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."
Yes, I believe they will (Score:4, Interesting)
A better question would be will they ever approach what's possible with nuclear warheads? Little Boy was 15 kilotons or 640,152,000,000,000 joules of energy released in less than the blink of an eye. Modern nuclear weapons are much more powerful and can be scaled up indefinitely using the Teller–Ulam design. The largest American weapon ever tested was 15 megatons -- 6.40152e+17 joules. The largest Russian weapon ever tested was three times as powerful. It will be a long time before you see a directed energy weapon that comes close to those energy levels.
What is really needed for this sort of thing.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sequential Bombing System.... where a sequence of bombs is dropped concurrently in short succession. (ie: 4-8 bombs in a 60-120 second interval).
But SBS is a lame sounding name. How can that compete with Mother of All Bombs (MOAB)
How about Bombing On Sequence System (BOSS)
Now the BOSS BOMB has a nice Pentagon expenditure feeling way. Essentially the delivery system should transit from the bomber to target via a cruise delivery system. Which would contain 4-8 war heads each about a 1/4 to 1/2 of MOABs size. The delivery unit would circle target while releasing the individual warheads which would each be guided to their target at about 15-30 second intervals. Allowing the first bomb to detonate and blow a crater while the next bomb hits the new exposed area, so on and so on. Tests would need to be completed to determine the amount of time necessary between individual warhead impacts for optimum penetration.
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Proposed solution to MOAB. Build big ballon under first layer of protection with lots of vents. When MOAB hits it explodes, but instead of crushing your super secret facilitity (that was obviously not secret enough if it's being bombed), the balloon detonates the bomb early and above and allows the pressure to escape through hundreds of vent area.
Bomb two, kills you...GAME OVER
CIA:Iran Prepared to Launch U.S. Terrorist Attacks (Score:3, Interesting)
Will Iran war be Obama's October Surprise? Triggered perhaps by false flag or provoked attack?
Re:you're a troll but even so.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:1984 much? (Score:4, Interesting)
We won't have to be talked into anything. Israel will attack Iran sometime this year(almost for sure). And Iran will respond by counter attacking them and most likely US targets in the Middle East. If they attempt to close the straits of Hormuz due to the attack the US will not allow that to happen.
We don't have the do anything, I doubt that Obama will strike first(but I never would have expected the Libya action). I just don't think he will have too... Israel has less of an ability attack Iran in an attempt to shut down the Nuclear program. So an Israeli attack is likely to come before any US actions.
The sad thing is, I doubt that any Military action short of ground invasion will prevent Iran from getting Nuclear weapons over the long term(next 5 years). The program is just too well protected and to distributed throughout Iran to fully disrupt. Slow it down, yeah... stop it totally, no way.
A limited war now will only make a regional Nuclear war more likely in the future. The Iranians feel like they need Nuclear weapons to counter balance Israel and US conventional forces. If we give them a demonstration just how far behind their conventional forces are compared to the US it's only going to make them want Nukes even more.
I don't blame them for wanting Nukes, it's really the only counter to US forces. A Nuclear armed Iran is going to massively destabilize the Middle East. The Saudis would develop Nukes if Iran goes nuclear. Other states might follow. And between Iran and Israel both armed with Nuclear weapons and delivery systems with travel times of around 15 min... I feel it would only be a matter of time before someone pushed the button. We are talking about two states that don't have any communications directly. Iran refuses to believe that Israel has the right to exist. Israel feels that it must strike first to defend itself... Even if a Nuclear first strike isn't intended the likely-hood of mistake or miscommunication is just too high. Imagine what would have happened during the Cuban missile crisis if nether side talked to each other(back channel communications resolved the crisis)... we likely wouldn't be talking about it now. This is the situation that is going to happen once they are both Nuclear armed.