We need to be able to "strip off" the protective cover that the mountains and caves of Afghanistan now offer OBL and his very small group of terrorists. They are extremely difficult to find, now harder since fewer people need to be hidden!

So why not ask to the British to contribute their design, their drawings, and at least a couple of "dummy" weighted bobms to test B-52 capacity?

It seems they can add their historical innovations: like radar, the dam-buster bombs, sonar, radar navigation, code-breaking, etc. to the war effort by building enough Tallboy bomb casings to destroy the AREA near the suspected caves to this war on terrorism.

With this size bomb, penetrating deeper underground ANY other conventional wepaon, a "near miss" is good enough.

And these conventional bombs, not needing rocket assist boosters, terminal guidance, laser designators, or ground observers .... only a bomb site program and a GPS in the bomber, can be sent over in enough quantity to saturate suspected aareas in a way that can't be done with any other weapon but A-bombs.

What are your comments and - more important - your criticisms?

Why? Got a few sitting around collecting dust?

Why not just ask the British to use their own planes to carry the bombs?

They are participating in the strikes too, you know =)

I think that using these bombs would be a great idea.

They would probably be to cheap for any current general's future employer to produce though.

Brit's don't have any (that I know of) that can carry that heavy a weapon that far. The Tornado is too small. They've mothballed their earlier V-series of bombers.

Seems like there may be a not-invented-here function too....

Fabrication isn't trivial, but shipyards can roll the plate, weld it/cast it relatively easily.

For an airplane company, these are huge. But for a shipyard, this size and weight and thickness of welded steel and aluminum plate (for the casing and fins) are small, simple jobs.

Needs the right threads for whatever fuse works at those speeds, accelerations, and pressures.

I think your answer is "probably". The B-52 and the B-58 "Hustler" were originally designed to carry nuclear weapons before they became miniturized as they are today. The Hustler became obsolete because it couldn't readily be converted to iron bombs like the B-52.

By the way, I think we have better bombs with more penetrating power than the WW-2 stuff you are citing.

Regards,

Don't know if the brits have any laying around, but another possibility would be to fab some of our own- i.e. a larger, heavier version of the current "bunker buster" (GBU-XX?) for external carriage under a -52. If I'm not mistaken, the internal bomb bays of a B-52 are surpisingly small.

Biggest problem with the more modern, admittedly more accurate, guided or rocket-assisted penetrating bombs is their small size.

They can absolutely get deeper when dropped from todays aircraft than standard ground-burst bombs. The French Durendal (sp ?) has a teminal rocket mtotr to penetrate even 12-15 foot concrete runways and then explode "upwards" so the runway is broken up.

Today's smaller weapons are 500 - 1000 lbs explosive. Too little to do damage UNLESS you dop it exactly on top of the specific cave that the terrorist is inside of. 200 feet, 500 feet sideways and you've done nothing.

Except show the terrorists they have nothing to fear from aircraft.

These "modern" bombs are fine for what they were designed to do .... IF you know exactly where the target is. We don't. The caves/bunkers that OSL is hiding in aren't visible, and he isn't near the extrance. Further, we really don't know the area he is in: 100 x 100, even 20 x 20 miles is too large to target when all you can look for is the side of yet another mountain.

A WWII Tallboy (IF they can be carried by a B-52!) with ten to twenty times as power will cause much more damage in a much larger area. Further, since these things would "only" need the steel casing and AL fins: no rocket motors, guidance packages, or exotic "extras" - they become much cheaper than "modern" penetrating bombs. The destruction range is larger, so the damage from dropping 12 - 16 bombs in a "grid" starts to turn the equation. The "modern" penetrating weapons are too exensive, and we don't have enough of them, to spread them out randomly.

Duplicating a cheaper, (but bigger!) "stupid" iron bomb makes it possible to "miss" a few dozen times and still be effective.

You still need to know where the terrorist is - you've GOT to have a target, but with Tallboys/Grand Slam's a "good guess" becomes "good enough" to try saturation penetrating bombing, doesn't it?

And, if that area doesn't have the actual cave, you've "rocked" the surrouding countryside for miles around. THAT impact the terrorists can't ignore.

The next day, try a another target - OSL is no longer insidew a city where collateral damage becomes limiting.

"Duplicating a cheaper, (but bigger!) "stupid" iron bomb makes it possible to "miss" a few dozen times and still be effective. "

I suspect
a) the brits don't have any (or at least certainly not many) "Tallboys" around. We could make Make our own (out of tungsten?) and they certainly would penetrate more deeply, but
b) I'd bet the a large cost is simply paying for the fuel/maintenance required per mission
and
c) I suspect that a B52 would only carry 2-4 of these bombs (i.e. 20,000 lbs) per sortie, and each bomb would probably only be effective against underground fortifications if it hit within 100 meters of the fortification (okay, make that 200) So each sortie would take out 20-40K meters, or 20-40% of a grid square... so if we narrow it down to "he's somehwere in this 100 square kilmotre area" we're talking about 10,000 sorties for a less than 50% chance of taking him out.

On the other hand, if we suspected we knews where an extensive cave complex was, it might make sense to go after it with these types of weapons.

Thanks. Don't recall ever hearing about these. Gotta wonder how much more penetration they could get today with DU hardened cases and rocket propulsion. From a google search:

"Tallboy" and "Earthquake" Deep Penetration Bombs
These massive bombs designed by Dr. Barnes Wallis reached the speed of sound during descent being streamlined and equipped with angled fins that produced a rapid spin. Penetrating the ground before exploding they worked by setting off shock waves that would bring down nearby structures. The 12,000 lb (5443 kg) Tallboy dropped from 20,000 ft (6096m) made a 80 ft (24m) deep crater 100 ft (30m) across and could go through 16 ft (4.88m) of concrete. On June 8-9, 1944 eight Lancaster bombers of No. 617 Squadron used the deep penetration Tallboy bomb in an attack against the Saumur Rail Tunnel. The new weapon proved its worth but at the cost of losing 5 of the 8 bombers on this mission. Eventually 854 Tallboy bombs were used, the most note-worthy mission resulting in the destruction of the battleship Tirpitz.

A 22,000 lb Grand Slam Bomb on Display

The "Grand Slam" (Earthquake) bomb was of the same design as the Tallboy but larger and heavier weighing 22,000 lb (9972 kg.) The Grand Slam was first used on March 14, 1945 when a force of Lancaster bombers led by Royal Air Force Squadron Leader C.C. Calder attacked the Bielefeld railway viaduct destroying two spans. In another attack against submarine pens near Bremen two Grand Slams pentrated over 7 meters (23 feet) of reinforced concrete before exploding causing the collapse of the entire concrete ceiling. 41 Grand Slam Bombs were dropped by the end of the war mainly against bridges and viaducts.

These massive bombs designed by Dr. Barnes Wallis reached the speed of sound during descent being streamlined and equipped with angled fins that produced a rapid spin. Penetrating the ground before exploding they worked by setting off shock waves that would bring down nearby structures. The 12,000 lb (5443 kg) Tallboy dropped from 20,000 ft (6096 m) made a 80 ft (24 m) deep crater 100 ft (30 m) across and could go through 16 ft (4.88 m) of concrete. On June 8/9, 1944 eight lancaster bombers of No. 617 Squadron used the deep penetration Tallboy bomb in an attack against the Saumur Rail Tunnel. The new weapon proved its worth but at the cost of losing 5 of the 8 bombers on this mission.

Eventually 854 Tallboy bombs were used, the most note-worthy mission resulting in the destruction of the battleship Tirpitz.

Name: Tallboy
Type: Deep Penetration Bomb
Length: 21 ft (6.4 m)
Diameter: 38 in (0.97 m)
Weight: 12,000 lb (5,443 kg)
Warhead: 5,200 lb (2,360 kg) Torpex explosive
Number Used: 854

Name: Grand Slam (Earthquake) Bomb
Type: Deep Penetration Bomb

Length: 26 ft 6 in (7.7 m)
Diameter: 3 ft, 10 in (1.17 m)
Tail Section length: 13 ft, 6 in (4.11 m)
Weight: 22,000 lb (9972 kg)
Warhead: 9,135 lb (4144 kg) Torpex explosive
Number Used: 41

Looking again at that picture of the Lancaster dropping the bomb ..... I wonder how much of that initial separation distance is due to the bomb dropping down, and how much is due to the aircraft suddenly rising up. 8<)

Our GBU-28 is 5000lbs, It's just a surplus 8" artillery barrel that has a hardened penetrator (pointy tip) with fins and a guidance system and filled with explosive.

Guidance package is the only high tech, I think they just used one of the add on guidance packages they can hang on most dumb bombs. It penetrates over 20ft in reinforced concrete, something like 50-100 in soil. Is there a need for more?

They say the B-36 leapt upwards a few thousand feet when it released a Mark 17 or Mark 24 thermonuclear bomb...so I imagine the Lancaster behaved similarly :o)

I thought I had read they were using, or going to use, the 20' bunker buster' bombs. They are old artillery barrels filled with about 600 lbs. of high explosives, but designed in such a way as to penetrate deeply into the hard rock of the mountains before the bomb detonates. Sounds like it could really ruin someone's day!

Osama is quite safe, thank you. According to CNN's cave mockups and action-Jackson graphics, our buster bombs can't get around all those right-angle corridors built into the elaborate inderground labyrinths. And, of course, CNN and Judy Woofwoof are the final word on the capabilities of our armaments.

Leni

Righto........the RAF has no airborne capability to deliver this type of weapon.

The old Canberra MAY have been capable, but is retired

I was reading on another thread about massive daisy cutters in the 400,000 lb. range which would have an explosive equivalent of 10kt (Hiroshima sized). Only the cargo planes could carry them. We would have to have a new type of bomber to carry such ordinance but it would be an awesome weapon.