The Muslim News has a better write up on the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) programme.
Massive bomb to MOP up deeply buried targets
16-07-2004
By MICHAEL SIRAK; JDW Staff Reporter; Washington DC
Jane's Defence Weekly:
The US Air Force plans to launch a project later this year to develop an experimental ultra-large 30,000lb (13,608kg) penetrating munition, according to service officials.
It will be optimised against hardened and deeply buried targets that existing air-delivered weapons cannot destroy, they say.
The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is leading the three-phase technology demonstration, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) programme. It builds on design studies that Boeing has conducted for the laboratory. Flight testing is envisaged around 2006.
Although the air force has no formal requirement for an ultra-large bomb, it has a concept for a ‘Big BLU’ family of massive-sized penetrator and blast munitions. The MOP demonstration will mature the technologies so that they are “on the shelf, ready to go” if a requirement emerges for a Big BLU penetrator, said Steven Butler, director of engineering at the Air Armament Center at Eglin. He told JDW that the MOP is “unlike anything” that the air force has ever built.
Interest in a big penetrating bomb is growing in some US defence circles, including the Defense Science Board (DSB), the senior policy advisory panel to the Secretary of Defense. It recommended in its February 2004 report on ‘Future Strategic Strike Forces’ that the Department of Defense “immediately undertake” a demonstration of a “bomber-delivered massive penetrator” weapon as part of a family of ultra-large bombs that would “improve conventional attack effectiveness against deep, expansive, underground tunnel facilities”.
The MOP mirrors these recommendations. It will be designed for internal carriage on the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber and B-52H Stratofortress bomber and will be employed at high altitudes to attack targets like tunnel complexes and multistorey buildings with hardened bunkers, according to an air force statement released on 2 July.
It will be guided and able to operate in GPS-disrupted environments and attack targets at elevations up to 10,000ft above sea level, according to the service.
Fred Davis, technical director of the assessment and demonstrations division in the Munitions Directorate, said the project is funded as far as ground demonstrations.
However, there is no funding earmarked yet for flight testing. The laboratory would like to conduct five MOP drops.
The air force plans to select one contractor to develop the bomb. Phase one will entail six months of concept refinement, followed in phase 2 by 10 months of weapon development and ground tests and wind tunnel exercises. Phase 3 will comprise flight testing and is expected to last about 15 months.
The directorate projects that it would spend about $11.5 million up to the end of Fiscal Year 2007 to complete the demonstration.
Designing the mammoth bomb has its challenges. Davis said it is critical to be able to control the weapon’s flight and guide it to its impact point while maintaining the proper angle of attack and minimising the weapon’s deflection as it penetrates the target.
“To be able to do that with a 30,000 lb weapon is no trivial task,” he told JDW. “That is why we are doing a lot of up-front testing . . . before we proceed with any flight demonstration.”
The service has already carried out a demonstration of a large 21,000 lb (9,534kg)-class non-penetrating cousin to the MOP called the Massive Ordnance Air Burst (MOAB) weapon. It was designed to validate the technologies needed to replace the 15,000 lb (6,810kg) BLU-82 ‘Daisy Cutter’ blast munition, stocks of which are dwindling. Like the MOP, there is currently no requirement for the MOAB, although several units were available for operational use to support Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’ but were not employed.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
