7 x B-2A each with 2 MOP, total of 14 bombs. Two targets, Fordo and Natanz.

​​​​​​​From the briefing we do not know the split of bombs between the two targets, except that the first 2 were dropped by the lead B-2A on Fordo.

Be interesting - up to a point - to know the time between the hits - but it seems like it did the job.
And that'll do.
No ?

It wasn't our job. It was the Americans - and they absolutely rinsed it. Bravo f'ing Zulus.

I understand from one of the US briefings that there were 12 on Fordow and 2 on Natanz. There were also 30 Tomahawks from a sub on Natanz and Isfahan, but I haven't heard the split. I presume the southern two are not so deep laid.

Misty.

Natanz is buried 130-160ft deep with a 25ft concrete blaster plate. Depends on what it’s made of.

​​​​​​​https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ombs-concrete/

Seems to be growing concern that Iran managed to disperse it’s stockpile of enriched uranium before the attack, Israel hinting they have information in the location of at least some of it*.

But would you want to attack any site and risk dispersing it?

* https://tinyurl.com/4bx8znff

https://www.jns.org/iranian-media-ur...ow-pre-strike/

Believe me. I am totally pessimistic. If it can happen, it will happen. Its nice to win a round every now and then.
In church today we were urged to pray for Gaza. Nobody mentioned Israel.

So what was the first one that was detonated as a test?

The Trinity “gadget” - plutonium implosion bomb

BBC Moscow Correspondenthttps://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....629516c1ac.png
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Of course It was The whole thing was telegraphed long ago. Telegraphed being an old term.

But of what use is it's enriched uranium? Do they have a bomb? Clearly they don't. If they did and used it on Israel, Tehran would be a smoking hole.

One of the the problems with the media coverage of this situation is that they don't seem to grasp that the reality is that the the Israelis have taken over Iranian airspace. They can attack at will. The regime can make threats and indeed send random rockets toward Israel or indeed American bases. But they are in fact helpless.

If they choose to attack American interests. They will have the weight of the Israelis and Americans.

As I said earlier Iran is a paper Tiger. They will fold
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Medvedev making, hopefully, just idle threats…..

J. D. Vance response…

Even if the centrifuge halls themselves weren't breached, I wonder what sort of damage would have been done to the centrifuges themselves purely from shockwaves?
These are precision pieces of machinery after all.

DPRK and Iran have a long track record of working closely together over the years.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f09529244.jpeg

How is this clear? What if they have all the components of a Hiroshima bomb but haven't assembled it yet?

Here's something to think about: Little Boy was about 10 feet long, less than 3 feet in diameter, and weighed approximately 5 tons. I don't believe it was radioactive enough to require special protection for the aircrew, so probably not readily detectable from any distance.

How many different delivery vehicles are there for a package of that size and weight? Doesn't have to be an aircraft - although many commercial airliners would do. Doesn't have to have a bomb bay if you have suicidally inclined volunteers.

And yes Tehran would be a smoking hole if it was used - but think about how small Israel is. One Hiroshima sized detonation over Tel Aviv would cripple the country. Another one in the Haifa area might be fatal.

If I were Israel, I'd be doing a full court press to find that enriched uranium - and confiscate or destroy it.

Yes, you are correct - such a bomb would not require crew shielding.
But there is no way on earth an un-authorised commercial airliner, let alone one carrying a Hiroshima type weapon would be able to get anywhere near Israeli airspace without the IAF knowing and shooting it down first.
The Hiroshima gun-type weapon would therefore need to be surface delivered, by a truck (it's 10 feet long, 2 feet wide and weighs 4.4 tons).
There might be a remote chance of such a truck making it's way into a major Israeli population centre undetected by the Israeli army, Shin Bet, the Aman or Mossad.
If it was then detonated, then yes it would cause widespread devastation in a densely populated city like Tel Aviv (having been there).
Likelihood? Mossad's human intelligence in Iran is such that it knew the location of the Iranian military leaders and scientists' bedrooms in the buildings it struck. Not just the building, the exact side and height of the building where to strike.
Israel is being fed measurement and signature intelligence by the US, and has it's own highly capable imagery and signals intelligence capabilities.
I highly doubt the likelihood of such a device being able to be delivered in reality - unless I am missing something.

Agree with all you say.

My concern is the seeming reluctance on some parts to even accept that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Uranium needs enriching to only 3% to 5% to efficiently run a nuclear reactor. Why is it now at around 60% and why are/were the enrichment centres buried so deep underground?

Conceivably a compact tac nuke could make it to Israel, but any nuke detonated in Israel would guarantee incineration of every Iranian population center- so what advantage would a working and deliverable nuke give any ME country?

As we saw in Iraq, the stated possibility of WMD served as a handy pretext for the US to attack.

I heard today on CBC Cross Country Checkup an academic assert that Netanyahu attacked Iran to deflect attention from the plight of starving Gazans shot daily while lined up for food - a much higher toll than suffered by Israelis under Iranian bombardment.


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Tartare,

You raise some very good points and one, in particular, that has been a great source of frustration in both my reading and questioning--- that of delivery.

Even some very good geo-strategic writers seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the assumption that if the Iranians were to have a weapon that they would, ipso facto, immediately use it.

While I cannot, of course, out of hand refute that assumption, I can question it. How would it be delivered? Wouldn't the Israelis have known that one was being readied? To me there is a bit of gap between having the actual weapon and employing it.

I carry no truck for that nasty theocratic clan in Tehran and it's desire for a nuke, but I do value exactitude in reporting and decision making so I am disappointed when such phrases as "they will immediately use it" are so blithely tossed about.

As you stated, the Israelis knew down to the meter where the military leadership was so one would think that they had a good purview over all the rest.

Now the question is how much support the Russian and Chinese will provide going forward. China, for one, enjoys the oil.

Either way, good work for raising the point of this not being so automatic as many have made it out to be. Frankly I just think Bibi told Trump to jump and the latter asked "how high?"

If it was known that Iran had nuclear weapons and a delivery system, Israel lop sided attack (same for the US) wouldn’t have occured.