Ought to the US enter the battle between Israel and Iran, it will be anticipated to play a key position in destroying Iran’s underground uranium enrichment amenities.
That activity would nearly actually fall to a choose variety of US bomber planes which might be large enough to ship a 30,000lb precision-guided bomb, referred to as the GBU-57 E/B Huge Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP — the world’s strongest non-nuclear bomb.
Dropped from a B2 stealth bomber, the 6m-long MOP can reportedly penetrate with sheer kinetic power greater than 60 metres of rock and soil — relying on the earth’s hardness — earlier than exploding. As a result of it’s precision-guided, a number of bombs can in idea be dropped on a single spot.
That provides the MOP, which is extra highly effective than any recognized typical bomb in Israel’s arsenal, doubtlessly sufficient affect to destroy a lot of Iran’s underground enrichment amenities, particularly the Natanz web site, which is considered buried 20 metres underground and encased in some 2 metres of strengthened concrete.
Nonetheless, it is probably not sufficient to destroy the more-heavily protected Fordow facility, which is buried inside a mountain below as a lot as 80 metres of rock and soil — regardless that the bomb was developed for that particular objective.
Rafael Grossi, head of the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company, has mentioned that a few of Fordow’s most delicate amenities could also be buried even deeper, as a lot as half a mile underground.
“I’ve been there many occasions,” he instructed the FT this month. “To get there you’re taking a spiral tunnel down, down, down.”
The shortage of any assure {that a} profitable bomb strike, or perhaps a collection of strikes, would destroy most or all of any already enriched nuclear stockpile in Fordow remembers an analogous predicament confronted by the US up to now.
When the US was considering a pre-emptive bombing marketing campaign towards Soviet nuclear weapons stationed in Cuba in the course of the 1962 Cuban missile disaster, a key concern was a possible failure to destroy all of the targets — a danger calculus that prompted President Kennedy to go for a naval blockade and diplomacy as an alternative.
“The US Air Pressure had been solely assured that they may destroy 85 per cent of the targets — which is why there have been additionally plans for a follow-up floor invasion,” mentioned Robert Pape, a US navy historian and writer of Bombing to Win, a landmark survey of twentieth century bombing campaigns.
“Within the Iranian case, how can the US Nationwide Safety Council ensure that they’re going to get every little thing? That’s the huge subject,” he mentioned.
Manufactured by Boeing, the MOP has been examined on the White Sands Missile Vary in New Mexico however has by no means been utilized in lively fight. That doubtlessly introduces a second drawback.
“To destroy Fordow, which the MOP was explicitly designed for, would in all probability take at the least two bombs, every hitting precisely the identical spot,” Pape mentioned.
“Which may be advantageous, and I’m positive the US Air Pressure has the technical capabilities. However it’s by no means been performed earlier than in an actual struggle.”
The MOP’s 22,000lb predecessor, the Huge Ordnance Air Blast or MOAB, colloquially referred to as the Mom of All Bombs, was much less highly effective however was used to devastating impact in Afghanistan in 2017. It was dropped on a cave complicated operated by an Islamic State affiliate in Nangarhar Province.
The MOP — which was developed from 2002, first deployed in 2011, and periodically upgraded since then — is an improved and extra focused model of the MOAB: its explosive cost is larger and is carried inside a particularly inflexible steel casing that enables for penetration earlier than explosion.
The US arsenal is assumed to comprise about 20 MOPs. Every bomb prices about $4mn, based mostly on a 2011 $28mn US Air Pressure contract for eight of them.
Solely the B2 Spirit Stealth bomber is configured to hold and ship the MOP. There are 20 B2 bombers in service, in accordance with the US Air Pressure, every of them able to carrying two MOPs, one in every of its bomb bays.
The bomber, made by Northrop Grumman, has an unfuelled vary of 11,000km, or 19,000km with one mid-air refuelling — making nearly any goal on the planet reachable.
Regardless of the fearsome capabilities of each the MOP and B2 bomber, any mission to destroy the Fordow plant would face different tactical difficulties, Pape mentioned.
The primary is that to drop a couple of bomb on the ability may require the B2 bomber to loiter above its goal, turning into weak to Iranian air defences.
“The B2 is a stealth bomber, however it’s designed to keep away from radar — it’s not stealthy in each side,” Pape mentioned. “For instance, it has a really flat backside — which might make it as weak as a 737 aircraft to anti-air missiles.”
The second problem would contain clearing a protected flight path for the B2 bomber to its goal. That may very well be performed through the use of anti-radar cruise missiles that might take out any Iranian radar installations that Israeli forces haven’t already destroyed.
“However Iran could effectively have anticipated the US chopping such a hall,” Pape mentioned. “The bombing raid could effectively work — however it will have to be launched into understanding that it has by no means been performed earlier than.”
Further graphics by Gaku Ito
