Pentagon: 30,000 Pound Bomb Too Small 612
smitty777 writes "According to the Pentagon, the 30,000-pound, precision-guided Massive Ordnance Penetrator GBU-57 bomb is just too small. Concerns around Iran's fortification of their nuclear program facilities has the DoD seeking from Congress something not quite as subdued as the GBU-57, the largest non-nuke bomb operated by the USAF. This 'smaller' bomb just recently won a prize for its ability to cut through 60 feet of concrete. The upgrades will cost $82 million on top of the $330 million spent so far to develop the system. There is some interesting high speed camera footage of the GBU-57 in the video below."
Re:you're a troll but even so.... (Score:4, Informative)
Anyhow, rather sure when Russia and China were developing the bomb a lot of freaking occurred, but as no one was in a position to stop them, nothing came of it. Also, there are also several 'brown' nuclear powers currently existing who behave rather 'immaturely' and are verging on war, but we don't hear talk of taking their nukes away.
The difference here is that Iran does NOT YET have the nukes and so can be stopped from joining 'the club'. If they somehow manage to make it to the field testing stage, (my guess is) interest in intervention will fade rapidly by several powers to the point of just stern lectures...albeit Israel might take a different response. The seem to potentially have the most to fear.
Personally, I don't see this so much a race issue so much as a "let's stop nuclear proliferation, it dilutes our own power, and it is scary in the hands of non-allies'.
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Wonder why they just don't drop two bombs if they can't reach deep enough. Are the bombs not precision guidable, or is hitting rubble mitigating the penetration capability?
Re:you're a troll but even so.... (Score:4, Informative)
it's all bullshit. The minute they launch any rocket at Israel or Europe they seal their fate and become a glass desert in 1 day.
You are accusing them of being suicidal.
I live in a Europe and I am not freaked out at them having nukes. Brown people in Pakistan have them already, what's the difference?
Iran never invaded anybody and never toppled any foreign government while the US army and the CIA did, multiple times.
Re:you're a troll but even so.... (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong, they have in fact threatened to destroy Iran (Persians, not arabs)
Re:What is really needed for this sort of thing... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No, no, no! (Score:5, Informative)
Pray tell me, what kind of aircraft is in th existing arsenal, capable of delivering this turd-of-death?
The B-2 is the intended deployment platform. Each aircraft will be able to carry two of them. They also did their testing with the B-52, introduced in 1955.
Re:you're a troll but even so.... (Score:3, Informative)
A quick google search shows that indeed Israel does openly [haaretz.com] threaten [dailystar.com.lb] other countries. I haven't heard the specific threat to exterminate all Arabs, but threatening to invade another country, is of similar severity, in my opinion. The difference between US/Israel vs. Iran is that the US and Israel often back up their threats with actual force.
Re:No, no, no! (Score:4, Informative)
Point being? (Score:5, Informative)
There's a long and distinguished history in the USAF of delivering massive ordnance bombs via cargo planes (see the daisy cutter [wikipedia.org] and MOAB [wikipedia.org] as examples). If you can open the rear hatch, roll it out, and achieve a margin of error smaller than the blast radius, then you're golden. In today's age of GPS-guided munitions that is a much lower threshold to cross than it's ever been.