The U.S. Air Force has taken delivery of a new 30,000-pound bomb from Boeing Co. (BA) that’s capable of penetrating deeply buried enemy targets.The specifications:
The huge bunker buster, dubbed the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, is built to fit the B-2 stealth bomber. The Air Force Global Strike Command started receiving the bombs in September, Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jack Miller said in a short statement to Bloomberg News.
The deliveries “will meet requirements for the current operational need,” he said.
Mockup of MOP, from great article here.
The Air Force in 2009 said Boeing might build as many as 16 of the munitions. Miller yesterday had no details on how many the Air Force plans to buy. Boeing in August received a $32 million contract that included eight of the munitions.
Command head Lieutenant General James Kowalski told the annual Air Force Association conference in September the command “completed integration” of the bunker-buster bomb with the B- 2, “giving the war-fighter increased capability against hardened and deeply buried targets.”
The bomb is the U.S. military’s largest conventional penetrator. It’s six times bigger than the 5,000-pound bunker buster that the Air Force now uses to attack deeply buried nuclear, biological or chemical sites.
Chicago-based Boeing is manufacturing the bomb, which was successfully demonstrated in March 2007.
The new, 20.5-foot-long bomb carries more than 5,300 pounds of explosives and is guided by Global Positioning System satellites, according to a description on the Web site of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Length: 20.5 feet (6.2 m) [7]This is one really big bomb.
Diameter: 31.5 inches (0.8 m) [7]
Weight: 30,000 pounds (14 metric tons)
Warhead: 5,300 pounds (2.4 metric tons) high explosive
Penetration:
200 ft (61 m) of 5,000 psi (34 MPa) reinforced concrete
26 ft (7.9 m) of 10,000 psi (69 MPa) reinforced concrete
130 ft (40 m) of moderately hard rock
Yet it isn't the biggest bomb ever manufactured.