What are 'bunker buster' bombs, and how is the US using them against Iran?

Business Insider

The U.S.B-2 stealth bomber is the only aircraft capable of carrying and dropping 'bunker busters," the world's most powerful nonnuclear bomb. Here's what we know about the 30,000-pound weapons and why the US is using them to strike nuclear sites in Iran.

Transcript

00:00Bunker Busters is a term that we use to discuss large airdrop munitions that are capable of

00:16doing a couple of things. First, it's penetrating hard and deeply buried targets, and these are

00:22also timed within the fuses of the weapons so that they don't explode immediately upon impact.

00:27The GBU-57, which is the massive ordnance penetrator that's being discussed heavily

00:34in terms of American involvement in Iran, can actually penetrate up to 200 feet before

00:38detonating its ordnance. It is the only weapon in anyone's arsenal globally that's able to

00:45successfully target and even eliminate facilities like Fordow. It was designed originally with the

00:52intent of attacking and destroying targets specifically built into mountains. Initially,

00:56that was in terms of North Korea, later expanded to target sets including Iran. The U.S. Air Force

01:03B-2 stealth bomber is the only aircraft that's capable of carrying and deploying these weapons.

01:09It can carry up to two of the massive ordnance penetrator.

01:13It was reported the Air Force would actually plan to use several of these munitions deployed through

01:18several aircraft, so it wouldn't just be a single munition dropped or even two from one airplane.

01:24It would be multiple strikes kind of barreling down into that target set over time,

01:29kind of drilling down towards the target.

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