US B-2 bombers, bunker-busters and alternatives
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber (C) is flanked by 4 U.S. Marine Corps F-35 fighters during a flyover of military aircraft down the Hudson River and New York Harbor past York City, and New Jersey, U.S. July 4, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Air Force's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber represents one of America's most advanced strategic weapons platforms, capable of entering sophisticated air defenses and delivering precision strikes against hardened targets such as Iran's buried network of nuclear research facilities.
The U.S. military is ready to carry out any decision that President Donald Trump may make on Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday, adding that Tehran should have heeded the president's calls for it to make a deal on its nuclear program prior to the start of Israel's strikes on Friday.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected Trump's demand for unconditional surrender on Wednesday, and the U.S. president said his patience had run out, though he gave no clue as to what his next step would be.
B-2 SPIRIT SPECIFICATIONS:
The U.S. B-2 costs about $2.1 billion each making it the most expensive military aircraft ever built. Made by Northrop Grumman the bomber with its cutting-edge stealth technology, began its production run in the late 1980s but was curbed by the fall of the Soviet Union. Only 21 were made after the Pentagon's planned acquisition program was truncated.
The bomber's range of over 6,000 nautical miles without refueling enables global strike capabilities from continental U.S. bases. With aerial refueling, the B-2 can reach virtually any target worldwide, as demonstrated in missions from Missouri to Afghanistan and Libya.
Its payload capacity of more than 40,000 pounds allows the aircraft to carry a diverse array of conventional and nuclear weapons. The bomber's internal weapons bays are specifically designed to maintain stealth characteristics while accommodating large ordnance loads which could include two GBU-57A/B MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), a 30,000-pound precision-guided "bunker buster" bomb.
The two-pilot crew configuration reduces personnel requirements while maintaining operational effectiveness through advanced automation systems.
The B-2's stealth technology incorporates radar-absorbing materials and angular design features that minimize detection by enemy air defense systems. Its radar cross-section is reportedly comparable to that of a small bird, making it nearly invisible to conventional radar.
MASSIVE ORDNANCE PENETRATOR (MOP):
The 30,000-pound MOP represents the largest conventional bomb in the U.S. arsenal, specifically engineered to defeat hardened underground bunkers. Its massive size requires the B-2 to carry only one or two MOPs per mission, but provides unmatched bunker-penetration capability.
The weapon's 20.5-foot length and GPS-guided precision targeting system enable accurate strikes against specific underground facilities. Its penetration capability of over 200 feet through hardened concrete makes it effective against the world's most protected underground installations.
CONVENTIONAL PAYLOADS:
Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) provide the B-2 with precision conventional strike capability against fixed targets. These GPS-guided weapons can be deployed in large numbers, with the bomber capable of simultaneously engaging multiple targets with high accuracy.
Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW) extend the aircraft's engagement range while maintaining stealth characteristics during approach. These glide bombs allow the B-2 to strike targets from outside heavily defended airspace perimeters.
Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) offer long-range precision strike capability with their own stealth features. The extended-range JASSM-ER variant provides strike options against targets over 500 miles (805 km) away.
NUCLEAR PAYLOAD CAPABILITIES:
The B-2 Spirit serves as a key component of America's nuclear triad, capable of delivering strategic nuclear weapons with stealth and precision. The aircraft can carry up to 16 B83 nuclear bombs. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
AsiaOne
19 minutes ago
- AsiaOne
Trump keeps world guessing about US military action against Iran, World News
WASHINGTON/DUBAI/JERUSALEM — President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about whether the United States will join Israel's bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites as the Israel-Iran conflict entered its seventh day on Thursday (June 19). Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump declined to say if he had made any decision on whether to join Israel's campaign. "I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do," he said. Trump in later remarks said Iranian officials wanted to come to Washington for a meeting and that "we may do that." But he added, "It's a little late" for such talks. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva aimed at persuading Iran to firmly guarantee that it will use its nuclear programme solely for civilian purposes, a German diplomatic source told Reuters. But while diplomatic efforts continue, some residents of Tehran, a city of 10 million people, on Wednesday jammed highways out of the city as they sought sanctuary from intensified Israeli airstrikes. The Wall Street Journal said Trump had told senior aides he approved attack plans on Iran but was holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear programme. Asked if he thought the Iranian government could fall as a result of the Israeli campaign, Trump said: "Sure, anything could happen." Referring to the destruction or dismantling of Iran's Fordow nuclear enrichment centre, Trump said: "We're the only ones that have the capability to do it. But that doesn't mean I'm going to do it — at all." Military analysts believe that Israel might need US military help to destroy Fordow, dug beneath a mountain near the city of Qom. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, rebuked Trump in a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday. The Americans "should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage," he said. "The Iranian nation will not surrender." In its latest bombings, Israel said its air force destroyed Iran's police headquarters. Israel's military said sirens sounded in northern Israel just before 2am local time on Thursday (7am on Thursday in Singapore time) and that it had intercepted a drone launched from Iran. It said several minutes later that another drone was intercepted in the Jordan Valley area. The Iranian missile salvoes mark the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran have penetrated defences, killing Israelis in their homes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a video released by his office on Wednesday, said Israel was "progressing step by step" towards eliminating threats posed by Iran's nuclear sites and ballistic missile arsenal. "We are hitting the nuclear sites, the missiles, the headquarters, the symbols of the regime," Netanyahu said. Israel, which is not a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that. Netanyahu also thanked Trump, "a great friend of the state of Israel", for standing by its side in the conflict, saying the two were in continuous contact. Trump has veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it. In social media posts on Tuesday, he mused about killing Khamenei. Russian President Vladimir Putin, asked what his reaction would be if Israel did kill Iran's Supreme Leader with the assistance of the United States, said on Thursday: "I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to." A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options that included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear installations. Iran's mission to the United Nations mocked Trump in posts on X, describing him as "a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance." Israel's military said scores of Israeli jets had struck targets in and around Tehran and in western Iran in the previous 24 hours in three waves, hitting sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles. Fleeing Tehran Arezou, a 31-year-old Tehran resident, told Reuters by phone that she had made it out of the city to the nearby resort town of Lavasan. "My friend's house in Tehran was attacked and her brother was injured. They are civilians," she said. "Why are we paying the price for the regime's decision to pursue a nuclear programme?" In Israel, sirens rang out anew at dusk on Wednesday warning of further incoming Iranian missiles. A motorist was injured by missile debris, Israeli medics said. The army later advised civilians they could leave protected areas, signalling the threat had passed. At Ramat Gan train station east of Tel Aviv, people were lying on city-supplied mattresses or sitting in the odd camping chair, with plastic water bottles strewn about. "I feel scared, overwhelmed. Especially because I live in a densely populated area that Iran seems to be targeting, and our city has very old buildings, without shelters and safe spaces," said Tamar Weiss, clutching her four-month-old daughter. Iran has reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has not updated that toll for days. Since Friday, Iran has fired around 400 missiles at Israel, some 40 of which have pierced air defences, killing 24 people, all of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. Leverage Iran has been exploring options for leverage, including veiled threats to hit the global oil market by restricting access to the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important shipping artery for oil. Inside Iran, authorities are intent on preventing panic and shortages. Fewer images of destruction have been allowed to circulate than in the early days of the bombing, when state media showed pictures of explosions, fires and flattened apartments. A ban on filming by the public has been imposed. The communications ministry said on Wednesday that temporary restrictions on internet access would be imposed to help prevent "the enemy from threatening citizens' lives and property". Iran's ability to hit back hard at Israel through strikes by proxy militia close to Israeli borders has been limited by the devastating blows Israel has dealt to Tehran's regional allies — Hamas and Hezbollah — in conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon since 2023. [[nid:719242]]
AsiaOne
32 minutes ago
- AsiaOne
Trump administration tightens social media vetting for foreign students, World News
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday (June 18) ordered the resumption of student visa appointments but will significantly tighten its social media vetting in a bid to identify any applicants who may be hostile towards the United States, according to an internal State Department cable reviewed by Reuters. US consular officers are now required to conduct a "comprehensive and thorough vetting" of all student and exchange visitor applicants to identify those who "bear hostile attitudes toward our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles", said the cable, which was dated June 18 and sent to US missions on Wednesday. On May 27, the Trump administration ordered its missions abroad to stop scheduling new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants, saying the State Department was set to expand social media vetting of foreign students. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said updated guidance would be released once a review was completed. The June 18 dated cable, which was sent by Rubio and sent to all US diplomatic missions, directed officers to look for "applicants who demonstrate a history of political activism, especially when it is associated with violence or with the views and activities described above, you must consider the likelihood they would continue such activity in the United States". The cable, which was first reported by Free Press, also authorised the consular officers to ask the applicants to make all of their social media accounts public. "Remind the applicant that limited access presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity," the cable said. The move follows the administration's enhanced vetting measures last month for visa applicants looking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose, in what a separate State Department cable said would serve as a pilot programme for wider expanded screening. Online presence The new vetting process should include a review of the applicant's entire online presence and not just social media activity, the cable said, urging the officers to use any "appropriate search engines or other online resources". During the vetting, the directive asks officers to look for any potentially derogatory information about the applicant. "For example, during an online presence search, you might discover on social media that an applicant endorsed Hamas or its activities," the cable says, adding that may be a reason for ineligibility. Rubio, Trump's top diplomat and national security adviser, has said he has revoked the visas of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, including students, because they got involved in activities that he said went against US foreign policy priorities. Those activities include support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza. A Tufts University student from Turkey was held for over six weeks in an immigration detention centre in Louisiana after co-writing an opinion piece criticising her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza. She was released from custody after a federal judge granted her bail. Trump's critics have said the administration's actions are an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Fewer appointments? While the new directive allows posts to resume scheduling for student and exchange visa applicants, it is warning the officers that there may have to be fewer appointments due to the demands of more extensive vetting. "Posts should consider overall scheduling volume and the resource demands of appropriate vetting; posts might need to schedule fewer FMJ cases than they did previously," the cable said, referring to the relevant visa types. The directive has also asked posts to prioritise among expedited visa appointments of foreign-born physicians participating in a medical programme through exchange visas, as well as student applicants looking to study in a US university where international students constitute less than 15 per cent of the total. At Harvard, the oldest and wealthiest US university on which the administration has launched a multifront attack by freezing its billions of dollars of grants and other funding, foreign students last year made up about 27 per cent of the total student population. The cable is asking the overseas posts to implement these vetting procedures within five business days. [[nid:719170]]
Straits Times
32 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Trump, Iran and the spectre of Iraq: ‘We bought all the happy talk'
This handout grab taken from footage released by the US Defence Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) on June 11 shows the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. It is reportedly headed to the Middle East to boost the US presence as the Israel-Iran conflict rages on. PHOTO: AFP WASHINGTON – A little more than 22 years ago, Washington was on edge as a president stood on the precipice of ordering an invasion of Baghdad. The expectation was that it would be a quick, triumphant 'mission accomplished'. By the time the United States withdrew nearly nine years and more than 4,000 American deaths later, the Iraq War had become a historic lesson of miscalculation and unintended consequences. The spectre of Iraq now hangs over a deeply divided, anxious Washington. President Donald Trump, who campaigned against America's 'forever wars,' is pondering a swift deployment of US military might in Iran. This time, there are not some 200,000 US troops massed in the Middle East or anti-war demonstrations around the world. But the sense of dread and the unknown feels in many ways the same. 'So much of this is the same story told again,' said Vali R. Nasr, an Iranian American who is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 'Once upon a time, we didn't know better, and we bought all the happy talk about Iraq. But every single assumption proved wrong.' There are many similarities. The Bush administration and its allies saw the invasion of Iraq as a 'cakewalk' and promised that US troops would be greeted as liberators. There were internal disputes over the intelligence that justified the war. A phalanx of neo-conservatives pushed hard for the chance to get rid of Saddam Hussein, the longtime dictator of Iraq. And America held its breath waiting for President George W. Bush to announce a final decision. Today, Trump allies argue that coming to the aid of Israel by dropping 30,000-pound 'bunker buster' bombs on Fordo, Iran's most fortified nuclear site, could be a one-off event that would transform the Middle East. There is a dispute over intelligence between Ms Tulsi Gabbard, Mr Trump's director of national intelligence, who said in March that Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon, and Mr Trump, who retorted on June 17 that 'I don't care what she said'. Iran, he added, was in fact close to a nuclear weapon. Some of the same neo-conservatives who pushed for the war in Iraq are now pushing for war with Iran. 'You've got to go to war with the president you have,' said Mr William Kristol, a Never Trumper and editor at large of The Bulwark, who was a prominent advocate of war with Iraq. 'If you really think that Iran can't have nuclear weapons, we have a chance to try to finish the job.' And once again, the nation is waiting for a president to decide. 'I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I'm going to do,' Mr Trump said on June 18 when asked about his thinking on striking Iranian nuclear facilities. There are the familiar questions about an endgame. Mr Bush landed on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and under a 'Mission Accomplished' banner, he triumphantly declared combat operations in Iraq were at an end. But the country was in chaos as he spoke. Today, many American officials fear there will be a wider war if the United States bombs Fordo, including retaliatory attacks on US bases in the region by pro-Iran militias and strikes on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis. Admiral William F. Fallon, who in 2007 and 2008 oversaw all US military operations in the Middle East as head of US Central Command, said on June 18 that he had concerns about Iran spiraling out of control after a US strike. 'What's the plan?' he said. 'What's the strategy? What's the desired end state? Iran not having a nuclear weapon is something few people would disagree with. But what is the relationship we would have with Iran in the bigger Middle East? We're just knee-jerking.' One person who sees little similarity between the run-up to Iraq and now is David H. Petraeus, the general who commanded US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and led the 101st Airborne Division in the initial invasion in Baghdad. 'This is clearly the potential run-up to military action, but it's not the invasion of a country,' he said on June 18. Mr Trump, he said, should deliver an ultimatum to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, and order him to agree to the complete dismantlement of his nuclear programme or face 'the complete destruction of your country and your regime and your people'. If the supreme leader rejects the ultimatum, Mr Petraeus said, 'that improves our legitimacy, and then reluctantly we blow them to smithereens.' Mr Nasr said a hopeful scenario after a strike would be the total destruction of Fordo and an Iran that comes to the table and agrees to a negotiated end to its nuclear programme. But if the Iranians respond militarily, as they say they will, Mr Nasr said that Mr Trump would be compelled to counter-attack, particularly if Americans are killed on US bases in the region. 'And then you don't know where it's going to stop, and Trump is really risking a repeat of the Iraq War,' he said. Iran is larger than Iraq, he noted, with a population of roughly 90 million and a far more capable, nationalistic military than the Iraqi army. Mr John Bolton, a neo-conservative who served as one of Mr Trump's first-term national security advisers, was a big advocate for the war in Iraq and is now a supporter of a US attack on Iran. 'Bomb Fordo and be done with it,' he said on June 18. 'I think this is long overdue.' He wrote a book about his time working for Mr Trump that enraged the president, and Mr Trump retaliated by revoking Mr Bolton's Secret Service protection, despite death threats that Mr Bolton faces from Iran. The two no longer speak, so Mr Bolton said he had no idea what Mr Trump would decide. He was not sure if Mr Trump knew himself. But in his experience, Mr Bolton said, Mr Trump was 'frantic and agitated' in national security crises. 'He talks to a lot of people, and he's looking for somebody who will say the magic words,' Mr Bolton said. 'He'll hear something, and he'll decide, 'That's right. That's what I believe.' Which lasts until he has the next conversation.' NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
