M. O. P.

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MOPping Up: The USA's 30,000 Pound GBU-57 Bomb
Jun 10, 2013 16:08 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff

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"In an effort to show Israel and other ally states that it is capable of striking Iran's nuclear plants, the US has recently conducted a test of its bunker buster bomb, destroying a replica of an underground nuclear facility, Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot reported on Friday.

The nuclear facility replica, that cost millions of dollars to build, was
...
Grand Slam Bomb
"Grand Slam"
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During the Second World War, attacking heavily protected targets like U-boat pens and protected "V-weapon" facilities was a key challenge. Enter a brilliant British engineer named Barnes Wallis, fresh off the dam-busting "Upkeep" bouncing bomb. His next trick was a 12,000 pound weapon called the "Tallboy external link," a streamlined, spin-stabilized bomb with a claimed terminal velocity of Mach 1 external link when dropped from 20,000 feet. That mass, carrying 5,200 pounds of Torpex D1 explosive, made a crater 80 feet deep x 100 feet across when it hit. By 1945, Wallis' next "Earthquake bomb" was in production – the 22,000 pound "Grand Slam external link." His creations made short work of U-boat pens external link.

These bombs went out of fashion with the advent of nuclear weapons, but if you wait long enough, fashion comes around again. Enter the USA's new GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). Despite additional funding, and October promises of accelerated deployment, the MOP did not arrive by mid-2010, as planned. Development continues, however, including a set of upgrades ordered in 2012 that are aimed at closing the gap against specific targets"¦

The MOP Program


The Program

Massive Ordnance Penetrator Boeing Load
Boeing MOP


The GBU-57A/B MOP project began in 2004 as a proof of technology demonstration, with early tests conducted by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency that focuses on securing and cooperatively destroying nuclear materials and bio-chemical weapons. With the FY 2006 demise of the RNEP nuclear bunker-buster program, MOP stepped into the spotlight as a way to address advancing trends. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman external link:


"The threats have been developing over the years"¦ There are, without getting into any intelligence, there are countries that have used technologies to go further under ground and to take those facilities and make them hardened. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one."

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell adds external link:


"The reality is that the world we live in is one in which there are people who seek to build weapons of mass destruction, and they seek to do so in a clandestine fashion," he said. "And this has been a capability that we have long believed was missing from our quiver, our arsenal, and we wanted to make sure we filled in that gap."

MOP flight tests began in 2008, and in February 2010, the DTRA MOP Technology Demonstration transitioned to the USAF as a Quick Reaction Capability Program. Most MOPs produced have been used in test, and a 2012 contract aimed at a sequence of upgrades. Those upgrades were reportedly tested in 2013.

Northrop Grumman is the B-2A prime contractor, and leads the MOP integration effort. Boeing Company is the prime contractor to produce the MOP, and will also be the B-52 fleet integrator. They serve as a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman for the B-2 integration effort.


This 30,000 pound weapon is approximately 31.5 inches in diameter and 20.5 feet long, with about the same amount of explosives inside as Wallis' Tallboy (5,300 pounds). It isn't the biggest bomb the USA has ever built – the 44,000 pound T12 external link has that distinction – but it could well become the biggest conventional bomb ever used. Even the famous GBU-43 MOAB external link (Mother Of All Bombs) thermobaric weapon weighs in at only 21,000 pounds.

Unlike the MOAB, however, this project's goal is a GPS-guided, hard-penetrating weapon that can be carried aboard B-2A Spirit bombers to defeat "a specialized set of hard and deeply buried targets" like bunkers and tunnel facilities. Some graphics show expectations of over 60 feet of concrete destroyed, and a USAF article stated that the bomb was meant to penetrate 200 feet underground before exploding.

That may have been revised upward in the 2012 upgrade, which tried to address perceived shortfalls against known targets. Upgrades reportedly include more precise guidance through undisclosed means, adjustment of the detonator fuze to withstand impact with layers of granite and steel, and the ability to reject guidance-jamming attempts and operate in "contested environments."

About 8 operational GBU-57s have been publicly ordered to date, and a number of bomb bodies and flight test weapons have been detonated in tests.

The B-2A will be able to carry 2 MOPs: one in each bay, mounted to the existing forward and aft mounting hardware.

The B-52H Stratofortress has been used in tests, but it won't be used operationally. Any target you'd want to use an MOP on will be very heavily defendhttp://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/mopping-up-the-usas-30000-pound-bomb-03172/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=did&utm_medium=headline&utm_term=MOPping_Up:_The_USAMed, and a B-52 run would lend new meaning to the term "suicide bomber."
 

SajeevJino

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The B-52H Stratofortress has been used in tests, but it won't be used operationally.
photos available in Internet too Showing a B 52 dropping a MOP

 

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