Operation Midnight Hammer, which the US attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities, used a bunker buster that weighed over 30,000 pounds.
Secretary Pete Hegses says we will “eliminate” Iran’s nuclear site
Defense Secretary Pete Hegses called the United States an “incredible success.”
The US has used millions of dollars “bunkerbusters” over hundreds of thousands of dollars to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities on the June 21 stealth strike, marking the first operational use of the weapon.
What the Trump administration called “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the US bomber plane dropped 14 giant bombs on three Iran’s nuclear facilities, the chairman of Prime Minister Dan Kane’s co-head told reporters on June 22.
The bombs used on the strike are called massive weapon intruders, or MOPSs, each weighing 30,000 pounds and costing millions of people to produce. Also known as the guided bomb unit, or GBU-57, MOPS is a GPS guided weapon designed to dig deep into underground targets such as reinforced tunnels and bunkers. The bomb is about 20 feet long and reaches 6 feet at the widest point.
Three nuclear sites, Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, maintained “very serious damage and destruction,” according to initial assessments, Caine said.
Israel has some of its weight in the Bunkerbuster, but only the MOP has the ability to destroy or significantly damage Iran’s nuclear facilities, experts previously told USA Today.
Boeing has won a $70 million contract for Bunkerbuster
The cost of MOPs is unknown exactly, but the defence contracts to produce them are worth tens of millions of people.
In 2019, the Department of Defense handed over $70 million Boeing to tackle weapons at a St. Louis facility. The company won the latest contract in 2021 for MOP production of over $77 million.
The “largest” B-2 strike in history
The B-2 bomber is the only aircraft capable of carrying a huge mop. Each bomber can hold a pair of bombs.
Seven B-2 bombers flew 14 bombs to Iran from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, but more than 125 aircraft were caught in it, Kane said.
“It was the largest B-2 operational strike in US history and the second longest B-2 mission ever flew,” Kane said.
The Air Force ran five successful bomb drops in the New Mexico White Sands Missile series in 2012.
