Air Force’s Mega-Bunker Buster Bomb Is Finally Ready
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Boeing’s mega-bunker-buster bomb during its first explosive test at White Sands Missile Range, 2007. Photo: Wikimedia
Just as the U.S. returns its attention to concealed weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria and (possibly) Iran, the Air Force is saying its mega-weapon for blowing up hidden factories of death is finally ready.
That would be the Massive Ordnance Penetrator — all 30,000 destructive pounds of it. It’s an absolutely ginormous bomb designed to convince rogue regimes that there is no redoubt for the manufacture of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons buried deep enough to escape the U.S. Air Force.
The military has been at work super-sizing its bunker-busters for years, and the Massive Ordnance Penetrator is the premiere upgraded weapon. Supposedly, it can penetrate 60 feet of reinforced concrete, although it depends just how hard that concrete is. Although the Pentagon has spent over $200 million developing 30 of the bombs, there are doubts over how well equipped it is to destroy the hardened facilities believed to house Iran’s nuclear program.
The secretary of the Air Force does not share those doubts. “If it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that,” Secretary Michael Donley told Danger Room pal Jeff Schogol of Air Force Times. “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.”
