A bunker buster is a bomb designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground. The Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb produced in the United States. ...

Aircraft delivered bombs

World War II

A U-Boat pen after being hit by a Grand Slam — note the figure standing on the pile of rubble.

In World War II the British designer Barnes Wallis of Bouncing bomb fame, designed two bombs that would today be called bunker busters: the five tonne Tallboy and the ten tonne Grand Slam "Earthquake" bombs. The designs were very aerodynamic with a tail which caused them to spin. This allowed them to break the sound barrier as they fell from a height of 22,000 ft (6,700 m). They had a much stronger casings, made of high grade steels, than the typical World War II bomb so that they would survive the impact of hitting a hardened surface or penetrate deep into the ground. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (800x1142, 549 KB) Please see the file description page for further information. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (800x1142, 549 KB) Please see the file description page for further information. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Sir Barnes Neville Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, CBE, FRS, RDI, commonly known as Barnes Wallis, (September 26, 1887 – October 30, 1979) was an English scientist, engineer and inventor. ... The bouncing bomb was a kind of bomb designed by Barnes Wallis of Vickers-Armstrong at Brooklands, Surrey. ... A tonne or metric ton (symbol t), sometimes referred to as a metric tonne, is a measurement of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. ... Tallboy bomb The Tallboy was an Earth Quake bomb developed by Barnes Wallis and brought into operation by the British in 1944. ... A British 22,000 lb (10,000 kg) Grand Slam bomb The Grand Slam (Earth Quake bomb), was a very large freefall bomb developed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis (who also made the bouncing bomb) in late 1944. ... The earth quake bomb concept was invented by Barnes Wallis before the second world war. ... A foot (plural: feet or foot;[1] symbol or abbreviation: ft or, sometimes, ′ – a prime) is a unit of length, in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ... metre or meter, see meter (disambiguation) The metre is the basic unit of length in the International System of Units. ...

Though these bombs might be thought of as 'bunker busters' today, in fact the original 'earthquake' theory was more complex and subtle than simply penetrating a hardened surface. The Earthquake bombs were designed not to strike a target directly, but to impact beside it, penetrate under it, and create a 'camouflet' or large buried cavern at the same time as delivering a shock wave through the target's foundations. The target then collapses into the hole, no matter how hardened it may be. The bombs had strong casings because they needed to travel through rock rather than reinforced concrete, though of course they could perform equally well against hardened surfaces. In an attack on the U-boat pens at Farge two Grand Slams went through the 15 ft (4.5 m) reinforced concrete hardening^[1] — equalling or exceeding the best current penetration specifications. A Camouflet is military science term to describe an artificial cavern created by an explosion to undermine a structure. ... U-boat pens were large concrete bunkers erected along Frances Bay of Biscay by the German Third Reich during World War II. The pens were designed to protect German submarines (U-boats) from Allied bombs, and were generally effective until the introduction of the Tallboy bomb which was able... Farge is a small port on the Weser River north of Bremen. ...

Post war the U.S. added a form of remote control guidance to the Tallboy to create the Tarzon.

The Disney Rocket-Assisted Bomb was another World War II device to be used against U-boat pens and other super-hardened targets. Designed by a Royal Navy Captain it was streamlined hardened case bomb weighing some 4,500 lb (2 tonnes). The bomb was dropped from 20,000 ft (~6,000 m). At 5,000 ft (~1,500 m) a barometric fuse fired the rocket in the tail to give it a velocity at impact of up to 2,400 ft/second (730 m/s). It was first used by the 92nd Bomb Group on 10 February 1945 on U-boat pens at IJmuiden in The Netherlands.- one bomb under each wing of 9 B-17 Flying Fortress. On that occasion a single direct hit was scored. A total of 158 "Disney Bombs" were used operationally by the end of hostilities in Europe. Schematic drawing of a simple mercury barometer with vertical mercury column and reservoir at base A barometer is an instrument used to measure atmospheric pressure. ... February 10 is the 41st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Velsen (population: 67,642 in 2004) is a municipality in the north-western Netherlands, in the province of North Holland, on both sides of the North Sea Canal. ... Motto: Je Maintiendrai (Dutch: Ik zal handhaven, English: I Shall Uphold) Anthem: Wilhelmus van Nassouwe Capital Amsterdam1 Largest city Amsterdam Official language(s) Dutch2 Government Parliamentary democracy Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Beatrix  - Prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende Independence Eighty Years War   - Declared July 26, 1581   - Recognised January 30, 1648 (by Spain... A B_17 nicknamed Sally B in England in 2001 The B_17 Flying Fortress was the first mass_produced, four_engine heavy bomber. ...

Modern

An example of bunker busters at work at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait

During Operation Desert Storm (1991) there was a need for deep penetration bomb similar to the British weapons of World War II, but none of the NATO air forces had such a weapon, though the RAF still retains several of Barnes Wallis' bombs as museum pieces. As a stop-gap, some were developed rapidly over a period of 28 days, using old 8 inch (203 mm) artillery barrels as casings. These bombs weighed over two tons but carried only 647 lb of high explosive. They were laser-guided and were designated "Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28)". They worked very effectively. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (800 × 600 pixel, file size: 148 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) (All user names refer to en. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (800 × 600 pixel, file size: 148 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) (All user names refer to en. ... Ali Al Salem is an airfield situated in Kuwait approximately 23 miles from the Iraqi border. ... Combatants U.S.-led coalition Iraq Commanders George H. W. Bush, Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell Saddam Hussein, Ali Hassan Al-Majid, Hussein Kamel Strength 660,000 ~545,000 Casualties 345 dead, 1,000 wounded 25,000 - 100,000 dead, 100,000 - 300,000 wounded The 1991 Gulf War (also Persian... Categories: Air-dropped bombs ...

More recently the US has developed a series of custom made bombs to penetrate hardened or deeply buried structures:

The Mark 84 is an American general-purpose bomb, the largest of the Mark 80 series of weapons. ... American Paveway-series laser-guided bomb, based on the Mk 84 general-purpose bomb, but with laser seeker and wings for guidance. ... Guided Bomb Unit 15 is an unpowered, glide weapon used to destroy high-value enemy targets. ... Advanced American Paveway-series laser-guided bomb, based on the Mk 84 general-purpose bomb, but with laser seeker and wings for guidance. ... Laser-guided bomb. ... The AGM-130 is a missile developed by the United States of America. ... Guided Bomb Unit 15 is an unpowered, glide weapon used to destroy high-value enemy targets. ... Advanced American Paveway-series laser-guided bomb, based on the Mk 84 general-purpose bomb, but with laser seeker and wings for guidance. ... Laser-guided bomb. ... The AGM-130 is a missile developed by the United States of America. ... Thermobaric weapons distinguish themselves from conventional explosive weapons by using atmospheric oxygen, instead of carrying an oxidizer in their explosives. ... Guided Bomb Unit 15 is an unpowered, glide weapon used to destroy high-value enemy targets. ... Advanced American Paveway-series laser-guided bomb, based on the Mk 84 general-purpose bomb, but with laser seeker and wings for guidance. ... The AGM-130 is a missile developed by the United States of America. ... Categories: Air-dropped bombs ... Specs not yet available. ...

Fuzing

The traditional fuze is the same as a classic armor-piercing bomb: a combination of timer and a sturdy dynamic propellor on the rear of the bomb. The fuze is armed when the bomb is released, and detonates when the propellor stops turning and the timer has expired. In an explosive device, a fuse (or fuze) is the part of the device that causes it to function. ... ...

Modern bunker busters may use the traditional fuze, but some also include a microphone and microcontroller. The microphones listens, and the microcontroller counts floors until the bomb busts through the desired numbers of floors. A microphone, sometimes referred to as a mike or mic (both IPA pronunciation: ), is an acoustic to electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. ... The integrated circuit from an Intel 8742, an 8-bit microcontroller that includes a CPU running at 12 MHz, 128 bytes of RAM, 2048 bytes of EPROM, and I/O in the same chip. ...

Missiles

A guided bomb strikes its target in a weapons test

The extra speed provided by a rocket motor enables greater penetration of a missile-mounted bunker buster warhead. To reach maximum penetration (Impact depth), the warhead may consist of a high density projectile only. Such a warhead carries more energy than a warhead with chemical explosives (kinetic energy of a projectile at hypervelocity). Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (400x945, 211 KB) Source: 3 separate images from http://www. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (400x945, 211 KB) Source: 3 separate images from http://www. ... BOLT-117 laser guided bomb Precision-guided munitions (smart munitions or smart bombs) are self-guiding weapons intended to maximize damage to the target while minimizing collateral damage. Because the damage effects of an explosive weapon scale as a power law with distance, quite modest improvements in accuracy (and hence... The physicist Sir Isaac Newton first developed this idea to get rough approximations for the impact depth for projectiles travelling at high velocities. ... Hypervelocity is usually refered to a very high velocity, such as over 10,000 feet per second. ...

Halts in production

The McAlester, Oklahoma production plant for the U.S. Military halted the production of 2,000 pound (900 kg) bunker buster bombs on two occasions. The first, on February 8, 2005, revealed that 17 employees who made the weapons had low blood oxygen levels because of their exposure to trinitrotoluene(TNT). Later in August, 34 workers were also found to be anemic. Production restarted on January 1, 2005 after a new ventilation system was installed, but halted again on March 2 of the same year when blood tests confirmed continued adverse effects to employee health from TNT exposure. [1] McAlester is a city located in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. ... The armed forces of the United States of America consist of the United States Army United States Navy United States Air Force United States Marine Corps United States Coast Guard Note: The United States Coast Guard has both military and law enforcement functions. ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... R-phrases S-phrases Related Compounds Related compounds picric acid hexanitrobenzene Except where noted otherwise, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 Â°C, 100 kPa) Infobox disclaimer and references Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. ... 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in August August 31: Michael Sheard August 26: Lord Fitt August 24: Jack Slipper August 24: Maurice Cowling August 24: Dr. Tom Pashby August 23: Brock Peters August 22: Lord Lane August 21: Robert Moog August... Now darker and more mature, but still as fresh and melody-driven as ever, Anemic make up in killer tunes all they lack in lyrical genius. ... January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... March 2 is the 61st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (62nd in leap years). ...

Nuclear

See Nuclear bunker buster Subsidence craters left over after underground nuclear (test) explosions Bunker-busting nuclear weapons, also known as earth-penetrating weapons (EPW), are a type of nuclear weapon designed to penetrate into soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclear warhead to a target. ...

Further reading

• Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator
• BBC: 'Bunker buster' missiles aim at Moon
• Annotated bibliography for nuclear bunker buster bombs from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Read Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Bunker Busters
• Video against usage (produced by Union of Concerned Scientists)

Footnotes

1. ^ Bomber Command Official RAF History website

Other external links

• Video of bunker buster bomb in action