Israel slated to buy 1,000 'bunker-buster' bombs from US
 

Israel slated to buy 1,000 'bunker-buster' bombs from US
Jerusalem Post, Updated Sep 15, 2008 0:04
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

Saw the article, and it sounded like a 'game changer"

Ahmadinijad, Grand Ayatollah Khameni, and the Mullahs should be scared – very scared, if they continue with their weapons development.
Not an AF guy, but the following plan comes to mind - Use The Small GBU-39 in salvos in standoff drops on the command and control facilities and the less hardened nuclear installations. Then take out the triple A, own the sky’s, and follow up with the GBU-28's Israel has in inventory. Then get serious with other munitions. Sounds like a plan. ;)

GBU-28 Description
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ons/gbu-28.htm

GBU-39 Description
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...itions/sdb.htm

GBU-43/xx
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ions/dshtw.htm



SnT

Good selection for them.

Iran needs to understand that they will not let them get a nuke.

"Not an AF guy, but the following plan comes to mind - Use The Small GBU-39 in salvos in standoff drops "

Better yet hit them with the JSOW AGM-154.....huge standoff and takes potential SAM incident's out of the picture.......

Indeed an interesting future ahead. Won't be easy though...

H

GBU-39s for C2 nodes and other high payoff targets that hug civilians.

However IMHO, the preponderance of these will be used in lebanon in either an air or combined campaign against hezbollah once they start lobbing missles as a result of any Israeli strike on Iran. The big bombs can be overkill against tactical targets.

Anyway, and probably most importantly, Israel does not have the large bombers that could carry more than a 1-2 of the larger bombs per sortie. That's one of the reasons that we developed these...however as long as we don't mind paying for the extra explosives and we don't mind the big boom, we have enough Tac and Strat air to get the job done.

Not sure of the size of the Israeli Air Force, but I'd think that having the smaller bombs would give them a great(er) first-strike capability.

my Army-guy $.02

You might want to read about the raid on Osirak.

TR

Here's a pic of their extended range F-16Iwith 'conformed' external fuel tanks along the fuselage above the wings--wing mounted drop tanks to get 'em there and the 'conformed' and internal tanks to get 'em back home. :lifter

Richard :munchin

The raid on Iraq's reactor.

I didn't for a second think that Israel was incapable of a repeat. Our selling them these muntions was a huge escalation on our part in the mind of the Iranians. These bombs will be positively burning a hole in the Israeli's pockets and are liable to be used at any time.

I'm just saying that the 1000-2000lb size bombs may be over-kill for tactical targets but Overkill is not a bad thing for strategic ones like nuclear sites. I'd think that the Israeli's would be going for the 10yr fix vs. the 5yr one when attacking Iranian nuclear infrastructure so I'd be applying the old "P for Plenty" fomula. The Israeli Air Force certainly has enough lift to attack Iranian nuclear infrastructure targets while applying this method.

I basically was hypothesizing that the 250lb-ers would best be suited for tactical targets which are more plentiful in any first-strike scenario and where minimizing collateral damage is significant consideration. Lebanon came to my mind given that Hezbollah hugs civilians to mitigate the supremacy of the Israeli Air force. You know that Israel knows that they are going to eat a whole boat-load of katushas once they tee-off on Iran, so I figued that they'd want the ability to preciscely service as many hezbollah targets as possible in conjunction with any raid into Iran. Smaller PGMs are the answer to that problem.

That was not my point.

In the raid, the Israelis were uncertain if they could penetrate the reactor containment vessel with the munitions they had available for their strike aircraft (F-16s with 2,000 pounders).

So they rehearsed hitting the same impact point on the target repeatedly and wound up sending extra strike aircraft.

IIRC, they put somewhere north of 20 bombs into the same impact point before achieving penetration.

They got the job done with what they had to do it with.

Do not underestimate the Israelis.

TR

Yup. I was missing your point. I'm just glad that we're giving them some hardware to help them do the job more efficiently.

We supply the hardware....they supply the balls!:D

sg1987,

Eloquently stated...... :rolleyes:

GB TFS :D