So much for just building airplanes
November 14, 2011, 6:14 PM EST
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The Air Force has taken delivery from Boeing Co. of a new 30,000-pound bomb capable of penetrating deeply buried targets.
The Air Force Global Strike Command started receiving the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, designed for the B-2 stealth bomber, in September with additional bombs expected last month, Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jack Miller said in a short statement to Bloomberg News.
The deliveries “will meet requirements for the current operational need,” he said.
Command head Lieutenant General James Kowalski told the annual Air Force Association conference in September the command “completed integration” of the bunker-buster bomb with the B- 2, “giving the war-fighter increased capability against hardened and deeply buried targets.”
The bomb would be the U.S. military’s largest conventional penetrator. It’s six times bigger than the 5,000-pound bunker buster that the Air Force now uses to attack deeply buried nuclear, biological or chemical sites.
Chicago-based Boeing is manufacturing the bomb, which was successfully demonstrated in March 2007.
The Air Force in 2009 said Boeing might build as many as 16 of the munitions. Spokesman Miller today had no details on how many the Air Force plans to buy. Boeing in August received a $32 million contract that included eight munitions.
The B-2, developed by Falls Church, Virginia-based Northrop Grumman Corp., has a shape and skin capable of evading radar. It’s the only U.S. bomber designed to penetrate air defenses such as those believed in use by North Korea and Iran. It’s also the only aircraft currently capable of carrying the new bomb.
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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-14/boeing-30-000-pound-bunker-buster-bomb-now-ready-for-combat.html
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