Iran nuclear sites may be beyond reach of "bunker busters" - Yahoo! News
There seems to be quite a bit of debate on the feasability of US or Isreali airstrikes against Iran's hardened nuclear facilities - particulary the one @ Fordow which is suspected to be 60m-80m underground. There are some doubts if the US 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) would be able to penetrate deep enough to destroy the site.
What I'm a little confused about is that the envisioned scenarios all seem to be based around a single strike. I would imagine that if the US wanted those facilities destroyed badly enough, they would supress or destroy the Iranian air defense network sufficiently to allow continous bombing of these hardened sites until they were destroyed. Even if a single strike with MOPs would not work - how about multiple strikes with MOPs (and other ordnance) over the course of several days?
Even if ultimately the facilities cannot be penetrated, if tunnels are buried, airshafts and transportation infastrcuture leading up to the facilities are destroyed, they're ultimately useless.
I would imagine that strikes that fail to completely penetrate and destroy the facilities would still inflict casualties on (or simply entomb) the highly trainined (and probably difficult to replace) engineers, scientists and technicians necessary to run such a place.
The B-2 is the primary delivery platform for the MOP - so the us may not even need to attack the Iranian Air Defense System - would B-2s be able to launch multiple strikes undetected by Iranian radar?
Adrian
There seems to be quite a bit of debate on the feasability of US or Isreali airstrikes against Iran's hardened nuclear facilities - particulary the one @ Fordow which is suspected to be 60m-80m underground. There are some doubts if the US 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) would be able to penetrate deep enough to destroy the site.
What I'm a little confused about is that the envisioned scenarios all seem to be based around a single strike. I would imagine that if the US wanted those facilities destroyed badly enough, they would supress or destroy the Iranian air defense network sufficiently to allow continous bombing of these hardened sites until they were destroyed. Even if a single strike with MOPs would not work - how about multiple strikes with MOPs (and other ordnance) over the course of several days?
Even if ultimately the facilities cannot be penetrated, if tunnels are buried, airshafts and transportation infastrcuture leading up to the facilities are destroyed, they're ultimately useless.
I would imagine that strikes that fail to completely penetrate and destroy the facilities would still inflict casualties on (or simply entomb) the highly trainined (and probably difficult to replace) engineers, scientists and technicians necessary to run such a place.
The B-2 is the primary delivery platform for the MOP - so the us may not even need to attack the Iranian Air Defense System - would B-2s be able to launch multiple strikes undetected by Iranian radar?
Adrian