By Jim Wolf
The United States plans to develop an experimental 13 600kg bomb, the biggest in its inventory, aimed at destroying deeply buried targets beyond the reach of existing bombs, the air force said on Friday.
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, would be about one-third heavier than the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, dropped twice last year in "live" tests at a range in Florida.
The air force's Air Armaments Centre at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, said it planned to award a contract for the "technology demonstration" work as early as mid-September, based on a perceived need for such a weapon.
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"We think a bomb like this could be important in the future for targets that we can't destroy with what we now have," said Jake Swinson of the armaments centre, which develops, tests, evaluates and acquires non-nuclear, air-dropped munitions.
Among companies that have built ground-penetrating bombs are three of the top US defence contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon. Proposals are due by August 16, the armaments centre said.
The plan to develop the bomb was reported first by Jane's Defence Weekly. The project's demonstration phase would cost about $11,5-million through the end of the 2007 fiscal year, it said.
Flight testing is projected in about 2006, Swinson said.
Penetrators are made of special alloys designed to stay intact on impact to improve the effectiveness of conventional weapons against deep tunnels and other underground facilities.
The MOAB, by contrast, is an experimental blast fragmentation bomb. Packed with 8 200kg of high explosive, it would be used against surface targets and explode at or just above the ground.
The new bomb would not be the largest ever built by the United States. A 20 000kg bomb was carried by Cold War era B-36 intercontinental bombers but was never used.
- This article was originally published on page 16 of Saturday Argus on July 17, 2004
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