Weapons Grade author David Hambling has another fascinating two-part series for Defense Tech, on weapons that drill and scrape their way through targets.
Meet Deep Digger, first of a revolutionary new generation of bunker-busting weapons, described in this weeks New Scientist. This is literally ground-breaking new technology which uses cannon to tunnel through solid rock, drilling a channel for the bomb.
Existing weapons for attacking hard targets are kinetic, relying on sheer momentum to break through rock and concrete. To get much improvement you have to make them much bigger — like the outsize 30,000 lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or much faster — like the proposed conventional version of the D5 Trident ballistic missile, or denser — like the heavy BLU-109 with its ballast of dense metal. But you cant get around the laws of physics. As Princeton’s Robert Nelson points out in a very thorough analysis, even if the penetrator is a hypersonic projectile made of solid depleted uranium:
no Earth Penetrating Weapon can penetrate reinforced concrete deeper than four times the length of the missile.
So this approach really isnt going to get you more than a hundred feet through rock at best, and the practical limit is much less.
The supercavitating bunker-buster I revealed last year looks neat, but the jury is still out on whether it works. A lot of people in the industry simply dont believe that it can. The Broach is an interesting idea but limited to a few metres.
Deep Digger is different. It does not depend on the kinetic energy of the warhead at all in fact, it parachutes down. Then it stars drilling. The weapon is limited only by how deep the drilling process can go, which is a matter of how deep it can muck (clear debris from the shaft). And although the details are classified, that is much, much deeper than any kinetic weapon will ever go. In the tests last year, it demonstrated a tunneled down ten meters — about 50% more than the BLU-113, which is the current record holder.
It has numerous other advantages. One is a thinner casing which means more payload. Another is that it does not undergo a shattering 10,000g impact. Other penetrating bombs need special insensitive explosives; Deep Digger can carry a range of warheads, as well as sensors and communications. It can stay in touch with the launch aircraft and report its progress; multiple Deep Diggers could be co-ordinated to detonate simultaneously producing a combined shockwave.
Part of the secret is the rock-breaking projectile, developed like the cannon at ARDEC, the US Armys Armament Research Development and Engineering Center at Picatinny. David Burns, the Program Manager, describes it as being a special .75 calibre round, a monolithic design which is more robust and performs better than earlier projectiles. In place of the blasting gel used earlier it now employs a solid high explosive called PAX-11, one of Picatinnys own special recipes.
Deep Digger has already moved on from the version described in this presentation. Burns is confident that its proven ability to drill consistently through rock will make Deep Digger the leader in its field.
It doesnt stop with bombs either. There are some other interesting applications for Deep Digger technology too, which well be looking at in part two of this little series, starting with a breaching cannon that cuts through brick walls like a chainsaw through plywood.
– David Hambling
New Bomb Drills for Bunkers
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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Sounds like great technology for getting under the ice of Europa.
Somebody is reading too many science fiction. Are we going to have drilling tanks to sneak underneath the enemys’ frontline next?
Expulsion of dirt makes it easier for the drill, so it won’t have to “munch” the same material it just drilled a second time (ie it can munch hard rock instead of the bits of the rock from a few seconds ago. Of course, as it gets in real deep it’s ability to launch rock remanants all the way out of the hole is severely limited.
Definitely the stuff of sci-fi. When it breaches a bunker, will it first use sarcasm to taunt its targets before it uses chemical energy to obliterate them?
I am not averse to a thirty second bomb.
“Why is it critical to leave a nice clean clear hole? Maybe I read the article wrong.”
If the first warhead doesnt work, they can send a second down the cleared path of the first. Cruise missiles are accurate enough to do this. However my concern is that it would be way too easy to defeat this. Tanks have developed armor that has a layer of explosive to deflect projectiles. A similar layer of shaped, directed charges could be built on top of a layer of reinforced concreate (or whatever) which would cover the area above the bunker in order to deflect or destroy this drilling warhead. Even a nuclear device wouldnt be able to penetrate the bunker if it was forced to detonate above ground.
I wouldn’t so much worry as to wether or not a
reactive armour barrier would defeat a nuclear
bonker buster packed in behind the drill.The
explosive yield could easily defeat such a counter
measure,and packing a shaped charge into the structure of the bunker above ones head would be
folly as it would only weaken the structure itself
and enhance a cave in.Seems a tad counter-productive
using such a defensive method that would only help
to achieve the goal of the driller/buster in the
first place.
That’s just the thing though, this driller/bunker buster bomb is not planned to carry a nuclear yield…only conventional explosive…(although there are now certain ‘new’ nitrate-based conventional explosives that can approach the explosive power of a small nuclear yield). And properly placed layers of SHAPED charges (which direct explosive impact UP), on top of layers of reinforced concrete WOULD be able to ward off such a device, and possibly 2-3 follow-up attacks. Eventually, with enough blasts, yes, the bunker would be defeated. But that could be said for any structure. I say the most secure way to hide a facility would be to dig a huge pit, maybe 50 stories deep (500 ft), seal the bottom of the pit with waterproof materials, build the bunker on top of it, then put more waterproof sealer on the top, then cover it with layers of reinforced concrete and soil, and finally fill in the remaining 100 feet or so of the pit with heavy salt water, like the Dead Sean so nothing can float to the bottom, and leave it as a man-made lake. Entrance tunnels would lead elsewhere outside of the lake.
A bit expensive, and complicated, but definitely secure and hidden.
: )
As with everything else, there is always a counter to any attack; but there is also a law of diminishing returns for any defense.
The best you can hope for is to know what your enemy is using, so you can design something to defeat just that. This is done with full knowledge that every other potential enemy will then plan a counter to what you have just created.
Cheapest way to defeat these drillers may be to bury anti vehicle landmines on top of your bunker…either on the surface or a few feet below. Of course, you’d need a detonation system sensitive to a drill rather than a pressure fuze. Perhaps they have something else for that. Hmm.
This is a good start, but clearly the ultimate bunker penetrator is a big-ass robot that drills down, then wails on everyone in the bunker. Then you can capture the bunker for yourself, earning you more points.
I think the reason why they don’t repeatedly bomb a bunker facility is beacause it is either expensive or it doesnt look good on cnn when a rich and well to do nation blasts the shit out of a backwards third world nation.
These would have been great in Lebanon, where citizens and soldiers are indistinguishable …
I just saw a clip on the history channel where it took a Brittish engineer a long time to convince the decision makers that a 22,000lb streamlined bomb would do more damage if it was used with his design to penetrate the earth 100ft and have the blast contained by the weight of the earth above it, causing an earquake like shock. Even though the bosses understood a bomb has more power if made out of steel instead of just loose explosive going underground escaped their understanding. This is not new just better. Drop ‘em.
You don’t need bunker busters…kill the supporting facilties top side so the roots wither and die…
The hole has to stay open all the way to the surface until and unless you want it to stop. As soon as the debris stops new cuttings from escaping past the side of the vehicle/bomb, it will just bog down and stop or destroy itself. They might actually design it to “bog itself in” at the end of its decent in order to get the best effect of its explosive. It must kick up a pretty impressive gyser of dust and rock for a while.
Has anyone heard of Barnes Wallis in WWII, who created a 6-ton & 10-ton earthquake bomb? That this went through the Nazi concrete sub pens like a knife through butter, due to it’s aerodynamic design (it broke the sound barrier on the way down).
Any memories on this?
Have you idiots, that read and advocate this Activety of Murder and Destruction considered seeing a professional Shrink to help you with your Pea Brain Sickness?
Ever drilled a deep hole?
If the flutes get plugged the power required to drill increases exponentially, until the drill breaks.
Also chemical explosives require oxygen, the more the better.
If the hole is filled behind the warhead the only oxygen getting down the hole will have to travel with the weapon instead of flowing in behind it.
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