朝新悟道：雜論17，30000斤鑽地炸彈，解決伊朗核危機， 朝新悟道：杂论17，30000斤钻地炸弹，解决伊朗核危机， Zhaoxin's Insight into the Dao, Miscellaneous Reflections 17, The 30,000-Pound Bunker-Buster Bomb, Resolving the Iran Nuclear Crisis,
23:01at 20 feet long and 20 feet long and weighing 30,000 pounds, it is the world's largest non-nuclear bomb and can destroy targets buried deep underground, earning it the name bunker buster.
23:11to destroy Iran's heavily fortified nuclear facilities, experts say these are the conventional weapons with the best chance of success.
23:18This is a big sucker. It is called the massive ordnance penetrator, which basically sums up what it is.
23:26Here's why the mop represents Israel's best chance at destroying Iran's facilities and why it can't do it alone.
23:33The mop is the largest bunker buster bomb in the US arsenal. It's designed to penetrate hardened targets and cloud through almost 200 feet of rock before detonating.
23:44Due to the mop's weight, they can only be carried by the biggest bombers, such as B-2s.
23:51One bomb is unlikely to borrow deep enough to hit Iran's nuclear facilities by itself.
23:56The metal is going to melt at some point and so it does have limitations in terms of how far it can penetrate and that's why you may have to follow it up with multiple instances.
24:04You drive a wedge in, it expands and then you continue to drive it in the second time and each time it's more effective.
24:11In a sense, you're trying to create an earthquake. You're trying to crack the mountain and to channel that seismic energy down to make whatever is under there, whatever facility is under there shake around a lot.
24:24The mop is equipped with advanced guidance systems, including GPS, to allow for accurate targeting.
24:30It is also fitted with a delayed fuse, which allows the bomb to explode after it has penetrated its target.
24:37You're going to wait until it gets down in there before it blows up because you want to maximize the energy.
24:42Every foot counts in order to get it deeper to burrow down and have the effect.
24:49Since it launched its campaign against Iran's nuclear program, Israel has damaged critical nuclear infrastructure and killed scientists.
24:57Iran has denied trying to build nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is peaceful.
25:02According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran already has enough highly enriched uranium to make around 10 nuclear weapons.
25:10Satellite images have shown damage at nuclear facilities, including Iran's largest enrichment facility Natanz.
25:18But one key location remains unscathed.
25:21The Fordow fuel enrichment plant where Iran produces highly enriched uranium is hidden in the mountains and is believed to be buried up to 295 feet below ground.
25:32It's harder to hit, deliberately so, because the Iranians buried it under a mountain.
25:37Look, the U.S. put NORAD under Cheyenne mountain.
25:40It's way down under a lot of granite and a lot of rock.
25:43And if you want to raise the threshold for your adversaries to hit something, sometimes it's just really useful to bury it.
25:49While Israel has bunker busters, none of the ones in its arsenal are powerful enough to penetrate deep enough to hit Fordow.
25:56This is why the Israelis probably need U.S. assistance.
26:01The Israelis have a lot of bombs, but they need things that kind of crack the mountain and create a wedge to create the tremors and to create vibrations that will be helpful to destroy the facility.
26:13In addition to lacking the weapons to destroy Fordow, Israel also lacks the heavy bombers.
26:19Its ally, the U.S., has both.
26:22Fundamentally, there's a choice here to be made about whether it is in the U.S. national interest to take out Fordow, to take out the Iranian nuclear program once and for all.
26:32This is the GBU-57 MOP bomb.
26:36MOP stands for Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
26:39It's a non-nuclear munition and it belongs to the Americans.
26:43It's the only bomb thought to be capable of hitting key Iranian nuclear targets buried deep beneath the mountains.
26:50The Fordow fuel enrichment plant near the city of Qom is about 95 miles southwest of Tehran and is believed to store crucial centrifuges for enriching uranium.
27:01The site is built into the side of the mountain, an estimated 80 meters beneath soil and rock.
27:07Israeli defense forces have already damaged multiple nuclear targets in Iran.
27:12These images produced by the IDF show a uranium enrichment site in the Natanz region in central Iran.
27:18Fordow is a smaller site than Natanz, but the Israelis don't have the right weapons to hit it.
27:24Known for its bunker busting capability, the GBU-57 MOP can strike targets as deep as 61 meters and, with multiple hits, is believed to be able to penetrate even deeper.
27:37Up till now, it's only ever been used in tests.
27:42But the Americans used an early predecessor, the £15,000 BLU-82 Daisy Cutter bombs during the Vietnam War,
27:50dropping them from the back of Hercules aircraft to clear helicopter landing sites in the jungle.
27:56These were also used in the first Gulf War and against Al-Qaeda in the Tora Bora Caves in Afghanistan after 9-11.
28:07The next giant US bomb was the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast, known as a MOAB and nicknamed the Mother of All Bombs.
28:17MOAB contained £18,700 of explosive and was used against an ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan in 2017.
28:26The only plane equipped to drop the modern-day MOP bombs is the US B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
28:32Each B-2 can carry two GBU-57s.
28:36Until recently, six of the stealth bombers were based at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean,
28:41but they returned to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri in early May this year.
28:46If the B-2s are used now, it's possible they could fly direct from the United States to Iran.
28:53The site at Fordow was reportedly protected by Iranian and Russian surface-to-air missile systems,
28:59although it's believed the Israeli Air Force have largely suppressed the Iranian systems
29:03and have also rendered ineffective the Iranian Air Force.
29:07America already has the USS Vinson carrier strike group in the Arabian Sea,
29:16and the USS Nimitz CSG is also on the way from the east.
29:20If the US does decide to go into action alongside the Israelis,
29:25the firepower arrayed against Iran will be formidable.
29:29The bombers launched from the continental United States.
29:36As part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise,
29:39part of the package proceeded to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy.
29:44A deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners
29:50and key leaders here in Washington and in Tampa.
29:54The main strike package comprised of seven B-2 Spirit bombers,
29:58each with two crew members, proceeded quietly to the east with minimal communications.
30:05Throughout the 18-hour flight into the target area,
