Now imagine the close air support you could do with this puppy. Forget a nine-line brief. This is about a one-line brief. Problem with a city block in Fallujah? Level Fallujah with a single sortie. And before you go all Dr. Strangelove on us, you should know we’re talking conventional ordnance here.
But this ain’t a CAS weapon. It’s a … well, the Air Force won’t really say, except to say that we really need it regardless of how much it costs.
Yesterday Stars and Stripes ran an article about the Pentagon’s request for $88 million to fund the development of a “deep-earth-bunker-buster.”
According to the article …
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, is a joint project between Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
At 30,000 pounds and 20 feet long, the mass of the bomb makes it three and a half times more powerful than the most powerful weapon in the Air Forces inventory. The bomb carries 6,000 pounds of high explosives.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, or DTRA, is helping to test the weapon, spokeswoman Cheri Abdelnour said.
The MOPs job is to destroy deeply buried and what the military calls hardened targets, or those specifically reinforced to survive strikes with high explosives.
The bomb is capable of burrowing 60 meters through 5,000 pounds per square inch (psi) of reinforced concrete, or 8 meters through 10,000 psi reinforced concrete.
Like all modern smart munitions, the weapon is virtually a mini-aircraft, with tail fins that steer the weapon in flight via preprogrammed minicomputers and an integrated global positioning system that keeps it on target, according to DTRA.
The first successful tests of the weapon took place at the end of March at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, according to the Air Force and DTRA press releases issued at the time.
The budget request is part of an amendment to the fiscal 2008 defense budget supplemental request that the White House submitted Monday to Congress.
The money is in two parts: $83.5 million for continuing the development of the MOP weapon itself, including a technology demonstration sponsored by DTRA that would conclude at some point in fiscal 2008; and another $4.2 million to modify the B-52 bomber as a launching platform, Air Force spokeswoman Vicki Stein told Stars and Stripes on Wednesday.
Now here’s the best part. The Pentagon (read “Air Force”) isn’t sure or won’t say what the bomb is for. Although the flacks quack about the MOP as an “urgently needed, critical global strike capability to fight the war on terrorism,” General Mosely, the USAF Chief of Staff said, “Its not specifically geared at an individual country. Its a capability discussion.”
An $88 million capability discussion? Wouldn’t an offsite to Vegas or — better still — a Webex be cheaper?
And who knew we had at Threat Reduction Agency? Isn’t that DoD’s job? Oh, that’s right. They do threat proliferation.
And heaven forbid that we actually threaten … Iran. (Oh, no. I said that which shall not be said when hitting Congress up for large sums of money that will be used to justify the service’s existence in the nearer term. My bust, general. Or should I say, my bunker bust, general?)
(Gouge: NC)
(Photo: Engineers examine a test penetrator after it showed the ability to burrow through hundreds of feet of solid rock before the first explosive test at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Courtesy Stars and Stripes.) (H/T SMSgt. Mac.)
– Ward
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Tora Bora
Safe No More-a
The effort to field a deep conventional penetrating weapon predates the WOT and represents the recognition since Desert Storm that our enemies would be seeking ever-deeper hidey-holes for things they want to protect.
Such a weapon is an interesting engineering challenge – make the system ‘hard enough’ to go as deep as you want, but not so hard as to not go off at all. Come up with a design that can be carried on existing aircraft and get the right mix of materials, fuzing, guidance and structure at a cost that keeps the bean-counters happy and Voila! You got something the warfighters can use that can do things all the other items in the quicer can’t do.
yikes!
strike “quicer”
insert “quiver”
Well, the above-ground residents of Fallujah have relatively little to fear. This is a weapon that designed to be most destructive at about 80 meters below the surface. You’re thinking of the 20,000lb Mother of All Bombs (MOAB), which is a very different kind of weapon.
The weirdness about MOP is this:
DTRA has had a program going for a few years to get the beast integrated on a B-52.
But last February the USAF request funds for the first time to initiate a program to integrate the weapon on the B-2.
The Democrat-controlled Congress gave the B-52 program a green light, but stepped in to block funds for the B-2 program, on the not-unwise theory that such a program is obviously intended for a near-term attack on Iran.
So the USAF lost the first battle, and is coming back for a second round with the recent supplemental request.
The MOP still has a long way to go to get on the B-2, at least 1.5 years. But if you want to punch a 6,000lb warhead through about 80 meters of turf and concrete, the MOP is your guy.
Good grief. Has Ward gone David Axe on us? Here let me push your button: get rid of naval aviation.
OK, back to facts: ever hear of hard and deeply buried targets? That’s why you need MOPs. And, these hard and deeply buried targets tend to be well defended by air defenses so putting it on a B-52 is sentencing the crew to the death penalty.
Now, if you want to give the bad guys a free-bee by letting them do whatever they want to do underground or in a mountain (Tora Bora?) then let’s not buy MOP.
By the way, you can’t put MOP on any existing carrier-based plane, David Axe.
If nothing else this bomb will make Iran have a few bad nights. Iran is spelled all over this one. Also you could stick it on a B-52, and have it escorted by a SQ of F-22s problem solved no harm to BUFF crew.
“… have it escorted by a SQ of F-22s problem solved no harm to BUFF crew”
So SAMs have magically vanished from existance while I wasn’t looking? Most intersting development!
You’re exactly right, Doc. That’s the reality the USAF is creating before your very eyes. Eighty-eight million dollars, please!
And you might do away with pilots (hello, UCAS), but you’ll never do away with naval aviation. Geez, the Tomcat singlehandedly won OEF, fer crissakes.
But thanks for pushing my buttons, all the same.
Blocking integration of the MOP into the B2 inventory will not prevent targeting of Iranian underground installations nor does it keep the B2 out of the battle. The planners will just look the next combination on the list for things like B2s armed with B-61s or even ICBMs. If that’s what you’d rather use, so be it.
Yes, we looked at this one a year ago -
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002774.html
And as noted then, it’s a very crude and limited weapon compared to Deep Digger and its relations.
One thing you have to worry about with weapons like this is knowing the actual location of the underground target. The bombs can penetrate deeply, but their radius of effect in rock isn’t all that great. And, although you may know where the entry/headworks of an underground facility is, you may not know in which direction the builders tunneled once they got below the surface.
Good intelligence about such matters is highly desirable.
$88 million bucks is what the pentagon has lost down the back of it’s sofa cushions. Seems a reasonable cost for a potentially very useful program. And it’s a big bomb. What’s not to like?
Howdy Boys….
Another installment in the continuing saga of “Bonzo on The Beltway.” This week Bonzo uses his Darden MBA to explain the USAF budget process. Bonzo’s pleas passionately to Congressman Gonzo that NOT increasing the USAF budget every year is ACTUALLY a BUDGET CUT. How’re the whizbangers out at Area 51 and White Sands ‘sposed to keep Rev. Dr. Gizmodo & The Gollygeewhiz Wing BUSY if’n they don’t keep inventing nifty new stuff like this here SUPER BOMB? (And, Bonzo tells the Good Gentleman from Shysterville, the neutron flux discombobulator in the thing will be assembled in Mexico with parts made in his District!)
———-
More toys for the fly boys. I reckon that the boys at the staff and war colleges are STILL trying to prove that all you need is a bigger, better, sexier air-delivered weapon to win wars. This MOB looks like they’ve got a bigger hammer to pound away at the round peg.
Don’t get me wrong, there are few things as satisfying as a great big boom, particularly when a deserving party is on the receiving end. BUT, what is it that we achieve in developing a whole new line of munitions? What will this thing achieve that we couldn’t get with ten GBU-28s a few seconds apart on the same target point? Is this more “boy psychology” (“mine is bigger than yours”)?
And, after Curtis LeMay’s little Frankensteins are done rearranging the topography who’s going to keep Mahmoud from building another Temple of Doom? Oh, right, the grunts.
One more thing, why have they made this bit of physics so frickin’ hard? Too many MBAs, PhDs, and JDs, methinks. Don’t send your brightest Sailor to supervise sweepers because he’s gonna think too much about trying to “fix” it or “make it work better.” Send the redneck who can take orders and get it done. I think that a couple of rednecks on the Great Big Bomb tiger team could have cobbled this thing together pretty quick; it worked with the original GBU-28 in ODS. It didn’t take a huge R&D staff (and budget) to fill and old 8″ arty tube with HE and then bolt on a LGB kit. Just ingenuity, balls, and a “get ‘er done” attitude.
This is kabuki theater. Its almost as silly as Mahmoud’s bit of high school marching band show last week.
Cheers,
Chief B.
P.S.: Ward and the rest of the shoes may be a pain in the ass to the regular, working Navy, BUT while the flyboys at Whiteman are flying 10,000 miles (one way) to drop a few bombs, the boys and girls of Naval Aviation will be launching their third sortie of the day. And THAT is an advantage the trash haulers can’t overcome.
No its called the F-22s take out the air defense system. Gosh do people not use there imagination at all. This is why we have spend billions of dollars on stealth tech, to be able to deliver these bad boys.
The navy might be able to make more trips, but they are very limited in the size of each trip. Remember out enemy’s arnt as dumb as they used to be, were going to need stuff this big to get at em.
sweet bigger bomb nice!!!
ok thats it why can the air force find a new version of b52 and a new version of c130……….but the navy cant ungrade the guns on the 2 battleships it has…….give the marines a platform for shore bombardment that cant be sunk by a dingy full of explosives
hell take rear guns off slap on a vstol deck thats an assualt carrier!! hell yea
sigh no they get a destroyer that can sit of shore and shot 5in canon or is it 7in or railguns or lasers….i dont know just see wev’ve spent what 990bil!!! or somethin by now and we dont have it yet oh yea and its realy stealthy ….but its supposed to be used of shore insight of land AND ITS 700FT LONG!!!
ok ok sorry just an old argument comming to the surface sorry DT ppls, Ward
Who are you calling a shoe, chief? Them’s fighting words . . . unless you’re talking BROWNshoe, of course.
RE:
Shock and awe, baby! A couple of MOPs here, a MOAB there, it’ll be great! The Mullahs swept away and the grateful Iranian people will welcome us with open arms. Dancing in the streets and handing out sweets to their liberators. Harmony and bliss. A cake walk…
OK, I can’t resist. For those not wise in the way of the sea service, here’s (one variant of) an old joke I first heard on a ‘joint’ program back in the day:
Q: You’re going to a classifed meeting with more than five Naval representatives present. You see immediately two of them are imposters and spies. How did you know?
A: They’re the only ones wearing the same color shoes.
See what 2 1/2 years on Navy bases does to your sense of humor?
I love man-made liquefaction.
Especially Made in USA, stealth deliverable liquefaction.
Re: Wardroom Ward
Glad to see that a humble black shoe like me can still raise brown shoe hackles. ;)
While we are discussing sartorial superiority, I’m still trying to figure out how a mess of nomex wrinkles, velcro, fourteen zippers, a ratty flight deck jersey, and your piss cutter flopping in a leg pocket (what you’d call a “flight suit”), with a pair of scuffed boots last polished in Pensacola with a Hershey bar is more presentable to the public than a clean, neatly pressed pair of coveralls and polished boondockers.
I guess that some animals are more equal than others….
Cheers and VR,
Chief B.
Re: SMSgt Mac
Mac, if you spent any time in the Goat Locker while slumming with my beloved Navy, you must know that Rule #3 is “Never trust an even-numbered Chief.”
During joint service that rule undoubtedly extends to even-numbered NCOs. :)
Now, how do you know when a staffer doesn’t know what the hell he/she is talking about? Pretty simple, really: Lots of PowerPoint, obscure white paper references, and jingo lingo. Ditto to the NCO/CPO doing the same thing. The skipper will likely just start playing with his BlackBerry; in the Mess the CMC will likely loose the sharks on the briefer.
To the point: In the early days of any conflict we’ll need to do the blitz and that includes having Air Force fly from Barksdale and Whiteman. Even so, that’s a VERY expensive way to put warheads on foreheads: the fuel, the wear on airframes, and flight hours on aircrews.
However, if there’s any coherence at all in our Air Doctrine, we will have silenced the air-to-air and ground-to-air threats in just a few days. (You fly, you die; you radiate, we obliterate.)
Following that, there isn’t much need to be super stealthy like the the B2. What’s needed is just a bomb truck. Like it or not, it doesn’t take a Red Flag or Top Gun grad to program a JDAM while circling at 30k or 40k. A B1, B2, or B52 circling over Tora Bora is just an aerial ammo barge for the grunts (Air Force JTACs included).
Moreover, if you don’t have those grunts on the ground then all the bombing in the world is a fatuous exercise. Johnny Jihadi and Mahmoud Splodeydope will just dust themselves off and go back to business.
Yes, Naval Aviation may not carry a huge bombload like the air force white elephants, but isn’t smaller supposed to be the new bigger? SDBs, reduced charge, kinetic kill, and all that hooey? That FA-18 flying from the CVN is just as capable of dropping a couple JDAMs as the big birds — the difference is about 20 hours of flight time.
Cheers,
Chief B.
No argument from me on coveralls versus flight suits, Chief. Doesn’t make sense or seem fair.
the B-2 advantage over conventional heavies is much more than stealth.
After the ‘threat’ is negated (not that you are ever certain it is truly gone until you get boots on the ground) you still need the payload delivered as precisely as possible, especially with smaller/low blast radius weapons: hence you still need something the B-2. If you refer to your handy Bomber Roadmap (Table 4 1999 edition), you will find that JDAMS were considered ‘near-precision’ only off the B-2. While the BUFF and BONE have improved their systems, the B-2s (with their GATS) are still the best bomb droppers.
BTW: guess which Bomber (in theater or out) had the best Mission Capable Rates in OEF and OIF
Trivia: the JDAM program is a low-cost (and lower specification) weapon that was bought in volume instead of the GAM. So the JDAM is actually a by product of the B-2 acquisistion. JDAM wasn’t really all that much cheaper until the massive quantity buys (Note what happens when Congress allows Economic Order Quantities) drove unit cost down. Alas, the GAMS are probably all or almost all gone now.
Oh, and I heard it was never trust “even-striped” senior NCOs!
The Pentagon should integrate this beast onto an ICBM. That would be an enormous amount of kenetic energy onto the target. They’d probably get a few dozen more meters of penetration.
You wouldn’t have to worry about losing air crews or $2 billion per copy aircraft. Give the Russians a warning prior to launch and set back the Iranian nuclear program a few years, at least.
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