No Bunker-Buster Bomb in Israel’s U.S. Arms Deal

[Purveyor]

Source: New York Times

TEL AVIV – American and Israeli defense officials welcomed a new arms sale agreement on Monday as a major step toward increasing Israel’s military strength, but Israeli officials said it still left them without the weapons they would need if they decided to attack Iran’s deepest and best-protected nuclear sites.

The mixed message came as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yaalon, reaffirmed their commitment to stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, while sidestepping a continuing disagreement between the two countries about how close to allow Iran to get toward such a goal.

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But what the Israelis wanted most was a weapons system that is missing from the package: a giant bunker-busting bomb designed to penetrate earth and reinforced concrete to destroy deeply buried sites. According to both American and Israeli analysts, it is the only weapon that would have a chance of destroying the Iranian nuclear fuel enrichment center at Fordow, which is buried more than 200 feet under a mountain outside the holy city of Qum.

The weapon, called a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, weighs about 30,000 pounds — so much that Israel does not have any aircraft capable of carrying it. To do so, they would need a B-2 bomber, the stealth aircraft that the United States flew nonstop recently from Missouri to the Korean Peninsula to underscore to North Korea that it could reach their nuclear sites.

MORE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/world/middleeast/israel-hagel-iran.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/world/middleeast/israel-hagel-iran.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. Its not a magic technology

The IDF has copied runway busters already, this should not be too hard. Roll it out of a C-130 (which they have) and off it goes.

That said, anyone want to take odds that the US would send them over on a B-2 if they asked?

[Socal31]

2. Even without S-300s ready to go........

A C-130 wouldn't make it 40 miles into Persian airspace.

What makes you think we would do it? They have asked us multiple times already.

[Purveyor]

4. Even though the Russian's supposedly 'reneged' on their S-300's deal, the Iranians built their own

Last edited Tue Apr 23, 2013, 11:08 AM - Edit history (1)

after the Russian's gave them the spec's. This way Russia is able to say we 'didn't'....

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. That would depend on how good the IDF SEAD is versus the resiliency of the Iranian IADS

The IAF also has some excellent defensive EW gear. I recall some other strikes that the IAF has done where the managed to get past the best SAMs in the region at the time.

I am not sure what this administration would say if they got evidence that Iran was indeed building nuclear weapons.

Both are coin flips at this point and well above our pay grades

[Socal31]

7. You are thinking of Operation Orchard possibly.

Many Anti-Air soldiers were demoted or executed after that embarrassment.

Iran is indeed attempting to build nuclear weapons. Medical research and energy are not what they are after.

The only thing that has not been decided is the "red line", when Israel will start the show.


Trust me though, the strikes they did that have averted modern SAMs were not with C-130s.

[olddad56]

3. The US just can't arm the middle east enough.

[Brimley]

6. Bibi not get everything Bibi want?

Good!