Israel Matzav

Massive Ordnance Penetrator delivered to US Air Force

Bloomberg is reporting that the United States has finally deployed the oft-delayed 30,000 ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). The MOP is a massive bunker buster which is deployed on a B-2 bomber. It is thought to be especially useful for reaching underground installations in Iran.

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.

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.

The B-2, developed by Falls Church, Virginia-based Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC), has a shape and skin capable of evading radar. It’s the only U.S. bomber designed to penetrate air defenses such as those believed in use by North Korea and Iran. It’s also the only aircraft currently capable of carrying the new bomb.

The B-2 has bombed targets in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Three in March flew round-trip, non-stop missions from Missouri to Libya in the opening hours of U.S. air strikes, dropping 45 bombs.

Little authoritative information has been published about the capability of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. A December 2007 story by the Air Force News Service said it has a hardened- steel casing and can reach targets as far down as 200 feet underground before exploding.

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.

The Pentagon in July 2009 formally asked Congress to shift funds in order to accelerate by three years fielding the weapon.

Read the whole thing. I've discussed the MOP many times, albeit not recently. You can find a list of those links here.

Labels: bunker busters, Iranian nuclear threat, Massive Ordnance Penetrator

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:56 AM