I would expect that we have a fairly advanced kinetic energy weapons program. It has a folklore on the internet where the program is called “Project Thor” or “Rods from God”. Essentially it operates on the concept of firing needle shaped spears, made of hardened tungsten. These spears would be akin to the size of a large telephone pole, or larger. The idea is to fire these “spears” at velocities approaching those of comets or meteors, such that they impact on the surface of the earth at upwards of 10 miles per SECOND. One only needs to run a calculation of 2000 lbs moving at that speed to realize that they would strike with the force of a nuke, without any fallout. I can’t even imagine how far they would penetrate, but I’d expect you could send several at the same target, and do some real excavating. Also, given that they are hitting with the force of a nuke, that is concentrated on a single point, there potential penetration depth would far exceed anything in our bunker buster weapons. I’d sure hate to be down in that bunker. At the impact speed, I doubt there is any defense for such a weapon, and that though we might not have them orbiting in space at present, a ballistic missile could be constructed in such a way as to do the job.
I do believe the pentagon spent quite a bit of money recently on developing a conventional trident missile for the Ohio class subs. I wonder why they would spend nearly a billion dollars developing what is termed as a “conventional” weapon. Given that the trident missile is an already completed program to launch nuclear warheads, I’d suspect that the development costs were probably on the warhead design of this new “conventional” missile. If we haven’t done this, our military are bigger fools than I gave them credit for.
Paraphrasing what Patton said about fixed fortifications being monuments to man’s stupidity, I’d say our engineers have long ago figured out how to take out such bunkers.
While not as effective, a 1 ton solid tungsten or DE warhead on a ICBM would land with the force of 0.075 kilotons of TNT.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out Obama told them he would never authorize the use of nuclear weapons for any reason, and they had to come up with something else.
Such a weapon would impact at beyond orbital speed. Much of its mass would be converted to heat upon impact, thus vaporizing the rock, rod and just about everything else nearby. That massive energy spike would also pulverize the underlying bedrock to a sufficient depth, even with a smaller rod, to annihilate a hardened bunker.
If not, as one poster suggested, hit it again. And again.
Orbital weapons. Ya gotta love ‘em...