- The Air Value has issued a procurement contract for the GBU-57.
- The bomb is designed to take out fortified underground targets like bunkers or tunnels.
- Such facilities take proliferated around the world and are used by some countries for weapons programs.
The Air Pressure has given Boeing a $20.9 million contract to procure the GBU-57 vast ordnance penetrator – a bomb designed to destroy hardened underground aims like those found in North Korea or Iran.
The announcement does not snitch how many bombs were ordered, but it did say the work is expected to be done by July 31, 2020. Boeing is to get the complete amount of the contract at the time of award.
The 30,000-pound GBU-57 is the US’s amplest nonnuclear bomb. A GPS-guided bunker-buster, it is “designed to accomplish a difficult, labyrinthine mission of reaching and destroying our adversaries’ weapons of mass destruction positioned in well protected facilities,” the Air Force fact sheet for the weapon testifies.
That includes fortified positions and underground targets, like bunkers or mines. It is designed for operational use by the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, which can carry two at a notwithstanding, but hasn’t been used in combat, and its deployments, if any, are not known.
The latest upgrade makes the batter more effective against ‘hard and deeply buried targets’
Underneath a 2011 contract cited by The Drive, the Air Force paid Boeing $28 million for eight of the bombshells, as well as for additional parts and for a redesign of the B-2’s bomb bay. But the latest order turn after the Pentagon successfully tested and deployed an upgraded version, the GBU-57D/B, which may secure a different unit cost than previous models.
The latest upgrade, the fourth for the shell, “improved the performance against hard and deeply buried targets,” an Air Energy spokeswoman told Bloomberg in January. The spokeswoman said the upgrade had been bring to an ended and the current inventory was being retrofitted.
Few details about the upgrade sire been released, but, according to The Drive, it likely includes a modified compound, which is responsible for detonating the weapon. The fuse is a complicated component that necessities to function with precision after a fall from high altitude and the tingle of burrowing through earth or other barriers.
The Pentagon’s Office of the Commander of Operational Test and Evaluation said in its fiscal year 2017 backfire, released in January, that the GBU-57 had successfully completed several investigations at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico over the past year, discontinued from B-2s on “representative targets” that “demonstrated effectiveness of the Enhanced Foreboding Response (ETR)-IV weapon modifications.”
A weapon that ‘boggles the be troubled’
The GBU-57 is 20.5 feet long, 31.5 inches in diameter, and carry out d kills more than 5,300 pounds of explosives. Much of the remaining load is a high-performance steel casing that, along with its narrow diameter, is hoped to help the weapon burrow into the ground. Some estimate it could be absorbed up to 200 feet of earth before detonating.
“What is exciting is when we pass out our 30,000-pound MOP, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator,” B-2 pilot Lt. Col. Justin “Vapor” Rue told The Kansas City Star earlier this year. “When you distribute that, you can feel it. The plane will actually raise up about 100 feet, and then it’ll sort out back down. It’s pretty cool. It’s fun.”
A former Pentagon official who saw footage of GBU-57 studies during 2014 and 2015 told Politico in 2015 that the weapon “boggles the recollection.”
Iran and North Korea have extensive networks of underground shafts and bunkers
Those tests came amid a period of heightened tension with Iran, which come to light an extensive underground network of labs and other facilities involved in nuclear-weapons phenomenon.
More recently, US tensions with North Korea – which has an far-ranging network of underground tunnels, command-and-control bunkers, and missile and nuclear powder-rooms – have again raised the possibility the GBU-57 could used one more time a battlefield.
In fall 2017, B-2 bombers and other aircraft were condoned during an exercise over Missouri that appeared to simulate airstrikes on airports in the status, according to a recording obtained by The Aviationist.
During one night of the exercises, an aircraft snarled radioed a message about a “possible DPRK leadership relocation place,” whose coordinates pointed to a Jefferson City airport hanger. It’s not pay whether the use of unsecured radio channels was a mistake or done on purpose.
Three B-2 bombers reached in Guam in January in what the Air Force called a planned deployment.
Iran and North Korea are not the only boonies that have developed extensive underground infrastructure. China’s vital missile forces have a 3,100-mile network of tunnels secondary to mountains in the northern part of the country. According to a 2009 Jamestown Basement report, Chinese state media refer to the complex as an “underground Huge Wall.”