Now that's a BOMB !

[CoffmanStarter]

The 30,000-lb GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).

http://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/B-2-MOP.jpg

The heavy GBU-57 is a 20-foot long GPS-guided bomb believed to be able to penetrate 200 feet of concrete before exploding,

More detail here ...

The Aviationist (http://theaviationist.com/2013/10/28/b-2-mop/#.Um6dDLIgGK0)

Coff.

Image Credit : Jim Mumaw

[Willard Whyte]

At least they haven't drawn a cartoon picture of the prophet muhammed on it.

Yet.

[Wander00]

They will, they will. unfortunately

[air pig]

Both Tallboy and Gram Slam looked far more bomb like than a waste bin with fins on. This is not a great step beyond 1944.

[West Coast]

And you know this how?

Are you privy to the details of the weapon?

[Lord Spandex Masher]

I'm only guessing but it might be because he can see the picture in the OP.

But it is only a guess.

[Wander00]

Call me cynical, but that looks a very lightweight trolley for 30k lb......just a thought

[mad_jock]

Surely the blue line means its not a proper one so might not be the full weight?

[NutLoose]

Why would you need a bomb that big to penetrate 200ft, the Gulf War jobbies were converted artillery barrels with a little charge onboard, with nowhere to for the blast to escape it did the job.
More
GBU-28 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-28)

[diginagain]

Surely the blue line means its not a proper one so might not be the full weight? This place is getting more like Wikileaks every day. I wonder what they'll use as a delivery vehicle?

[Canadian Break]

Dig...errrrrrrrrrr..............the trolley?:E

[just another jocky]

Why would you need a bomb that big to penetrate 200ft, the Gulf War jobbies were converted artillery barrels with a little charge onboard, with nowhere to for the blast to escape it did the job.

Perhaps 60ft of concrete penetration vs 200ft?

[Lonewolf_50]

There are not many images showing the GBU-57 and even less show the MOP next to its intended platform. That’s why the top image, taken by Jim Mumaw in Jul. 2009, is extremely interesting and rare.

Or, it's a wind up/disinfo. ;)

[CoffmanStarter]

One of those infographic things ...

http://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20111120200436.jpg

More on the GPU-57

GPU-57 (http://theaviationist.com/tag/gbu-57/#.Um6037IgGSO)

B2 mounted ...

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af162/CoffmanStarter/image_zps6ce96d73.jpg

[4ROCK]

Surely that thing will need one under the other wing or it will just fly around in circles..................??!!:hmm:

[MPN11]

I must email an old buddy and see if he's the photographer.

[dragartist]

Reminds me of the joke about the wife and the thermos flask in the sex shop!

[reds & greens]

Ouch, that will smart.
You'll need more than 2 paracetamol if that hits you...

[Eclectic]

The Gulf War jobbies were a lot less effective than advertised. Post war audit is what led to new weapons being developed.
MOP is only as interim, stopgap weapon, developed to cover the capability requirement against North Korea and Iran.
It is flawed in that it lacks a void sensor so can go clean through its target and keep going, exploding ineffectively some distance later.
Its replacement will have similar penetration capabilities but will weigh a lot less, it will use velocity in order to penetrate instead of just sheer mass.

Israel's lack of this weapon is one reason they haven't attacked Iran yet, they need USA involvement to do the primary bunker busting.

But the Iranians have developed a world lead in ultra high strength concretes. So even these MOPs might not do the job.
Interesting Economist article: The economist: Iran makes some of the world’s toughest concrete | Pakistan Defence Forum (http://defence.pk/threads/the-economist-iran-makes-some-of-the-world%C2%92s-toughest-concrete.164404/)

[Lonewolf_50]

Unless I am mistaken, all B-2 ordnance is internally carried.
It's a stealth thing, as I understand it.
Dropping one of these is likely like taking a nice 30,000 pound crap, with a likely trim adjustment immediately necessary! :uhoh:

[mad_jock]

This place is getting more like Wikileaks every day

I don't know why the MIL-STD 709C ammunition colour code chart is freely available on the internet.

[dead_pan]

Unless I am mistaken, all B-2 ordnance is internally carried.

Wot, not a specially designed wing-tip hard-point?

I find it hard to credit that any air-launched weapon could penetrate 200' of concrete and still be in a fit state to detonate, unless it was tipped with a thermal lance.

[smujsmith]

30,000 lbs is impressive. I remember an exchange visit with 8th SOS at Hurlbert Field, when they gave us a look at the 15,000 lb MOAB (Mother of all Bombs) (Daisy Cutter ?) which they dropped in both Vietnam and GW1 I believe. That was some size of bomb, I assume this is twice as massive.

Smudge:ok:

[500N]

I thought it was Afghanistan they also used it (Daisy Cutter).

[Lonewolf_50]

Correction time.

MOAB is NOT Daisy Cutter. Daisy Cutter was BLU-82. 15,000 pound bomb.

Delivered from either a C-130 or an MC-130 transport aircraft.

The BLU-82 was retired in 2008 and replaced with the more powerful MOAB aka GBU-43, a 22, 500 pound bomb.

There is some rumor that the Russians have developed a large bomb like this, non-nuclear, that they claim is about four times more powerful than MOAB. Not sure what they call it, most likely

Blotdachitouttayovksy

[Eclectic]

WW2 Grand Slam was 22,000 lb.

[Lonewolf_50]

Carried by what aircraft?

EDIT: I looked it up. Lancaster.
Way to go RAF! :ok:

[500N]

Wasn't it the Lancaster Bomber that carried it ?

Specially modified !!!

[Navaleye]

Grand Slam was not as effective as you might think against hardened targets as it had a tendency to break up. 6 tons of Torpex still makes quite a mess tho.

[500N]

Navaleye

I thought it was the Tallboy that broke up but the grand Slam didn't
which was why it was made.

[air pig]

In fact both Tallboy and Grand Slam were designed to go down the side of concrete structures to cause an earthquake effect to break the foundations. In the case of plain ground look at the pictures of the Saumer Tunnel. One at either end and one by accident in the middle.

[dead_pan]

There is some rumor that the Russians have developed a large bomb like this

Its more than a rumour:

QkWCCzwV14A

[diginagain]

I don't know why the MIL-STD 709C ammunition colour code chart is freely available on the internet. I don't know why either, but someone must find it jolly useful - good old Tim Berners-Lee.

[Navaleye]

I recommend a very good book called "A hell of a bomb". Complete history of both. Also recommend reading the history of the bunker called Valentin.

[Courtney Mil]

That's not a bomb. This is a bomb...

Atomic Table : Homemade nuke - YouTube

[mad_jock]

I don't know why either, but someone must find it jolly useful

Its part of civi pilots dangerous goods course as well.

[tartare]

Actually fellas, thread drift, but in a geeky kind of way, that Economist article about ultra high performance concrete is very interesting.
Have a look at the Ductal website - amazing house and structures built with the stuff - ductility approaching steel.
You learn something everyday.

[Navaleye]

A quick check up says it was the Tallboy that was the most the most effective against hardened targets. Grand Slam was an extension of the original idea but neither were designed to defeat 20+ feet of reinforced concrete with a bomb trap on top. The light case relative to its weight/speed worked against it. I doubt the 200 feet claim for the US weapon and note this is not an official claim.

I have been on the roof of the Uboat pens at Brest and seen what a Tallboy can do and you would be astonished.

Brest, France - YouTube

[dead_pan]

I doubt the 200 feet claim for the US weapon and note this is not an official claim.

Indeed - methinks either the marketing department has got a bit ahead of itself with that infographic, or its a typo (200"? :ok:)

[ericferret]

I remember reading recently about a German bomb disposal team dealing with an unexploded 22,000 pounder. I suppose the only real difference between that and a 250 pounder when you have your stethoscope on the casing is that your mates are standing further back.

[Navaleye]

I think the "Air Blast" part of its name gives it away 500N. The US used similar weapons in Vietnam to great LZs very quickly.

[gr4techie]

Call me cynical, but that looks a very lightweight trolley for 30k lb......just a thought

30,000 lbs is impressive. I remember an exchange visit with 8th SOS at Hurlbert Field, when they gave us a look at the 15,000 lb MOAB (Mother of all Bombs) (Daisy Cutter ?) which they dropped in both Vietnam and GW1 I believe. That was some size of bomb, I assume this is twice as massive.

Smudge

Are you aware that, for bombs, the figure 3o,ooo lbs is the TNT equivalent of the explosive force.

For example, a 1.45 Megaton nuclear bomb fitted to a B-52 does not weigh 1.45 Megaton, it is the yeld of the explosion.

Size wize, a kiloton of TNT can be visualized as a cube of TNT of 8.46 metres (27.8 ft) on a side.

[500N]

Naval

I deleted my post as I made a mistake about which bomb we were talking about.

Yes, AB dos make a difference.

Either way, I would prefer not to be near any of them when they went off :O

[Navaleye]

The MOAB is a vegetation, people on surface clearing device. The weapon highlighted is a deep penetration weapon with a very strong body. A modern day Grand Slam. BTW, we also had 22,000lb BlockBusters in WW2.

[Warmtoast]

The illustration in post #14 states: Total Weight 13,608 kg, Warhead 2,700 kg - so what's the rest of the weapon's remaining 10,908 kg made of - concrete , depleted uranium or what?

[500N]

The UK had a show that was shown out here, of all the different WWII bombs
shown against a row of houses (built to simulate a typical row in a city
in the UK during the war).

It was well done. Having listened to my mother and grand mother over
the years of WWII bombings.


I did manage to create a Mushroom cloud once, albeit non nuclear
but it looked pretty spectacular. The engine from the car went about
200 - 300 feet up in the air :O

[NutLoose]

I seem to remember when Waddo had a Lanc on the gate, they also had a tallboy or grand slam displayed along side, there was a big fuss made about checking munitions on display after an accident somewhere and they found the thing at Waddo was still full of explosive.



.

[West Coast]

500

There, I fixed it for you.

"The engine from the car went about 60.96 - 91.44 meters up in the air"


That many meters likely took a few kilograms of bang.

[500N]

West Coast

Thanks :ok: :O

I forgot that some here use metres. But in looking at your metres,
it seems a bit low, I know i was trying not to exagerate but it went
higher than that !!! Reason I know is on that particular "blow" the
Training WO took us up a hill a bit away and the engine went much
higher than the trees.

Yes, quite a few blocks. Can't remember the name, Rectangular blocks
in brown paper with a circular hole in the middle for primer and det cord ?

Anyway, it was good fun.

[West Coast]

Any day you can blow things up and get paid is a good day.

[Like This - Do That]

500N would that be slabs of Comp-B? It's been over 25 years since I did my dems course, naturally I've forgotten almost all of it...

[500N]

Like This

Now that rings a loud bell. I'll have another search and see if I can find
a photo now I have a name to work from.

Thanks

Edit
Can't find a photo.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Dropping one of these is likely like taking a nice 30,000 pound crap

So, as per the graffito on the back of the bog door, "Bombs (sic) over 3 lbs should be lowered, not dropped"?

Methinks the Iraqis and NKs are more than capable of burying their facilities well beyond the range - published or otherwise - of these things. Countermeasures in this case are dead simple, just dig your hole a bit deeper. Israel's going to need a better mode of delivery if they're going to prosecute a target buried inside a mountain. All the bunker busters in the world aren't going to help against something 500ft under rock, let alone a few thousand.

[Ian Corrigible]

what's the rest of the weapon's remaining 10,908 kg made of - concrete , depleted uranium or what?
"High performance steel alloy" casing, believed to be Eglin Steel (http://archive.is/Di8nS).

I/C

[Lonewolf_50]

tartare, thanks for the link to Ductal. Neat!

The problem of bomb penetration: the steel and its coating for additional hardness (think tungsten carbide edged tools for an idea of what the penetrator bomb is trying to achieve) runs into a fundamental kinetic energy problem as it tries to penetrate deeper in to rock ... as deformation begins and continues from the impact point to points deeper, the energy driving the "cut" of the hard part of the bomb decreases while the cutting geometry changes.

The bedrock or other hard material further down is subjected to lower and lower kinetic energy, be it point application of otherwise.

All said and done, there is a practical limit to how far one can penetrate with one bomb. I leave the calculations and equations to those with a bit more time than me ... like the bomb makers. :cool:

[LowObservable]

I too suspect that the little shopping cart is not up to a real 30,000 pound bomb.

[CoffmanStarter]

Good to see Courtney is back flying PPRuNe CAP ... Normal japery and banter now resumed :ok:

[Warmtoast]

I/C

"High performance steel alloy" casing, believed to be Eglin Steel (http://archive.is/Di8nS).


Thanks for that - fascinating stuff.

WT

[Pontius Navigator]

The charge/weight ratio of Grand Slam was 41% and for Tall Boy 44%. The lengths were around 26 ft and 21 ft respectively with over half that lightweight tail unit.

The new bomb would appear to be 20%. Its length is similar to Grand Slam, it appears to be slimmer that Tall Boy and there is no need for a long lightweight tail unit.

[sandozer]

Now, THIS is a BOMB :ok:, back in the`50s the old Convair B-36 (6 turning, 4 burning) could carry the 42,000lb grand mother of all conventional bombs, and not one but TWO of these monster bombs in its quad bomb bays.

Stock Footage - Loading of a B-36 Peacemaker bomber with 42000 lb. bombs at Fort Worth Air Base in Texas. (http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675060037_B-36-Peacemaker-aircraft_loading-of-bombs_air-force-personnel)

[Ian Corrigible]

The Extra-Super Blockbuster (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4uFQz8RSpzUJ:www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1967/mar-apr/coker.html)
The use of a B-36 to drop the [T12 Cloudmaker] bomb after it had already been dropped by the much smaller B-29 would almost have been an anticlimax except for one thing: the B-36 dropped two of them on the same mission. On 29 January 1949 at Fort Worth, Texas, Consolidated Vultee B-36 No. 43, piloted by Major Stephen P. Dillon, carried the greatest bomb load ever lifted to that date into the sky — over 43 tons. The weight lifted was equivalent to that of a B-17 Flying Fortress. Including bombs and fuel, the B-36 grossed over 300,000 pound — not startling in terms of today’s behemoths, but in 1949 it was a whopping amount.

The two bombs were flown by the B-36 from Fort Worth to the bombing range at Muroc AFB, where the first bomb was released at 35,000 feet. Then Dillon took the plane to 40,000 feet, where the second one was dropped. The B-36 made the round trip nonstop, a flight of about 2900 miles. The official announcement proclaimed it “a normal test flight.”

I/C

[dragartist]

The shopping trolley is probably made from Elgin marble too!

I was going to get my coat!

swatting up on Grand slam at lunchtime today. Mr Wallace appeared to have similar problems and had the casing cast in some special high molybdenum steel which took two days to cool before machining. Dropped one on the New Forrest range one day then the Bielefeld viaduct the very next day.

Do folks remember a time when we had our own equivalent of the AFRL. We had the materials people at Farnborough and Pyestock, Harefield, Woolwich, NAML at Fleetlands. I figure they have all disappeared now.

[Pontius Navigator]

casing cast in some special high molybdenum steel

Cast or forged?

We used forged for penetration and cast for fragmentation was that true of TB/GS?

[Courtney Mil]

Good to see Courtney is back flying PPRuNe CAP ... Normal japery and banter now resumed http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

Thank you, Buddy. No excuse for being AWOL, I shall be SDO for the next three weeks (AGAIN).

[stumpey]

Nutloose; Think you'll find it was RAF Scampton and a bouncing bomb.
"I knows, cus I wus thare". Happy days....

[dragartist]

PN, My mistake. It does not say.

Sir Barnes Wallis - Bombs (http://www.sirbarneswallis.com/Bombs.htm)

It was however interesting to study the maps and note how close this range in the New Forest was to populated areas. Mind you, you were not that far from Skeggy!

looks like this was also done to death on PPRuNe back in 2010. How the tyre valve comes around!

Stumpy: refrences to this munition being at Scampton not Waddington can be found on the well known search engine. I found reference yesterday from someone else who was there who reports it was a GS and taken by road to Shoeburyness for disposal. I hope they went the long way around!!

The link is from 2007 and refers to some you tube footage being available. Sy Restrictions forbid me doing you tube at my current location

Grand Slam bomb (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?123197-Grand-Slam-bomb)

[27mm]

Tsar Bomba - now that was a serious bomb; IIRC, it weighed around 40000lb and was designed to yield 57MT; it didn't reach that yield, due to various tech problems, but still made a heck of a BNAG.