Bunker Buster

[Paul E. Robichaux]

Someone's conflated the B61-11 with the GBU-28.

The B61-11, referred to in the FAS article, is an air-delivered tactical
nuclear weapon with selectable yield. Getting it 15ft underground would
probably do the trick.

The GBU-28 is basically a 155mm artillery barrel packed full of explosives.
Well, OK, not really, but that's what the first set of GBU-28s used in Gulf
War I were. Slap some guidance fins and a standard LGB kit on it, and voila!
The hardened steel of the barrel makes for a dandy ground penetrator.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Brown [mailto:k.brown at ccs.bbk.ac.uk] 
> Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 6:37 AM
> To: cypherpunks at lne.com
> Subject: Re: Bunker Buster
> 
> 
> Max Inux wrote:
> > 
> > These things are TOUGH MOTHER FUCKER that go big boom.
> > 
> > -Max
> > 
> > http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/n19980326_980417.html
>  
> [...]
> 
> > A team excavated the two unexploded dummy bombs and took careful 
> > measurements of their angles and depth of penetration into 
> the soil, 
> > which were 6 and 10 feet,
> 
> If those figures are true (If I had a new weapon I wouldn't 
> publish exact details of its capabilities) then it achieves 
> rather less penetration than Barnes Wallis's tallboy bombs of 
> 1944 (one of which sank the Tirpitz).  
> 
> If they use these things they'll surely  use them as simple 
> deep penetration bombs? The "nuclear" part of it, if any, 
> will be the depleted uranium inner casing, presumably a way 
> of making it smaller. Penetration of any bunker the Taliban 
> are likely to have with such a bomb will destroy it anyway, 
> and putting a exploding nuke in will just kill the sheep on 
> the surrounding hillsides. We're not talking about Cheyenne 
> Mountain here. 
> 
> The old WW2 deep penetration bombs were huge things with 
> fins, like a cartoon bomb in a comic
> (http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/irmurray/pictures/617
bombs.jpg)
The larger 1945 version of the Tallboy, called the Grand Slam, supposedly
penetrated over 7 metres of concrete when used in action - but it did weigh
ten tons & hit the ground at twice the speed of sound. Apparently the shock
of the impact did as much damage as the explosion, causing structures to
break up up to hundreds of metres away, literally an "earthquake bomb".

Of course it is always possible that Dr. Strangelove is still in the employ
of the US military and that some insane looney  with a grudge against sheep
does want to use nukes. Sensible arguments about the idiocy of developing new
exploding nukes can be found all over the web - the first google hit on
B61-11 is 
http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/lasg.htm and worth reading. FAS, as
always, has heaps of stuff.

Ken Brown