The US Air Force wants Boeing to integrate the GBU-57 bomb on the Northrop Grumman B-2A, or so says this solicitation document released earlier this week.
I find that very interesting on a number of levels, not least because the USAF has never before disclosed the existence of a weapon called the GBU-57!
(Designation-systems.net, in fact, lists weapons all the way up GBU-54, so that means a GBU-55 and GBU-56 could be somewhere in the classified inventory, too!)
But the existence of the GBU-57 gets even more interesting after a Google search. The only direct mention to the weapon appeared in an article in London’s Guardian newspaper in 2003, and then bizarrely as a passing reference. I would love to know how the Guardian’s reporter so casually came across that seemingly classified factoid for his article.
I would also love to know more about the GBU-57. The Guardian article describes the weapon as a 5,000lb-class penetrator. That puts it in the same class as the GBU-28/B. It likely shares the BLU-122 or improved BLU-113 warhead for 5,000lb-class penetrators. I wonder what makes the GBU-57 different in capability than the GBU-28?
I’m also interested in the timing of the USAF’s plan to integrate the weapon on the B-2. The GBU-57 would be the largest weapon ever integrated on the stealth bomber, and it’s capabilities seem ideal for a strike on heavily fortified, underground bunkers (ahem, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Dick Cheney is on line 2.)
The USAF hoped to integrate the even larger Massive Ordnance Penetrator (30,000lbs) on the B-2A, but last year Congress blocked the funding. There’s a chance the Guardian article was completely wrong, and the GBU-57 is in fact the new designation for the MOP. Even if that’s the case, I still wonder how the Guardian reporter came up with that designation in 2003, long before the MOP was conceived.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Whats up with that hyperlink to Achmadinijads blog?
http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/
Actually, when you Google “GBU-57″, and click “Maps” you get… “Dennis J. Kucinich”! WTF!?
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=GBU-57&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=il
Well there you have it. He maybe working for the Martians…. maybe. :-)
Yeah what is the deal with that? Damage control by the gov. maybe?
this is the right url for the guardian story
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/01/iraq.usa1
Yes Ive heard of this bomb
Suppose it’s uses ‘atomic powered’ penetration?
I can just see the dickster peeing himself with glee over the thought of using something like that on Ahmadinejad’s bomb shelter or an Iraqi mosque full of civilians
The robot people know…
In addition to its internal missiles and beam weaponry, the Beta fighter can mount a considerable amount of weaponry on external stores and in an internal bomb bay. The bomb bay can hold up to 8,000 kg of ordinance which can include eight long range, 32 x 250 kg GBU-57 laser-guide high explosive bombs, 16 x 500 kg CBU-62 cluster bombs, 4 x GBU-27C 2,000 kg laser guided bombs. The Beta fighter has three hard points on each wing each one can hold one long range firebird missile,
The VFB-9 was armored with the latest Chobham low-mass composite plating providing immunity from all light anti-mecha weaponry and excellent protection from medium class (55mm or less) and Invid annihilation disks…
Link: http://tinyurl.com/yvjyqy
that Guardian article reads like it is a typo for the GBU-37 (GAM-113).
As to the rest, I think it is best not to speculate and let the Mullahs fret a little harder.
It
It probably is the MOP, just with a GBU name.
i think that hyperlink messup showed who steve trimble is :P
give it up mahmoud, i mean steve, we’ve found u out :P
heres my question on the GBU-57
whatever happened to those bombs that had drills on their heads?
there was a post here about them a long time ago and they seemed to be the perfect answer. maybe they went black
Is this the latest of what was referred to as the MOAB of 5+yrs ago?
I have to quote from the great movie “Wag the Dog”:
Bream: Why is the president in China?
Aide: Trade Relations.
Bream: You’re goddamn right and its got nothing to do with the B-3 bomber.
Aide: There is no B-3 bomber.
Bream: I just said that. There is no B-3 bomber and I don’t know why these rumors get started.
Is this the GBU-57 ?
http://notanotherconspiracy.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-this-gbu-57.html
there is no evil under the sun.if god wanted you to know he would tell you.remember that and you will live long and happy.
Yes I am familiar with it. There exists a group of people that have been working on this for 5 years that I know of. The name is not relevant. It is old news. Still worthy of talking about.
One of the people working on the project I believe is a naturalized citizen who wanted to give back / contribute to her new country. She was the focus of a piece done in 2004. The press was not so much what she was doing but that she was giving back. To the causal observer, what she was working didn’t matter, except to me. That’s your clue.
For those that went tohttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/01/iraq.usa1 that site is a typo, for GBU-27. The 6th Brigade Comic Book, come on, give me a break. You don’t need a guided bomb to deliver comic books over a large area. Think about it.
Has anyone considered asking USAF public affairs? You never know, it might work.
” Still worthy of talking about.
One of the people working on the project I believe is a naturalized citizen who wanted to give back / contribute to her new country.”
You mean this one:
Bomb Lady: Vietnamese American Makes Tools for War on Terror
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7b82c31eb1a725262fb0af787a6ceaaf
- nah, different weapon altogether the BLU-118. Any other ideas?
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You are half right.
…but according to the official designations, you’re completely wrong -
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/blu-118.htm
- unless you’d like to give us any reason to believe otherwise?