The
Pentagon is accelerating by three years plans for a super bunker
buster, the GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator or MOP, a
powerful new bomb aimed squarely at the underground nuclear
facilities of Iran and North Korea . The gargantuan bomb longer than
11 persons standing shoulder-to-shoulder or more than 20 feet base
to nose, weighs 30,000 pounds. Some 18 percent of its total weight
is comprised of explosives. Guided by a precision GPS system, the
MOP can penetrate an unprecedented 200 feet down before exploding
with devastation into an underground bunker, such as those buried in
Iran and North Korea currently used to shield rogue nuclear
programs. Now Congress has quietly advanced $68 million into the
2009 budget to accelerate the purchase and deployment of ten such
super bunker busters making clear they are for possible use against
the regimes in
Iran
or
North Korea
. Pentagon planners are rushing to beat by months the latest June
2010 deadline for just four such bombs, and have been subsequently
directed to increase the number of MOPs to at least ten.
In
early July 2009, the Defense Department told a Congressional
committee that the MOP was the "weapon of choice" for an
urgent operational need enunciated by both the
U.S.
Pacific Command, tasked with
North Korea
, and the Central Command, tasked with
Iran
. In doing so, the Pentagon accelerated the program by three years.
The
GBU-57A/B MOP is so immense it can only be carried by either a B-52
or a B2a Stealth bomber. The weapons explosive power is 10 times
greater than its predecessor, the BLU-109. Moreover, the GBU-57A/B
MOP is one third heavier than the
MOAB
dubbed the Mother of All Bombs.
Following
successful tests in deep New Mexico caverns, and a B-52 test drop, a
crash program has been approved to modify a B-2a Stealth bomber to
carry a payload of two GBU-57A/B MOP bombs. The speed and urgency
comes at a time when
Iran
, NATO and
Israel
are approaching a denouement over Tehrans nuclear ambitions, its
development of long-range, multi-stage missiles and a new awareness
that it is clearly developing a nuclear bomb.
A
consortium of defense agencies and air force units, are now working
on the project. They include members of the recently-disbanded 417th
Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base in California who
last year safely managed the first test drop from a B-52, dubbed
FT-1 MOP for Flight Test1, according to sources at the base. The Air
Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright Patterson Air Force Base
in Ohio and the AFRLs Munitions Directorate and the Air Armament
Center , both headquartered at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida , are
now rushing to modify the bay of a radar-evading B2a Stealth Bomber
to deliver the bomb, according to base sources interviewed. A
collage of private sector subcontractors is also working on effort,
from Stealth bomber manufacturer Northrup-Grumman to Boeings Phantom
Works, maker of the bomb itself and prime contractor for the entire
project. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency in
Virginia
has been coordinating among the various air force groups from the
beginning.
The
Pentagon has been working on the GBU-57A/B MOP for years since
Congress long ago cancelled funding for the highly portable Robust
Nuclear Earth Penetrator, based on the lightweight M-61 nuclear bomb
adapted as a bunker buster. Congress feared the consequences of
radioactive fallout and worried over the inherent limitations of a
nuclear blast radius on deeply buried facilities. In September 2003,
a bi-partisan group of senators led by Diane Feinstein
(D-California) tried to bar further funding for the Robust Nuclear
Earth Penetrator. As she introduced the Amendment 1085, Feinstein
held high pictures of destroyed
Hiroshima
and spoke of the carnage and suffering
Americas
atomic bomb had caused. Her efforts to defund the Robust Nuclear
Earth Penetrator were defeated in a senate voice vote. Only after a
second attempt the next year, was the small nuclear weapon fully
defunded.
In
the meantime, with the nuclear option clearly problematic for bunker
busting, a 2003 study by the Defense Science Board Task Force on
Future Strategic Strike Forces, submitted in February 2004,
recommended a replacement approach. It would be MOP that is,
massive conventional explosives sent burrowing deep into an enemy
position using GPS guidance and the power of its own ground-crashing
weight. The caves at Tora Bora in
Afghanistan
which protected Osama Bin laden, had been examined by the special
defense team. Their report admitted: A deep underground tunnel
facility in a rock geology poses a significant challenge for
non-nuclear weapons. Such a target is difficult to penetrate and the
likelihood of damaging critical functional components deep within
the facility from an energy release is low. Our past test experience
has shown that 2,000 lb. penetrators carrying 500 lbs. of high
explosive are relatively ineffective against tunnels, even when
skipped directly into the tunnel entrance. The new approach would be
for a bomber-delivered massive penetrator. A family of massive
ordnance payloads (20,000 to 30,000 pounds), both penetrator and
blast variants, should be developed to improve conventional attack
effectiveness against deep, expansive, underground tunnel
facilities.
On
November 1, 2004, shortly after Congress approved MOP, the AFRL
awarded a $30 million MOP contract to Boeing. The warhead case was
to be fabricated from a special high performance steel alloy, thus
allowing it to survive a high-speed impact into hardened concrete
bunker facilities. The warhead design and internal cavity were also
optimized for case survivability. Progress Ellwood National Forge of
Irvine
,
Pennsylvania
created the casing according to a design created by General Dynamics
Ordnance and Tactical Systems division in
Niceville
,
Florida
.
By
March 2007, a MOP prototype had been exploded deep under the rugged
mountains of the
White
Sands
Missile
Range
in
New Mexico
in the caverns of the little-known Weapons of Mass Destruction
National Test beds. A slender orange-colored MOP prototype was
vertically hung, nose down, just inches from the floor of a narrow
cavern and then detonated. Its sheer explosive power was
demonstrated. By the end of 2007, a full-size dummy mock-up of the
eventual GBU 57 A/B MOP was loaded into the bay of a B2 at Whiteman
Air Force Base in
Missouri
. A member of the 509th Maintenance Group personally handling the
bomb remarked, "I couldn't help but notice how enormous the
bomb was hanging in the weapons bay.
Early
in 2008, as concern about the nuclear programs of both
Iran
and
North Korea
began intensifying, the defense establishment started focusing more
attention on a delivery system. By February, 2008, the Pentagon
proposed a contract to integrate the bomb into B2 stealth bombers.
In May 2009, the project was fast-tracked via Quick Reaction
Capability purchasing rules that allow an accelerated defense
contract for urgent needs. In mid-July 2009, Boeings McDonnell
Douglas Corporation was awarded a $12,100,000 contract to provide
MOPs for B-2 bomb bays. In mid-August, McDonnell Douglass Corp. was
awarded a second contract, this one $12,500,000 cost plus fixed fee
contract with performance incentives to provide for three MOP
separation test vehicles, associated aircraft and handling equipment
and technical support for release on a B-52 bomber.
In
describing the accelerated program, Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, who
heads weapons acquisition for the Air Force was quoted as saying,
These are purchases beyond just those needed to test the
capability," adding, "In other words, build a small
inventory.