Bunker Buster

edit was late: The 40 Meters would be a variable as to location? Unless the Spec's were uniform to a Code.

"Unless the Spec's were uniform to a Code."

Love it!

Political Bush Sr. Ordered Desert Storm... After he Sent a Contractor to build Bunkers for the Arabs, beacuse he sent Weapons to their Neighbors. { If the contractor was BROWN & ROOT... "Non Union" Than I would worry about the COMPACTION CODE Compliance. } No mater... "our" Bunker Busters shook the desert for Miles!

the Airbus A320/340 can as well. which is part of what happened with the Air France flight from Rio to Paris a couple years ago.

Yes there are some airliners that can reach coffin corner and I believe the Boeing 727 was another. However, with T tailed aircraft that have the engines at the rear coffin corner is even worse. This is because that design of aircraft is almost impossible to recover once it has stalled whether it be a slow speed or sonic stall.

The reason for this is that the weight of the engines makes the aircraft tend to fall tail down and the turbulence from the wings prevents the horizontal tail plane from getting into clean air. Without clean air flowing over the tail plane you have no elevator control and thus no way you can get the nose to point down and gain airspeed again so you end up stuck in a stall.

The only chancy you have is to cross the aileron and rudder controls and hope that the aircraft develops a full spin. With a lot of luck in such a spin there would be sufficient air flowing over the tail plane to give you sufficient elevator control to get the nose back down and regain flying speed.

I do know of an aircraft being lost during a stall test this way, but I don't know whether the recovery method has ever been attempted in anything but a simulator so I don't know if it's actually possible and I'm not going to try it to find out. Best answer is to not stall the bloody thing in the first place.

Having said all that I believe the problem with the Air France flight was caused by pitot tubes becoming blocked and giving the computers and pilots false airspeed information. This has happened on a couple of occasions with deadly results in every case I know of. However, if you do ever find yourself in a situation where you have instruments saying that you are flying too fast and too slow at the same time then the way to go is to use the GPS system to give you a speed. This will only give you your speed across the ground, but it's better than not having a clue about how fast you are flying. The other thing that will give you an idea of your airspeed is the attitude indicator. Provided you keep the angle of attack on the wings correct then the airspeed will be correct.

Mind you, hindsight is 20/20 vision and when you're being bombarded with conflicting warnings deciding which instrument system to rely on could be problematic, but from glider training when were taught to fly without instruments the attitude of the aircraft's nose is the most important indicator of your speed.

and with highly variable winds, having such a narrow acceptable airspeed range is asking for trouble as well. But yes ultimately the biggest issue was the pilot trying to pull the nose up despite a constant stall horn sounding in the cockpit. I forget what angle of attack he ultimately achieved but it was absolutely insane. he flew the stall right into the water.

There have been several instances over the last decade or so when pilots have stalled the aircraft and done exactly the wrong thing by keeping the stick pulled back and hence kept it in the stall all the way to the ground with catastrophic consequences.

I don't know what they are doing with airline pilot training these days but back when I was flying gliders during your annual flight review you not only had to stall the aircraft and recover but let it develop into a full one rotation plus spin before attempting to recover.

In one of my flight reviews the instructor screwed up badly and instead of just getting it into a standard spin managed to get us into an inverted spin so we were hanging upside down by the shoulder straps of our harnesses spinning like a top with the ground above our heads. The instructor panicked and ended up leaving it up to me to recover. Great he's an instructor with hundreds of hours and he panics. I eventually got the aircraft nose down and flying again, but by that stage I had one hand on the canopy jettison lever and if the aircraft hadn't respond after another rotation I was going to get out of there.

What was your procedure to recover?

Never got one inverted, but one of my instructors was a former F-111 driver and I would tag him for spin training a lot because he liked to get the aircraft into some rather exotic conditions.

Club rules prevented aerobatics, but no one challenged him on that, so that gave me the opportunity to fly outside the envelope.

Also, students/instructors never had chutes. Only the private pilots seemed to buy them, ironically.

Now, spin training on the F-16 is another matter. You can't just push the stick forward with opposite rudder as the aircraft would flat spin.

The trick was to first disengage the manual pitch override, then you had to rock the aircraft forward and aft to get the nose down. That takes some time, but eventually it will nose over and get you some airspeed. At least that is how it works on the ground trainers. :)

"What was your procedure to recover?"

Rather than pushing forward I centred the stick and kicked on full opposite rudder. The glider had a T tail like most gliders these days and the drag on the tail plane started to get the nose pointed down and we ultimately ended up vertical but still in a spin. Once the spin stopped I centralized the rudder and started to pull back on the stick. Unfortunately because I had a passenger rating I was flying from the back seat so I didn't have a G meter which made it difficult to know how hard I was loading the wings. Anyway, I just pulled back as hard as I could without it hurting too much and didn't cause me to start greying out which from experience I knew happened at about 5 g.

We ended up in level flight at about 800 feet with an airspeed very close to VNE so all up we lost about 2,200 plus feet and who knows how many rotations because I wasn't counting. I just realized something had gone really wrong when the ground was above rather than in front of us and the harness shoulder straps were digging into my shoulders.

The really strange thing about it is that I don't remember thinking about what to do at the time I just did it and we ended up in horizontal flight the right way up. I guess that means I had really good basic training and had an instinctual understanding of the aircraft's attitude and how it would react to control inputs. In other words instinct cut in and got us out of a right mess.

Something else I was also told by an extremely experienced glider pilot (over 3,000 hours as P1) was that if what you do initially doesn't work then try the exact opposite.

Which brings me to the rudder hard over problems the early Boeing 737s had. For unknown reasons at the time in three instances while the aircraft was on final approach to an airport the rudder would with minimal command input suddenly go hard on one way and no matter how hard the pilots tried to depress the other rudder pedal the rudder stayed jammed at the extremity of its movement. In the first two instances the aircraft went into a spin and impacted the ground in an almost vertical attitude. Needless to say there were no survivors.

In the third instance the rudder suddenly went hard one way and no amount of opposite rudder pressure would correct the situation so the pilot took his feet off the pedal and must have just touched the depressed pedal. Suddenly the rudder centred itself and they regained control of the aircraft only for the same thing to happen in the opposite direction 30 seconds or so later. He must have unknowingly realized that applying pressure to the depressed pedal would clear it because without understanding what he had done he corrected the situation faster this time and ultimately managed to land the aircraft safely.

Long story short. The problem was caused by the rudder hydraulic control valve which was a slide within a slide so that if one slide jammed the other slide would continue to operate and give the pilots rudder control. However, when the aircraft had been at high altitude for long periods without any rudder input the rudder control valve would cool down to almost cryogenic temperatures. Then when they descended and started the landing process they would use the rudder and start pumping hot hydraulic fluid through the extremely cold valve and it would take a small rudder input and somehow cause the valve to deflect fully in one direction, but with the secondary slide in the opposite position. Basically it reversed the controls so if you kept trying to push down the pedal opposite to the rudder's deflection you were just pushing the rudder harder the opposite way which was already as far as it would go. But if you released the pressure on both pedals and applied pressure to the depressed pedal then the inner slide would move and correct the situation.

It took the NTSB ages to figure out what was going on because the rudder hard over problem left no sign of any damage to the rudder control valve and by the time they had gotten to the crash site it had warmed up and when tested in the laboratory operated perfectly. It wasn't until they soaked a control valve in dry ice for several hours then hit it with hot hydraulic fluid did the problem manifest itself.

The problem has since been remedied by a redesign of the rudder control valve but while they were refitting every B-737 in the world pilots were instructed to use the opposite to the logical control input to clear the problem.

So there's an example of if what you doing isn't working try the opposite.

Both excellent stories.

Yeah, it's called the "boundry effect" along the surface of the aircraft, most notably along the fuselage. That's why most military fighter jet engine intakes feature "splitter plates", to separate the airflow from the surface before the inlet trunk, thus preventing airflow disruption that can lead to compressor stall.

You also have to slow the air inside the intake to below the speed of sound before it reaches the compressor blades. If the air going into the compressors is travelling at supersonic speeds you will get a compressor stall and that's something you don't want because the air from the combustion chamber can suddenly start blowing forwards into the compressors which aren't designed to take the back pressure or temperature of the gas. If not cleared quickly compressor stalls can destroy a jet engines very rapidly.

Yeppers, I know all about the RAAF F-111C Aardvarks, otherwise known as the "Pig". Basically, they were FB-111A's with a few minor modifications.

Those Aussie pilots were known for their hijinks, especially the "Zippo" lighter effect!

Back in the mid-1970's my cousin and I were out fishing on Sacandaga Lake near the bridge early one morning, when out of nowhere a pair of FB-111A's flew right pass us, no more than 25 feet or so above the water. I mean they WERE screaming, with wings folded way back...probably doing 500 knots. No doubt in my mind they were on TFR......ya should have seen the rooster tails they kicked up from the water surface like a speedboat. The lead went over the top of the bridge, whereas the Tail gun Charlie pilot went under the freaking bridge arch (the arch apex is about 60 feet above the water!). Man, that was crazy ass stupid!!!!! Both Varks were from Plattsburgh AFB by their markings.

Here's a good video...the lowest I have ever seen a high speed pass! I'm surprised that the peeps on the ground didn't get killed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UntN_cZUQg8&feature=related

I've got a sneaking suspicion that the pilot of the first aircraft got lower than he initially intended but it has to be the lowest pass I have ever seen. I reckon he was at most a metre off the ground and if those guys on the ground were a few metres to the left things wouldn't have worked out too good.

One of the stunts the RAAF were supposedly renowned for pulling off were low level passes over isolated beaches with the surveillance pod on taking high resolution images. Occasionally they would get high resolution images of topless sun bathers that would somehow end up on the wall of the officers mess. Or so I'm told.

Here's one of my most fav low high speed passes. It's a West German Luftwaffe F-4F Phantom II making several low passes over a W. German airfield. Watch how close the it comes to the guy standing on the dirt pile! CRAZY!!!!!!!!

Make sure you have to sound turned on....great music too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApM_f-jBlP0&feature=related

Britain ordered 50 F111Ks, the K was a special for them only. They cancelled the order, officially because the devaluation of the pound made them too expensive, about 3,000,000 quid apiece. Unannounced reason was that a British shipyard won the contract for two frigates for the US Navy. The congressmen with shipyards in their constituencies got a law passed to say that no war materiel could be bought from foreign sources because of difficulties obtaining parts in time of war, and order was cancelled. Old Irondrawers did not put up with that kind of affront, so she cancelled all fifty F111Ks.

"I still love the now retired X29"

Unfortunately there is a fundamental problem with forward swept wings.

Normally with backwards swept wings any flexing of the wing under load reduces the angle of attack and hence reduces the lift produced by the wing thus reducing the load on the wing and preventing it from being ripped off.

With forward swept wings flexing under load increases the angle of attack which increases the lift the wing is creating and thus increases the load on the wing. If you don't manage this very carefully you can easily overload the wing structure and rip the wings off the aircraft.

That's one of the main reasons the X29 was retired.

You could get round this problem with some complex fly by wire controls but I think the advantages of the forward swept wings were outweighed by the disadvantages like the loading problem so forward swept wings have pretty much gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Grumman actually used the anisotropic coupling properties of the carbon fiber to cause the wing to curl the opposite direction thereby preventing that from becoming a runaway failure mode.

It is precisely the many ways that the X-29 defied robust, sane aerodynamic design yet it still flew well that speaks to me.

gotta give you that, besides it was a rebuilt F-5 airframe anyway....=b

No, it was manufactured by Rockwell International in the 1980's after President Reagan came into office and resurrected the cancelled B-1A project (by Pres. Carter in the late 70's). Rockwell Int'l. was once North American Aviation (makers of the famed P-51 Mustang of WWII). I think since the time that the B-1B fleet was built Rockwell may have been merged with or bought out by Boeing.

"It's a Boeing isn't it ?"

It was originally built by Rockwell who at the time were independent but are now part of the Boeing megalopoly.

If the one you built had real rubber tires then that's the one I'm talking about. Unfortunately the nose wheels got broken off some time during the move from Adelaide to Sydney and the rest of the undercarriage was damage so I had to do some repairs. I also use the same camouflage you did.

Actually it's probably due for a good old clean in the not too distant future so next time I have it down from its suspended position I'll take some photographs and put them up under some CR4 thread.

Yes, it had the rubber tires, so yours must be a Revell-Monogram model or a Revell-Germany model....depends on how old the kit was when you built it. Revell-Germany repopped and reissued the kit sometime in the past decade (2004-ish???). anyhow, I still have 3 of them downstairs waiting to be built....like the other 1,200 +/- models down in the basement stash!! Yeah, right, like I'll ever get the time to build them all before I kick the can!!! LOL

You can repair those landing gear with some thin superglue and accellerator!

Kewl that we had the same camo paint job!!! :-)

Adelaide SW Australia, eh? I was once engaged to an Aussie lass from Adelaide, by that name of Nikki! OMG she was a prize, but a tad on the crazy wild side! hehehehehe ***Cheeky Little Monkey Grinz....wink wink nudge...***

yes, post a pic of it please!

I doubt Israel will do anything visa-vie Iran without tight coordination with the US, no-matter what they will dare say in public. So, in practical terms, the ball is in the American president's park, and hopefully he/she will not drop the ball, because the end-game has an immense stake, in terms of global security - no less.

Enough said, I think.

I am puzzled by where the rock goes on impact.

Does it split radially and move sideways, or does it melt into a smaller volume, or does it vaporise to a gas and is expelled backwards out of the hole, or does it move ahead and shatter and delaminate into the open space underground.

A little of all of the above, but primarily the idea is for the shockwave to be focused downward.

Actually, you want the shockwave initiation point to either be level with and beside the bunker or just below the bunker.

Generally, these bunkers are a complex of hardened tunnels and subterranean buildings made from reenforced concrete (rebar, fiberglass, etc.) and you want the penetrator to stop either at the same depth or slightly below in the center of that complex.

Look at some photos of the Moon. Some vaporizes, some melts, some splits and are ejected along with the crater debris.

Yes, all those things happen....and no, I cannot get into it, unless there's a need to know and you folks have a high enough DoD Security Clearance.

Bombs don't discriminate... People do...

hang around terrorists and you are likely to get killed. that is the message being sent. the point being to make the locals reevaluate their relationships with terrorists and stop giving them safe haven for fear of being bombed. these days, bombs are pretty darn discriminating, your typical laser guided bomb will go pretty much were it is directed to go unless there is a hardware failure or other interference.

It's pretty hard to interfere with a laser that's pinpointing a target. Interfering with a GPS signal is an entirely different animal.

All you need is the capability to knock down a few of our GPS network satellites, then you can throw off the POK by quite a bit, even by tens of meters. The Russians have this capability, and have had it for some time. I'm that the Chinese and the Indians are working on it, or may have prototypes of it by now.

The Iranians demonstrated that they can do it on the cheap by sending errant GPS signals. That's how they downed one of our drones over their country.

I have never been n the favor of relying solely on our military GPS-directed navigation systems and weapons systems, as it's fairly easy to spoof or interrupt. And we're getting more into GPS-based systems year after year where we rely on them more and more. Not a good strategy on our part...not good at all. It is best to have a mix, of laser and of GPS.

What you are talking about is called spoofing.

It is a well understood art, but we are not talking about knocking down GPS satellites. Rather, interference with the GPS signals to produce a false result.

it is not unknown for clouds to interfere with a laser designator and cause the warhead to shift to ballistic/or INS/GPS tracking mode.

Don't forget about good old Inertial Navigation Systems. With laser gyroscopes these can be as if not more accurate than GPS and after they are told their initial starting point they require absolutely no external input whatsoever.

O' We are going to "Kill" All "TERROREST" & Their Friends, till No One Left...

Is it... If you arn't with us... You are Against us!

Kneel to the Pontiff, or Die!

If they are against us they are Terrorist.

If they are with us they are Freedom Fighters.

If we are unsure they are Gorillas. (sp?)

Freedom Fighters???? Pro or Con? Freedom Vs. Security... a ballance is quite a variable! & Adjustable to Conditions.

"If we are unsure they are Gorillas. (sp?)"

TOO funny...! ~(Guerilla)~

From either French "guerre" or Spanish "guerra" (for "war")
...try to remember the phrase "Noms de guerre", after reading:

"Pseudonym" (2.3 Noms de guerre, wiki) ~

Ever talk with the people who are "harbouring" terrorists? I don't think they really have a choice. One guy who is willing to die for his cause, decides to launch mortars from a schoolyard. He knows the media firestorm is worth more than his feeble efforts if you are dumb enough to drop something on him. It can work, but my goodness, you have to be an awfully good shot!

All politics aside,and merely trying determine the most effective means to penetrate hundreds of feet of reinforced concrete, perhaps a stacked explosive approach would be more effective.A penetrator designed with shaped charges stacked at proper intervals,and precisely timed for an effective sequence detonation would act like a jack hammer to shatter the concrete for the following stage.

A multi-stage bomb instead of a single stage.

I am sure the military explosives experts are working diligently day and night on the problem, and these ideas are being explored, along with many concepts we have not even considered.

It a shame that such things must be built, but we have always lived in a war-world.The world was at war when I was born, and will be when I am gone.There seems to be no end, only brief lulls.It seems to be the inescapable nature of man to fight.

If it were different,we would be much advanced by the united effort of all mankind.

I saw a large church built in 2 weeks.A large circus like tent was erected on a vacant lot, and 2 weeks later, it was removed.A fully completed church was there.

It was built only by church members.Amazing what can be done when people work together in harmony for a common goal.

I do not know of a general contractor that could have accomplished this in the same time frame.

Imagine if our world worked that way.

I like the staging idea. I have no idea how well it would work with deep penetration or whether it complicates the depth calculation for the final bomb.

There are examples of working together. The Empire State Building was built from the ground up in 1 year and 45 days using just 3,000 workers.

There is no way we could do that today. It took 10+ years to replace the Twin Towers probably because there were 3,000+ bureaucrats and union bosses 'helping out'.

The construction of the Empire State Building took 1 year and 45 days. that does not include design, licensing, hiring of contractors or the first fabricated parts. The delay with the Twin Tower project is all political.

Also, we have more and better safety rules and regulations. The Empire State was remarkable because there were so few deaths during construction considering the way it was built.

We have "maintenance of traffic regulations now, you may not use the street for laydown of materials; if you want to build in the cities you need "just on time" deliveries in the exact sequence.

Assuming that this device operates similarly to how Barnes Wallis designed the Tall Boy and Grand Slam devices of WWII, the kinetic energy of the bomb does not penetrate hundreds of feet of concrete. The bomb penetrates the soil and the surrounding matrix of rock near the buried concrete structure. Then the explosive charge creates effectively a localized earthquake to collapse the underground target.

This is why I believe the idea of using this device in Iran is nothing more than a poor propaganda ploy. A check of Wikipedia earthquakes for Iran is substantial in just the past ten years and with many well above a 5.5 magnitude. In contrast Germany is not immune to earthquakes but only two measured above 5.5 magnitude in the past 100 years. (Yeah, a 6.1 happened at 101 years ago but I've made my point.) The targets Barnes Wallis designed to attack were not expecting an earthquake. Iran's subterranean structures will certainly be designed to survive an earthquake of considerable magnitude. The Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP) contains 5300 lb of explosive aka about 2.4 metric tonnes. A magnitude 3.5 earthquake is equivalent to 2.7 metric tonnes of TNT. Remember the earthquake magnitude scale is a logarithmic scale. Magnitude 4.5 is ten times larger than a magnitude 3.5.

centrifuges spinning at the speed they spin at are very susceptible to shock loading.

Okay, I'll bite. How do you determine the magnitude of the "earthquake" for a bomb?

The blast radiating power very near the epicenter would surely be much more intense than any earthquake we have experienced. I realize it would fall off at the square of the distance, but do you know at what magnitudes?

I agree that this is mostly saber rattling. However, if I were responsible for an underground facility in Iran I would not take such threats too lightly.

It boils down to capability and willingness. I do not know specifically how capable the MOAB is able to destroy such a site, but I suspect that it is not worthless.

Probably the bigger uncertainty is the willingness to use it.

You are quite correct, I forgot to include a link to show how explosive yields correlates to earthquake magnitudes. (Unlike some people at CR4, I do like to support my facts with references.) I try to not make up information to suit my opinion. I usually seek for data to confirm my original opinion or reject my opinion when I find out that I'm wrong.

Now I believe the Wikipedia chart does relate surface blasts of TNT and not burrowing charges into unqualified strata. Now this difference is fine because a Massive Ordinance Air Burst (MOAB) does explode above the soil, hence the term air burst. This weapon has instead an explosive payload of 8.5 tonnes. Since this explosion does not happen in contact with the surface the effective transmitted thud into the earth will probably be less. The MOP that we are discussing does penetrate the earth. Now there is also the factor that a different explosive than TNT could be used in these devices. However, for comparisons into a logarithmic magnitude scale I think that these inaccuracies can be overlooked to maintain a rational discussion.

Oh, as for how the chart posted at Wikipedia came into being, I suspect that measurements and not calculations were involved.

You are right, we are referring to the MOP, not MOAB. Thanks for the correction.

However, how can you be sure that the MOP would be ineffective against those facilities in Iran? Obviously, the reverse is in question, too.

Well in any country that regularly experiences earthquakes of 6.0 and greater magnitude, I would expect them to hold something precious in a safe holding location (underground bunker?) that will withstand their expected natural disaster conditions plus a plausible outside incursion. So if Iran puts anything underground then it must survive a 6.0 earthquake. If I had to find a place that can survive a 6.0 earthquake I'd start with finding a natural cave in a mountain that has not collapsed from repeated 6+ quakes and build a bunker inside. If the MOP is 10 times more efficient than TNT at the surface by detonating underground then this will still be weaker by one and a half orders of magnitude than what the cave alone has already survived.

So in this land of earthquakes any place made to protect the vital interests of that country will survive an earthquake, regardless of it being a natural big one or a relatively puny bomb produced earthquake. Using an earthquake bomb on Iran is like using a snow making machine to scare an emperor penguin. You might get lucky, but don't count on it.

"If the MOP is 10 times more efficient than TNT at the surface by detonating underground then this will still be weaker by one and a half orders of magnitude than what the cave alone has already survived."

Yes, but what would happen to everything stored in that subterranean cavern if the bomb penetrated the ground and then detonated inside the cavern?

My guess is that it would be pretty much like what happened when Grand Slams were used on the German submarine pens in WWII. In other words pretty much total obliteration of everything inside with very little collateral damage as shown in the image below.

same could be achieved by dropping multiple penetrators into the same hole with a lower R&D cost since you need to make sure that the earlier explosions don't launch your penetrator back out of the hole.

Kind of "explosive jack hammer" - I think this tactic was successfully used during the second Gulf war

I still think the best way to settle any war is to arm the leaders and anyone who wants to follow with bows and target head arrows (proper self bows, none of you compound stuff). Let 'em shoot it out. You'd have a nice contained conflict, not too many fatalities and it would make great TV (you can switch to broadheads if you want more blood and fatalities at prime time).
Not quite sure how you fit in the commercial breaks.
Del

I say let the warring leaders duke it out on a personal level.......10 paces, turn, draw out the spitball soda straws, aim, and FIRE!!!

I'll be selling lots and lots of tickets & getting rich beyond my wildest dreams!!!!!

Give them paint ball guns? No... The world is getting over populated... must get rid of the week & useless... All resorces, & wealth, go to the Strongest one... Too real to be funny!

"All resorces, & wealth, go to the Strongest one... Too real to be funny!"

Your definitely not wrong there!

CR4 is not the place to talk about political views. As long time users, I would expect for you all to know and understand this policy. I understand sometimes topics make it easy to jump into a political discussion, but doing so will result in comment removal and or user limiting. Please help us to make cr4 a better place by avoiding political decision.

Thanks,

CR4 Admin

The Acts of Warfare are not always With Bombs & Bullets! The Ballot Box can be the most distructive weapon against us!

Us is "them" to the other side, and them is "us" to the other side...

Law Makers: as Criminals... Or Versa Visa. "Victomless Crimes"!

Bail = Ransom! / Fines = Extortion! / Servitude = Slavery.

Subjects to the Criminal System of Government Must Stop!

For this Nation to become Civilized... We Must Inforce the Civil System!

Ah, but can they break baths? We guess! We guess!!

In Coming from high orbit......

You mean something like this?

http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_driver

Couldn't resist.

Does a bunker need to be busted ? How about jamming all communications and burying it in lots of concrete.

"How about jamming all communications and burying it in lots of concrete."

I can really see the people protecting the bunker help organize a stream of concrete trucks line up and in sequence dump their loads down the entrances to the bunker.

Can I take it that communication jamming would be OK ?

As to the concrete....water gets dumped on wildfires. OK, this is a bit different but is it impossible ? Chernobyl wasn't in a war zone but they got concrete dumped.

The primary goal is to render a bunker ineffective. We are talking bunkers here, rather than missile silo. Some of the 'blow it to ****' options seem very expensive. Isolating the people inside does not have to entail complete destruction, or does it ?

Somehow I don't think that a million screaming Iranians storming over the hill are going to let you dump concrete in their precious bunker complex! They'd be out for your blood, and your Lily White Arse! Your blood because you are an Infidel, and only that!!!! Ever heard of the term "Allah Akbar"????!!! ***ICCKKKK!!!!***

I for one wouldn't want to be one of our troops on the ground lining up ready-mix concrete trucks.....that's a suicide mission. Read: "One Way Mission"!

And where do you suppose you're going to find some Iranian concrete producer willing to sell you their concrete anyhow??????? It's not like you can transport it from a producer in Turkey.

Me thinks someone has been drinking too much Kool-Aid as of late!!! LOL

You wrote, "that's a suicide mission."

They used to call that "arrow fodder" in Medieval times. :)

Okay. I have one of two jobs for you. No experience needed, we will train you. Please apply for the job you would like best:

1. Concrete truck driver. Must be wiling to drive through deep enemy territory multiple times, avoid land mines, okay with RPG fire (rocket filled grenades), small arms fire, and an occasional beheading.

2. B-2 Spirit pilot (aircraft commander in the left seat or mission commander in the right seat). Must be willing to push buttons.

On your Item #1 Such people are in the field regiments of the engineering corps. In the Royal Engineers, we were taught the the book says we will have infantry and artillery support while building or when blowing up a bridge, or digging up or placing a minefield, but forget it. We do infantry training because the others pull out before were finished demolition or they wait until we've finished construction. (We make better infantry than they anyway).

Seabee colleagues have told me similar stories, I've no doubt that the US Army Corps has the same take.

Job #1 does not, regretfully, include infantry and artillery support at this time. Are you still interested or would Job # 2 be better? :)

Yes, the same same for the U.S. Army Engineering Corps.....

"Chernobyl wasn't in a war zone but they got concrete dumped."

No they didn't. First off miners dug a tunnel under the reactor core and the excavated a cavern which they filled with concrete. This was done to catch the core should it remelt and start working its way down to the water table whereupon you would have caused another explosion and an even bigger release of radiation.

Then they constructed a giant concrete sarcophagus around the entire building to keep water out and the radiation in, however, this was only a temporary solution and it leaked both allowing water in and radiation out.

What was dumped on the burning core was borax because it's capable of slowing down neutrons and was hoped to prevent the core from completely melting. However, it didn't work too well and the core melted ultimately solidified below the reactor chamber as shown in the image below.

By the way that lava looking stuff is called corium.

The ultimate solution is to construct what is called the Chernobyl Shelter. This is a giant arched structure that will contain automated cranes and other equipment that can be used to clean up the mess once and for all. The structure is being built adjacent to the sarcophagus and once completed will be moved into place covering the sarcophagus and sealing it off from the outside world.

Once in place I believe the plan is to dismantle the sarcophagus then dismantle the remains of the reactor sealing it inside radiation proof containers before removing it for long term safe storage. However, I'm not certain that the dismantling of everything is the ultimate plan I've just heard that through the grape vine and from the little that has been published about the shelter project.

However, I have heard from several documentaries on the aftermath of the accident that the remains of the core have sporadic periods of activity when it starts heating up dramatically for reasons that are to date not understood. That makes me think that at least the removal of the remaining corium would be a high priority and to get to it you would need to dismantle just about everything as it's now right down at the bottom of and underneath the old reactor chamber.

Now guess who's paying for this project? Yep it's the western nations not the countries that were members of the soviet union and were ultimately responsible for the disaster in the first place.

Probably water is collecting somewhere in the structure and acting as a moderator and allowing the fission to resume until the heat causes the water to vaporize and then the reaction stops again, just like that ancient natural reactor they discovered in Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

I'll deal with you and your annoyingly good answers later ! A bunker is simply that - a hidey whole for whatever. Blowing it to bits is an option, but are there others ?

You are evading the point. Bust that bunker with a super-dooper missile, or be more stealthy ? Only one question - is splattering it the only way ? Can a bunker (whatever that mean) be left unable to function ?.

if you could collapse all of the entrances and ventilation shafts, then you have effectively accomplished the same end. in fact that is primarily the task of these bunker busters since much of these complexes are inside of a mountain, collapsing the entrances are really the only option. but the question is, did you get them all? are they sealed forever or could the occupants (and more importantly, the equipment inside) survive to be dug back out at a later date? or could they run the important bits out the hidden back door when you collapse the front door? it IS possible to spoof a satellite, it is done all the time.

Convinces me. Now go out there and stop Iran from going nuclear. :)

absolutely positively correct!

That one deserves a GA from me.....

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO "CIVIL DEFENSE"?

The Criminal System Trampled it! The Lobist Coerssed Law Makers To Make Laws that Deprive us of our Civil Rights... Used our Uniformed Police / Sheriffs / Marchals, ect. to inforce them & The Criminal Courts Sent People to PRISON & Jails for PENAL CODE Violationa! Fines & Bail for "Victomless" Crimes!!! {Politics is a Virus!} Our Borders Have been dropped. Our Country is in a tail spin! Forgive me if I don't worry about Afganastand!

The military has what is referred to as "Temporaly Enhanced explosives",which far exceed the speed of TNT,which is approx.5 miles/sec.

Cannot reveal their chemistry,but they are generations ahead of WWII limits.

By the way, there is C5,which is more powerful than C4, but is not as stable,and is therefor not in as frequent use.

The ability of man to destroy man is always ahead of the curve.

"Homo Homini Lupus"

not many people use C4 anymore, not even the military. there are better options available now.

Not necessarily a cover-all answer. The U.S. Army, particularly Combat Engineer and Construction units, still use a tremendous amount of C4 for breaching ops and demo. Even, SpecOps uses it quite a bit still, but they do have options for using other explosives, which I am not at the liberty to discuss here...it's a NEED TO KNOW basis.

The Air Farce pukes don't use it......

I don't know why nobody thought of this till now but while researching something else I stumbled across a Wikipedia article on the MOP or bunker busting bomb.

For those that have not got the time to follow the link and read the article the upshot of it is that while it's still under development the US already has a small stockpile of 20 that they took delivery of in September 2011. Also Northrop Grumman received a contract on 19^th July 2007 to modify the B-2 stealth bombers to each carry two MOP bombs so they already have a viable delivery method.

The MOP also uses GPS to guide it to its target so it's a drop and forget device meaning the deploying aircraft can bugger off and be miles away by the time the bomb reaches the ground.

Here is a picture of one in flight shortly after being dropped.

This is a mock-up of a MOP inside the bomb bay of a B-2

Finally we have a picture of one being deployed by a B-52. Note the size of the bomb in comparison to the chase plane. That's one bloody big bomb.

So there you have it, it's real, they already have a small but useful stockpile of them ready for use and a way to deploy them using B-2 stealth bombers.

The B52, another planer I respectfully love

I've got my name down for a limited edition ¹/₄₈ scale kit of the B-52 that a bloke in the UK will be releasing probably earlier next year. I plan to build the X-15 launcher version and it took me ages to find somebody that had any ¹/₄₈ scale models of the X-15 left but I managed to pick up one just last week from another UK based company that specializes in rare and hard to get model kits.

It's going to be one monumental model that I will most likely have to suspend from the ceiling but it will still look impressive.

Something that's interesting about the B-52 is that the aircraft are all older than the people that are currently flying them and by the time they do ultimately retire them they will have been flying for over 80 years. That's one very impressive service record.

I'm not sure, but I thought that I saw a RC model of a B52. have to look into that.

As for the age of the plane, its a spin of the Oldsmobile commercial.

'The B52 is the plane your Grandfather flew.'

And with the latest upgrades and remaining life expectecy of the B52, you can scratch Grandfather and replace it with Great Greandfather.

What a platform!

The MOP is 20 feet long. The chase plane must be on the other side of the plane, and only looks about the same size.

"The chase plane must be on the other side of the plane, and only looks about the same size."

I realize that but even so it's a bloody big bomb.

By the way, the chase plane has me a little perplexed. If you follow the link it will take you to the full resolution version of the image and you can see the chase plane in detail. To me it looks like a two seater F-16 which would make it an F-16I, but only the Israeli Air Force use the F-16I so what's one doing being used as a chase plane for a new US weapon?

It might be some other aircraft, but if it is it's got me stumped. Does anybody have any ideas what it could be if it isn't and F-16I?

F-16D is the current US 2-seater.

Earlier model was the F-16B.

Scroll up on your F16 Wikipedia link. You'll see that the F16B is also a two seat version.