Pointing the world’s largest bomb at North Korea
The U.S. made bunker busting Massive Ordnance Penetrator developed with N. Korean, Iranian targets in mind
In 1991, during the first Gulf War, the U.S. military recognized a need for weapons that could pierce underground concrete bunkers and hardened facilities.
In three weeks military researchers fashioned a hardened steel bomb made from an artillery casing that could be dropped from a high altitude, pierce earth and concrete, and detonate inside underground bunkers.
The ability to crack open facilities that previously were resistant to conventional ordnance meant bunker designers had to dig deeper, wrapping important facilities in extra layers of concrete and burying them under mountains.
Few countries are better at protecting their facilities under layers of rock and concrete than Iran and North Korea, who began bunker-building programs so deep underground that even more advanced bombs would not damage them.
THE MOP
In 2008 Boeing and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) began work on a non-nuclear bunker-busting weapon that could reach even the most hardened facilities. After six years, several rounds of upgrades and $341 million in developing and purchasing costs, they came up with Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), the world’s largest conventional bomb.
At 15 tons and 20 feet long, the MOP is six times larger than the GBU-28 and GBU-37, which were previously the largest bunker busters in the U.S. inventory.
‘… one Pentagon official told Politico Magazine the MOP “boggles the mind”‘
The GPS guided bomb is dropped from 20,000 feet and approaches hypersonic speeds. It can burrow through 200 feet of earth and 60 feet of concrete before delayed smart fuses sense empty space and detonate.
No footage of the bomb’s tests have been released to the public, but one Pentagon official told PoliticoMagazine the MOP “boggles the mind.”
The weapon is so large that the USAF also had to alter their massive B2 stealth bombers to carry it. The B2 Spirit is the only aircraft that can carry the weapon, according to a report signed by J. Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation and obtained by specialist news site InsideDefense.com
The MOP’s development has been closely tracked by Inside Defense, who also acquired test documents from 2014 showing the MOP was upgraded and ready for use. The U.S. Air Force (USAF), however, commissioned further enhancements, and development continued as negotiations began with Iran to rein in its nuclear program.
Despite ongoing talks, Iran’s Furdow nuclear facility was high on the list of possible targets for the new ordnance. The nuclear fuel enrichment plant is built inside a mountain, and could require multiple hits even from weapons as large as the MOP.
NORTH KOREA DIGS DEEP
Iran was by no means the only target in mind during the MOP’s development, however. North Korea has a long history of concealing its facilities away from prying eyes.
“(The MOP) would enable a larger target set, particularly of hardened targets that are very difficult to destroy with existing ordnance … It gives you more options to be able to take out sites, particularly when countries like Iran and North Korea are hardening their targets to try and make it difficult for the U.S. to hit them,” Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs at the Congressional Research Service, told Inside the Air Force, in January this year.
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made similar remarks to the Wall Street Journal, earlier in the bomb’s development.
“It’s not just aimed at Iran. Frankly, it’s aimed at any enemy that decides to locate in some kind of impenetrable location. The goal here is to be able to get at any enemy, anywhere,” he said in 2012.
The U.S. military has for decades relied heavily upon air assets – including those of the U.S. Air Force as well as the other branches of the U.S. military – to conduct heavy bombardment of enemy territory and units.
Strategic bombers, which belong to the USAF, are used to fly at higher altitudes and conduct bombing runs targeting key military facilities and other strategic assets including infrastructure in enemy territory, especially during the early phases of a conflict.
The MOP being loaded onto a truck. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
During the Korean War, the DPRK was subject to heavy aerial bombardment by the U.S. military.
Much of the country was leveled by bombing and it was difficult for the North Korean and Chinese forces to maintain heavy equipment or operate major bases in the country, unless they were heavily protected or difficult for United Nations forces to locate. Both of these factors could sometimes be achieved due in large part to taking advantage of Korea’s mountainous terrain.
The North Korean military has learned from its own experiences in the Korean War as well as observation of other conflicts since.
First-hand reports by troops and advisors sent to assist an ally, such as in the Vietnam War, will have helped the DPRK understand the effects of aerial bombardment as well methods of mitigating them, particularly use of underground bunkers, tunnels and camouflage.
North Korea has made extensive use of tunnels and bunkers for the military and to hide and protect other sensitive facilities, likely including bunkers and underground complexes to which the leadership could flee during a crisis.
In 2003, the LA Times spoke to defectors who worked on underground facilities before escaping North Korea. Their accounts revealed construction projects so secretive the workers were never allowed to leave, and remained there their whole lives.
“This is how we hide from our enemies. Everything in North Korea is underground,” a defector identified as “K” told the LA Times.
OPTIONS
U.S. military planners looking to deploy the MOP in North Korea would certainly have no shortage of options to choose from. Even a cursory glance of North Korea researcher Curtis Melvin’s 2007 Google Earth “DPRK uncovered” overlay shows large numbers of underground facilities scattered all across the country.
Though estimates vary, analysts and North Korea watchers place the number at greater than 10,000.
One of the DPRK’s “thunderbird runways.” Image credit: Google Earth
“North Korea has many of its key military facilities underground. They may have a highly enriched uranium centrifuge facility underground – though this has not been verified … They also have aircraft facilities that are tucked inside of mountains for protection. Finally, some of their important command and control facilities are buried deep underground,” Bruce Bechtol, associate professor of political science at Angelo State University and president of the International Council on Korean Studies told NK News.
‘These (smaller) bunker busters can be really useful in neutralizing North Korea’s air superiority’
Nonetheless smaller, cheaper bunker busters might be sufficient to deploy against many of the more lightly protected facilities, in addition to artillery emplacements along the DMZ set into mountainsides.
“These (smaller) bunker busters can be really useful in neutralizing North Korea’s air superiority. To prevent their oil tanks being targeted by ROK-U.S. forces, North Korea hid its air fuel tanks under the ground. If we can identify their location, the GBU-28 can be used to penetrate those underground tankers,” Chung, a former ROK army officer who wished to remain anonymous told NK News.
“The ROK military’s No. 1 priority during wartime would be nullifying North Korea’s Long Range-Artilleries (LRA) hidden inside the mountains. Usually, ROK Air Forces are expected to demolish the facilities within 3-4 minutes prior to the first launch … we can (also) use GBU-28 to smash the entrances,” he added.
So far, given their high cost and deployment requirements the U.S. has only ordered 20 MOPs, so it seems likely they would only deploy them against high value, highly shielded targets.
While it is not publicly known if North Korea has any Furdow equivalent facilities, large structures, factories and roads built into mountainsides are in plentiful supply.
“I am unaware of any underground nuclear facilities in the DPRK – some sites have been targeted and inspected in the past with no results. Any such facility could be disguised as a mine or regular military base, of which there are thousands,” Melvin told NK News.
Despite the difficulties, some targets still appear relatively obvious. According to Melvin, the mountain behind the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces in Pyongyang could be a potential target, and a likely command and control center. Satellite imagery of the facility shows numerous entrances into the mountain.
Image credit: Google Earth
North Korea’s infamous “thunderbird runways,” aircraft strips which can be seen protruding through mountains in Wonsan and Onchon, are other possible targets.
“Also, there is an entire underground component under the Korean Worker’s Party complex 1 and 2 in downtown Pyongyang,” Melvin added.
These types of key facilities, along with air defenses and radars, are typically among the first targets for bombardment in the early stages of war, when a military force will seek to destroy an enemy’s command, control and communications network.
According to an article in Stars and Stripes on August 5, the U.S. military has mapped many of North Korea’s underground faculties. One of the reasons for such mapping is surely planning for aerial bombardment in the event of a conflict.
NORTH KOREAN ATTENTION
North Korea for their part, are not oblivious to the threat posed from new U.S. weaponry and the MOP, having released numerous articles on both U.S. and South Korean bunker busters in North Korean media.
The KCNA Watch data tool shows the North Korea’s primary media outlet began to mention the term “bunker buster” more frequently since the early half of 2010.
“The U.S. seeks to bomb the military and strategic targets of the DPRK all of a sudden by use of B-2 loaded with Bunker Buster in ‘contingency’ on the Korean Peninsula in a bid to disable them,” an article from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published in September 2011 reads, a date coinciding with when the USAF first took delivery of the weapons, prior to rounds of upgrades to make them more accurate and resistant to jamming and interference technologies.
While a Pentagon official told Politico that a credible threat to its nuclear programs will have helped bring Iran to the negotiating table, North Korea are probably just as likely to keep digging deeper.
Additional reporting: JH Ahn
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons
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