laser fuze assembly requiring a 5000+G impact to arm it. Evidently had a yield of a few KT's. Saw the prototype photo from ATT/ Sandia labs in the mid 70's.

Originally posted by Mephorium
What about the MOAB? How much damage can that do?

A MOAB would kill any people within several hundred meters of the detonation. But it wouldnt do much to a bunker because it would just blow up before it hits the surface.Thus the real name for MOAB Massive Ordnance Air Blast, Mother of all bombs is just a nickname

The MOP or Massive Ordnance Penetrator will be the 30,000-pound bunker buster.

dont forget the BLU-113 Penetrator. It can penetrate through 100 feets of earth. But i dont know how good it would be against a strong bunker deep below

I think underground commandcenters would benefit from redundant rooms seperated by long tunnels and have your commanding officers dispersed, not all in one or two main rooms, this way, even if undergound architecture is known by having the blue-prints or scanning with seismic waves, it's unknown in what part of the complex the high value targets are, an earth penetrator might collapse a few tunnels or storage rooms, or hitting the jackpot but you wouldn't know for sure.

Also, with them "smart" fuses, make some unused tunnels above the real tunnel, the smart fuse will sense an aircavity and think its the real bunker, exploding prematurely.


naturally , this calls for larger (read more costly) underground complexes so this tactic is not for your average RPG wielding revolutionary, but a true Dr. Evil with a swiss bank account...

To keep costs in check use very long but small diameter connecting tunnels, maybe steel pipes could be used.


[edit on 25-11-2004 by Countermeasures]

[edit on 25-11-2004 by Countermeasures]

[edit on 25-11-2004 by Countermeasures]

[edit on 25-11-2004 by Countermeasures]

There is also the possibility that this program went black and is no longer privy to public/congressional scrutiny..
There is also another bunker buster that we have... the BLU 118

J Rock
There is also the possibility that this program went black and is no longer privy to public/congressional scrutiny..

Doubtfull...Because of Radiation, it can be detected, not only by ground equiptment but satellites as well, so if you used it i would be a secret.

But If it was my call I would have cancelled them as well, because it was NOT going over very well at all with the public, and other nations. However I would make a few dozen and keep in storage in the US just in case you have a future situation occur that might need there use.

Originally posted by J Rock
There is also the possibility that this program went black and is no longer privy to public/congressional scrutiny..

I don't know about the program going black, but it's probably a good possibility that some of that money went black.