New Bunker-Busting Bomb Ready To Use

Donley: New Bunker-Busting Bomb Ready To Use
Jul. 25, 2012 - 11:14AM |
By JEFF SCHOGOL

The Air Force’s 30,000-pound behemoth bunker buster is ready to be used if needed, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Wednesday.

The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers that protect chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, but Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Wall Street Journal earlier this year that the bomb needed more development to be able to take out Iranian bunkers.

Since then, Syria has disintegrated into full civil war, making the U.S. government worried about the Syrian regime’s stockpile of chemical weapons.

“The Syrian regime needs to protect these weapons,” Defense Department spokesman George Little said Tuesday. “And I think I’ve been very clear, as have others in the U.S. government, that it would be unacceptable not to secure them.”

After speaking at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on Wednesday, Donley was asked if the MOP was available to be used. He was not asked where it might be used.

“If it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that,” he said. “We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing. We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”
http://www.defensenews.com/article/2...text|FRONTPAGE

Then they can swing by Iran and put a couple into thier nuclear "Power" plants.

.

30,000lb must be a dumb bomb, whats the point? Surely a missile half the size could penerate deeper?

Are we really talking destroy, or just kill the humans through lack of oxygen when 30,000lb of god knows what goes off? How do you guide a dumb bomb from altitude high enough to be safe and achieve terminal velocity? Is it a laser guided dumb bombie?

Surely 10 tridents, tomahawks etc slammed into the same hole from off shore would do more damage?

Mick, you do know that JDAM is a guiding package for a normal unguided bomb? 10 tridents or tomahawks will cost around 6 to 10 million dollars depends on the model. That bomb would cost (wild guess) 300-400k dollars? And it will do what 10 tomahawks would not be able to do.

Tomahawk is not made to penetrate deep in to the ground. Bunker busters are!

There is a good reason why we have normal bullets and armor piercing bullets..

@ Mickk
It's GPS guided bro

Capable of being dropped from the B-2