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Boeing Delivers Massive Ordnance Penetrator
Hugh Pickens writes "In an age of drones and lightweight weaponry, the U.S. Air Force's purchase of the first batch of 30,000-pound bombs designed to pulverize underground enemy hide-outs highlights the military's need to go after hard and deeply buried targets. The weapon's explosive power is 10 times greater than its bunker-buster predecessor, the BLU-109 and it is nearly five tons heavier than the 22,600-pound GBU-43 MOAB surface bomb, sometimes called the 'mother of all bombs.' 'Our past test experience has shown that 2,000-pound penetrators carrying 500 pounds of high explosive are relatively ineffective against tunnels, even when skipped directly into the tunnel entrance,' says a 2004 Pentagon report on the Future Strategic Strike Force. 'Instead, several thousand pounds of high explosives coupled to the tunnel are needed to blow down blast doors and propagate a lethal air blast throughout a typical tunnel complex' (PDF). Experts note that the military disclosed delivery of the new bunker-busting bomb less than a week after a United Nations agency warned that Iran was secretly working to develop a nuclear weapon and is known to have hidden nuclear complexes that are fortified with steel and concrete, and buried under mountains. 'Heck of a coincidence, isn't it?' says John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org."
Why tell potential targets how big a bomb you have and how deep it will penetrate? They can just go deeper and pour more concrete. What happened to surprise?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
you obviously know very little about atomic devices if you think that they can be set off by someone blowing up the facility. In order to form the chain reaction necessary for an atomic explosion, the forces must be very precisely directed. And with the radioactive material so far underground already, there's no danger of releasing radiation into the surrounding countryside. Its far more dangerous to let the Iranians have a working nuclear device than to worry about putting extra large pot holes all over their country. Which is sad, because if their government cared at all for their people, they'd realize that pissing off the US is a good way to look more like large parking lot than an industrialized country.
This is George Carlin's "bigger dick" foreign policy ("What? They have bigger dicks? BOMB THEM") at work. Now we are taking it a step further and talking about how deep our "bombs" will penetrate. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, it might help to have more women in positions of power?
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The effort that a potential foe puts into negating the weapon can be more beneficial than use of the weapon in actual warfare. Nuclear bombs are the classic example.
That M.A.D. example has been deprecated. The new canonical example is "threat of 9/11-style terrorism".
Set your phasers on "funky"!
The US, but rest assure while we try to clean it up, they would bitch about us.
anyway, ignore X.25, he's a US bashing troll. There are plenty of things to discuss about the US but he isn't even smart enough to talk about those.
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If you're referring to Israel, they aren't our friend. Israel is a bit like a therapist, they care about us as long as we're giving them money.
it's a simple matter to pour 20 feet of wrapped rebar and concrete on top.
Only if you designed the structure to bear the load of an additional 20 feet of rebar and concrete. Otherwise you will cause more destruction than the bomb you fear.
additional blast doors can easily protect against it.
That would seem to depend on your assumption of how much "additional" means and how you define easily. It isn't quite as simple as throwing up another door and a few baffles. You also seem to be under the impression that there is only one bomb instead of a successive strike of these things.
Either way, the facility is disrupted and funds/resources are being diverted when playing defense.
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Just to refresh YOUR memory U.S. Invades (well about 2-3 countries a year but let's do 1 example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
U.S. creates no fly zone, economic sanctions, practices attack maneuvers OVER your contry.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6030302/iran_fires_antiaircraft_missile_fails.html
Some examples of U.S. terrorist activities - http://www.salon.com/2011/03/11/us_arms_sales/. Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq... what a catalog of success.
Now in case you missed it there's this large country called the U.S. they have military bases in 100+ countries most of which have actively campaigned to get the U.S. OUT.
Also, in case YOU missed it. There is this same large country called the U.S.. They view the world as their military theatre... pieces of their imperialist empire. They have the CIA good for poisonings.... supporting drug cartels and rebels in your country, and which is also useful against reporters.
The US doesn't have friends. It has interests.