Air Force ready to deploy 30,000-pound 'super bomb' on B-2 bomber

EGLIN AFB, Fla., 18 Jan. 2007. U.S. Air Force researchers are pondering a project to fit the recently developed Massive Ordnance Penetrator -- a 30,000-pound bunker-busting "super bomb" -- on the B-2 stealth bomber to destroy deeply buried, concrete-reinforced targets in heavily defended areas of the world.

more info on it.
link

I wonder what country that could be used on.


(edit to reduce long url to short link)

[edit on 28-3-2007 by pantha]

WOW! What a bomb!

With this thing in the inventory, there really won't be anywhere to hide. Being a super-penetrator, we can now even take out targets buried deep in the mountains. Add to that the fact that this weapon is being put on the B-2 Spirit, which can penetrate all Known air defenses, we now have a capibility that could possible be used as a deturrent simular to the way they use Nukes. The Massive Ordanance Penetrator or MOP for short brings a whole new meaning to the term "Super Bomb".

Tim

P.S. Does anyone else find it amusing that the biggest bomb in the Air Force is known as The MOP!

mop = dutch for joke.

I think they are trying to send the message to Iran... Their underground facilities are not safe it seems.

so after digging down about 100 feet maximum then going bang what are they expecting it to do actually?


kill deeply buried targets?

thats why they bury them in mountains - even a direct hit froma nuke isn`t guarenteed to destroy a depp target.

Originally posted by Harlequin
so after digging down about 100 feet maximum then going bang what are they expecting it to do actually?

kill deeply buried targets?

thats why they bury them in mountains - even a direct hit froma nuke isn`t guarenteed to destroy a depp target.

I suggest you read up on the Earth Quake Bomb concept - it doesnt just 'go bang', it creates an extremely powerful shockwave that destroys hardened targets.

An explosion in a compressible medium, such as air, lessens the impact of said explosion, but in a less compressible medium such as the ground, the shockwave is maintained for a much further distance and at a much greater intensity.

The British used the concept in WW2 to destroy heavily fortified or deep targets or to bring down large structures such as viaducts - the Tall Boy (12,000lb) and Grand Slam (22,000lb) bombs were used to great effect. Remember that these were bombs carried on a 4 engine piston aircraft - the Lancaster.

Nukes arent designed to burrow, its a surface detonation - this MOP works on a totally different principle.

Originally posted by Ghost01
the B-2 Spirit, which can penetrate all Known air defenses

I wouldn't get so excited. A UK Rapier missile system gained a target lock on a B-2 Spirit a few years ago.

SteveR It was because the british knew the exact local of the B2 if im not mistaken. I believe under different circumstances the B2 is virtually invisible.
And I believe the newer version of the B2 (the B2 spirit) is stealthier then the old versions. And with constant upgrades this bird is only going to get stealthier. Its expected to serve out till around 2030-2040.

Anyways, im sure the more knowledgeable aircraft enthusiast can tell you more about this sorta stuff.

My take on the MOP is that this bomb is the closest thing to a nuke that we have in our arsenal. It can dig down to 200ft before exploding, and thats just whats declassified. Im going out on a limb to say that this weapon can probably dig down further.

I think its a direct "in your face" type of weapon aimed directly at Iran who has hardened underground nuclear facilities that previously were thought to be 'safe'. With this weapon its a hole new ball game.

[edited on 3/19/2007 by semperfoo]


[edit on 073131p://1303pm by semperfoo]

Good old Barnes Wallis and his Earthquake Bomb. There are pictures out there which show what a near miss from one of those things did to a viaduct in Italy (I think). An impact within 50ft and the thing collapsed. All that from 1940's technology and an Avro Lancaster with a cutaway bomb bay.

To put something like that into a casing capable of penetrating deep underground (comparatively) and the uses for it become plentiful. A real bunker buster.

One question, though. Will it fit into a B2's bomb bay without serious modification?

Everyone assumes that the B29 carried the largest bombload of any WW2 bomber, but the honour goes to the Lanc, because the B29 couldn't take the Grand Slam (not that the USAAF wanted to anyway). But they physically could not modify the Superfort to accommodate it. Will the B2 be able to carry the Grand Slam's grandson?

KW

Originally posted by KwazyWabbit
One question, though. Will it fit into a B2's bomb bay without serious modification?

The article states that the B2A spirit will only be able to carry one of these super bombs. thats all the detail they gives us.

The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which is so large that the B-2 bomber could carry only one of the weapons, has a short wing span and is satellite guided.

So I must say that that is one big bomb.

And is it basically a ground penetration variant of the MOAB? Incidentally they revealed that just before going to Iraq.

And it can be carried by the B2, thats going to be quite effective.

Originally posted by apex

And is it basically a ground penetration variant of the MOAB? Incidentally they revealed that just before going to Iraq.

MOAB uses an aerosol cloud's ignition to blast things to their doom, but I don't think that tactic will work quite as well underground. I'm not sure on the specifics but I think that the MOP will likely be more solid explosives-based than aerosol-based (such as the MOAB). Although they are built for more or less the same purpose (destruction of enemy by reducing the amount of limbs and/or vital organs they possess).

And, yes, that is one big stinkin' bomb.

Originally posted by SteveR

I wouldn't get so excited. A UK Rapier missile system gained a target lock on a B-2 Spirit a few years ago.

Yeah... At an air show (WVR) where even the Mark 1 eyeball could pick it up. You cannot be serious...

[edit on 20-3-2007 by WestPoint23]

Back on subject, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the yield of the explosives to be used. The WW2 Grand Slam used amatol as its explosive, I believe.

Now I'm pretty certain that explosives today have a higher yield per pound than 60 years ago, so an 8000 lb increase in overall weight may bring an increase in energy from the explosion of 2x, 3x, 4x, or maybe even more.

Any chemists care to speculate?

This could make a very effective deep penetration "earthquake" weapon, without the "OMG, nuclear weapon!" drawbacks in the public media.

KW

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Yeah... At an air show (WVR) where even the Mark 1 eyeball could pick it up. You cannot be serious...
]

The Mark 1 eyeball never fails to pick up stealth craft. Electronics do, especially targetting systems and that's the point. I think australian pilots commented on that alot during Red Flag.

I guess the USAF just has to make sure that they don't bomb on approach to an airshow while a SAM system happens to be 500 meters away...

Anybody have a designator for this weapon? If it's type classified as ready for deployment, even as a limited stockpile munition ala the GAMs, it should have a GBU nomenclature of it's own.

The problem with gauging explosive yields is that it's more about the operational environment (10,000G deceleration loads among others) and desired mission effect than anything.

I don't believe we have yet produced anything in the metastable/SPH class of explosives as produceable weaponized grade fillers yet but 30% yields over TNT in oxidizer/fuel admixture intimacy are now possible and this does indeed yield 3-4 times overall explosive power, depending...

If we are looking at creating a pure strata coupling effect, we need to maximize early impulse rise and total 'felt' detonation amplitudes which means the booster:fuel level has to be very high to get the blast wave really moving. If we are looking to burn up whatever we uncork, we need to increase the thermal properties and particularly stoichiometric mixing numbers for total temps and rise curves.

As a guess, you will have a booster of LLM-105 and the rest PBX-109. Percentages will be dictated by configuration tolerances in the projectile shape and manufacturing process as a function of getting the requisite tailored performance in an insensitive munition category that is as safe at the target end as on the flightline (so it doesn't splatter deflagrate or change interstitial chemical penetration as a function of mechanical force on impact).

6,000lbs in a 30,000lb class munition is a little light on the warhead:ammunition weight fraction, even for a penetrator.

If someone can work the numbers on the advertised Big BLU configuration to get an accurate impact velocity from a 40,000ft release height, we should be able to get a design target depth at which the weapon detonation cube generates voids for various percentage blast yields. And from there some guessable delivery effect physics on granite or supercrete using standard psi shock modeling.


KPl.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
I guess the USAF just has to make sure that they don't bomb on approach to an airshow while a SAM system happens to be 500 meters away...

Or a local airport that hails you and tells you to stay out of the airspace...

must have been a shock to the crew

The B-2 Bombers bomb rack assembly can only hold 40,000lbs of weight. So its going to take some major changes to fit a 30,000 pound bomb. Why would you want to limit your space by putting one big bomb and a few small ones. If yo uget a call for a few new targets that you need to take out then you dont have the bombs to do it.

Actually the B-2's nominal and most combat efficient load out id 40K, there is no reason it can not carry more, and it indeed it can, a lot more. All that limits it is space, if for example you can make a 60K bomb small enough to fit it's bays then it can carry it. Albeit it will have to sacrifice fuel (and therefore range and endurance) in order to offset the extra weight. Also, you can have a mixed strike package, one bomber with 80 JDAM's another with MOP's depending on what the likely targets are.