Latest news with #B2Spirit
Malay Mail
13-07-2025
- General
- Malay Mail
Photo near Saratok sparks speculation of possible sighting of American B-2 Spirit bomber in Sarawak
KUALA LUMPUR, July 13 — A photo taken near a longhouse in Saratok has sparked speculation on the r/Malaysia subreddit about whether a B-2 Spirit bomber was seen flying over the area. Reddit user Anubiroz posted the image, saying it was taken by a friend in the afternoon and showed a shape that looked a bit suspicious 'for a kite or a drone.' 'Taken by a friend near his long house at Saratok in the afternoon... Zoom in... does it look like a kite or a stealth bomber. He said it made a swish sound.. Hmmmm. Looks kinda sus [sic] for a kite or a drone. Any ideas?' Anubiroz wrote on Reddit. Another user, Monsta_Owl, commented that it looked like a 'B2 bomber by the looks of it,' a view echoed by several others in the thread. The B-2 Spirit bomber is a long-range stealth aircraft used by the United States Air Force, capable of carrying conventional and nuclear weapons while remaining difficult to detect on radar. The aircraft, which has been operational since the 1990s, was used in strikes in Iran in 2025, underscoring its continued role in US precision missions. There has been no official confirmation of military aircraft activity in the Saratok area, and it remains unclear whether the object in the photo was a B-2 bomber, a drone or a kite.
Le Figaro
08-07-2025
- General
- Le Figaro
Inside a B-2 Bomber: What It's Like to Fly a U.S. Strike Mission Over Iran
Réservé aux abonnés To strike Iran's nuclear facilities on June 22, the pilots of the seven B-2 bombers armed with GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs flew nonstop for 37 hours - without ever touching the ground. Since its first combat missions in 1999, B-2 have carried only the bare essentials, built as they are for stealth, range, and precision. The American mission 'Midnight Hammer,' which targeted key Iranian nuclear sites on the night of June 22, was not only an operational success. It also represented a physical feat for the B-2 Spirit pilots who dropped GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. Departing from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the seven aircraft covered the thousands of kilometers to Iran and returned directly to the United States without ever landing. Refueled several times mid-air, they flew a round-trip mission lasting 37 hours. Remarkably, this isn't even a record: in 2001, six B-2s struck Afghanistan from Missouri in a 44-hour mission. Theoretically, the bomber can cover 11,000 kilometers without refueling, and over 18,000 km with a single aerial refueling. The B-2's reputation for endurance is well established. But the pilots' stamina is even more impressive. They are, of course, trained for these kinds of ultra-long missions: each one has spent long hours in a flight simulator that…
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Yahoo
GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator Successor In The Works
The U.S. Air Force's first combat employment of 30,000-pound GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs in recent strikes on Iranian nuclear sites draws new attention to work toward a successor. There was already very active U.S. military interest in a new Next Generation Penetrator (NGP) when the MOP first began entering service in the early 2010s. B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped 14 GBU-57/B on targets in Iran – 12 on the enrichment facility at Fordow and two more on the one at Natanz – during strikes this past weekend dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, which you can read more about here. The B-2 is the only aircraft cleared to employ the MOP operationally, but the forthcoming B-21 Raider stealth bomber is expected to be able to employ them, as well. B-52 bombers have also dropped the huge bunker busters during testing. The existing MOP stockpile is understood to be relatively small, but Bloomberg reported last year that work was being done to help triple or even quadruple the annual production capacity of the munitions. The 20-and-a-half-feet-long GBU-57/B is a precision-guided bomb that consists of a penetrating 'warhead,' which has its own designation (BLU-127/B), along with a GPS-assisted inertial navigation system (INS) guidance package, specialized fuzes, and other components. The explosive content of the MOP, which also has a diameter of 31-and-a-half-inches, is only roughly 20 percent of its total weight. The most recent publicly stated requirements for the NGP come from a contracting notice the Air Force put out in February 2024. It called for a warhead weighing 22,000 pounds or less, and that would be 'capable of blast / frag[mentation] / and penetration effects,' but did not specify a desired gross weight for the entire munition. No prospective dimensions were provided, either. 'The prototype penetrator warhead design effort should allow integration of technologies acquired and lessons learned under previous penetrator warhead developments to meet performance requirements for the HDBT target set,' the contracting notice added. 'The USAF will consider novel, demonstrated, or fielded Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) technologies with viability for integration into a warhead guidance system design that can achieve repeatable, high accuracy performance in GPS aided, degraded, and/or denied environments.' The notice also said that a 'terminal accuracy' of 'CE90 w/in 2.2m both in GPS aided, degraded, and denied environments' was desired. What 'CE90 w/in 2.2m' means in layman's terms is a munition that can hit within 7.2 feet (2.2 meters) of a specified impact point at least 90 percent of the time. This is a very high degree of required accuracy, especially for employment in GPS-degraded or denied environments. For comparison, the Air Force says, on average, GPS-assisted INS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs can hit within 16.4 feet (five meters) of designated target coordinates under optimal conditions, but that this can grow to nearly 100 feet (30 meters) if GPS connectivity is lost. While the exact terminal accuracy of the existing MOP is unknown, post-strike imagery from Fordow and Natanz points to an extreme degree of precision. The NGP contracting notice put out last February also mentions 'possible integration of embedded fuze technology,' but does not elaborate. Reliable fuzing, in general, is particularly important for bunker buster bombs, the components of which have to be able to withstand additional forces as the munition burrows through hard material. Bombs like the MOP and any future NGP that are designed to penetrate very deeply have additional specialized fuzing needs, especially for employment against targets where pre-strike intelligence about the exact depth and/or physical layout is limited. Work on advanced void-sensing fuzes that can detect when a munition has breached into a sufficiently large space, such as a room in an underground facility, is an area of development that has already been of particular interest for the U.S. military for years now. A fuze that is able to just effectively 'count' floors to help determine depth to detonate the bomb at a certain level for maximum damage would also be a useful addition. As already noted, the U.S. military was already looking ahead to a future NGP when MOP began entering service in the early 2010s. The February 2024 contracting notice specifically mentions 'the 2012 Hard Target Munitions (HTM) Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) and HTM AoA Excursion from 2019' as having contributed to the requirements for the next-generation bunker buster. The GBU-57/B's own development, which the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) carried out in cooperation with the Air Force, dates back to at least 2002. Work on MOP also notably began as a so-called 'quick reaction capability' effort to meet pressing operational needs, rather than a full program of record, and the design has been upgraded several times in the past 15 years or so. In addition to the requirements laid out in the contracting notice last year, the Air Force has said in the past that one of its key areas of interest for NGP is the addition of a powered standoff capability. Notional renderings have shown a design with a rocket booster. MOPs are unpowered and have to be released close to the target, a key reason why the highly survivable B-2 is currently the only operational delivery platform. The Air Force has also said it is interested in a future NGP with the ability to prosecute more hardened and/or deeper targets, as well as enhanced and potentially scalable terminal effects. The current maximum depth that MOP can penetrate down to is unknown, but it is at least 200 feet (60 meters), according to publicly available data. Subsequent upgrades may have increased its penetrating capability substantially. The Air Force has also talked previously about the possibility of NGP being a family of systems, rather than a single munition, and has also tied it to the secretive Long Range Strike (LRS) family of systems. The best-known member of the LRS 'system of systems' is the B-21 bomber, but it includes the stealthy AGM-181A Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) nuclear-tipped cruise missile and many other elements, as you can read more about here. In 2020, the Air Force publicly disclosed interest in a separate next-generation Global Precision Attack Weapon (GPAW) bunker buster bomb that would be small enough to be carried internally by a stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The service also began fielding a new precision-guided 5,000-pound-class bunker buster, the GBU-72/B, sometime in the past few years. What appears to be the first reported operational use of GBU-72/Bs came last year during strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. The B-21 presents its own specific considerations for both MOP and a future NGP. The B-2 can already only carry two MOPs at once, and the smaller Raider is expected to be able to lug just one. Taking the example of Operation Midnight Hammer, it would've taken twice as many B-21s to carry out that mission. As such, a new bunker buster bomb that sits somewhere in the wide range between the GBU-72/B and the GBU-57/B could be a major boon for pairing with the Raider. It is also worth noting here that the Air Force does currently plan to acquire a B-21 fleet that will be significantly larger than its current B-2 force. The assessed outcome of the GBU-57/B strikes on Fordow and Natanz will now be another factor for the Air Force to consider when it comes to the future NGP. Though the U.S. military says the strikes successfully hit the intended targets, significant questions remain about the actual damage caused to the underground Iranian facilities. Well before Operation Midnight Hammer was launched, a debate had emerged about whether Fordow, in particular, could be beyond the reach even of the MOP. For the U.S. military, the value of having a non-nuclear means to prosecute very deeply-buried targets from the air extends well beyond Iran. North Korea has also been notably expanding its underground infrastructure, a trend that has been driven in no small part by the threat of strikes from the United States. MOP, as well as any future NGP, could be called upon in any future conflict against a larger adversary like China or Russia, both of which have long histories of building deep underground facilities, including mountain caverns for aircraft and submarines. In January, the Financial Times newspaper published a detailed piece on the Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA) construction of a new 1,500-acre command center complex in Beijing that includes a major subterranean component. Additional details that emerge about the MOP strikes on Iran might further fuel global trends regarding the construction of new underground facilities. The video below includes a clip of a B-2 bomber dropping a GBU-57/B during a test. An NGP bunker buster with standoff capability could also be not just valuable, but increasingly critical as the air defense ecosystem expands and evolves. The Air Force has separately assessed that anti-air missiles with ranges of up to 1,000 miles will be among the threats it has to contend with by 2050. Even very stealthy aircraft like the B-2 or the B-21 will be highly challenged to make direct attacks against heavily defended key targets of a peer state, especially during the critical opening days of a high-end conflict. As it stands now, the current NGP effort, at least from what the Air Force has shared publicly, is still at a very early stage. The service has said it is interested in taking delivery of an initial set of around 10 subscale test articles, as well as three to five full-scale warhead prototypes, within 18 to 24 months of a contract award, but when that deal might be signed is unknown. There does not appear to be a publicly stated timeline yet for when NGPs might begin to enter actual operational service. Regardless, the U.S. military has now demonstrated the value of the MOP's very deep-penetrating bunker buster capability in a real-world operation, making it a household name and cementing its place in the history books. This is likely to put new emphasis on the long-standing interest in a potential successor and prompt more resources to be put toward work on a future NGP. Contact the author: joe@
Russia Today
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Iran moved its enriched uranium before US strikes
Last month's US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities failed to hit the country's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed, citing US officials. The attack, which involved seven US B-2 'Spirit' bombers carrying 30,000-pound bunker busters, was not even expected to 'obliterate' the Iranian nuclear program, one of the journalist's sources admitted. 'The centrifuges may have survived and 400 pounds of 60% enriched uranium are missing,' one of the officials said, adding that the US bombs 'could not be assured to penetrate the centrifuge chamber . . . too deep.' The lack of radioactivity at the targeted Iranian nuclear sites – specifically Fordow and Isfahan – following the attack suggest that the enriched uranium stockpile had been moved ahead of time, one US official familiar with the matter said. Fordow, an underground complex built deep inside a mountain that many believed housed the stockpiles, was a particular focus of the attack. The US officials cited by Hersh nevertheless believe that the location of the stockpile and its fate are 'irrelevant' because of the serious damage the strike allegedly dealt to another Iranian nuclear site near the city of Isfahan. The goal of the operation was to 'prevent the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon in the near term – a year or so – with the hope they would not try again,' a US official told Hersh. This could translate into 'a couple of years of respite and uncertain future,' the official added. Following the strikes, US President Donald Trump claimed that the attack 'completely and totally obliterated' Iran's nuclear program. CIA Director John Ratcliffe also told lawmakers that several key sites had been completely destroyed and would take years to rebuild. However, intercepted communications suggested that Tehran had expected a worse impact from the strikes and that the real damage was limited, the Washington Post reported. The strikes were part of a coordinated American-Israeli military campaign launched in mid-June. The Israel Defense Force bombed Iranian targets, claiming that Tehran was close to being able to build a nuclear weapon. Hersh believes that Israel was the 'immediate beneficiary' of the US strike. West Jerusalem does not officially acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons. The Jewish State may still have up to 90 nuclear warheads at its disposal, according to a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Times
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
Trump is more powerful than ever. Can anyone stop him?
Have we reached 'peak Trump'? As the US president performed a victory lap this week after muscling his enormous package of tax and spending cuts through Congress, he reflected on the differences between his first and second terms. 'I think I have more power now,' he told a rally in Iowa on Thursday. 'More gravitas … more power.' Having spent the past few weeks deploying troops to Los Angeles, authorising strikes on Iran and hinting at running for an unconstitutional third term, Trump had hit his self-imposed deadline for passing the One Big Beautiful Bill on July 4. With typical bombast, he announced he would sign it into law beneath a flypast of B-2 Spirit bombers, F-22 Raptors and F-35 stealth fighters. Only weeks ago he shut down the streets of Washington for another military parade, which was organised to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US army but which happened to coincide with his own 79th birthday. Protesters against Trump have taken to staging demonstrations under the banner of 'No Kings'. But speaking in the gleaming White House, where gilded ornaments have been brought in to accord with Trump's tastes, the president insisted he was no monarch. 'I don't feel like a king,' he said recently, against his golden backdrop. 'I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.' In truth, there is little to curb him. The Republicans effectively control the three pillars of US government: they hold the presidency and both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court has a 6-3 split in favour of conservative justices. The saga over the One Big Beautiful Bill demonstrated how tame resistance to Trump is on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are so cowed by him that those brave enough to speak out prefer to resign than face the wrath of the Maga base. This week the Republican senator Thom Tillis criticised the cuts to Medicaid, which provides health insurance to the poorest Americans, in the One Big Beautiful Bill. Then he immediately announced he would stand down instead of defending his seat at next year's midterms. • One Big Beautiful Bill summary: what does it mean for Medicaid? Trump has nominated his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to take Tillis's North Carolina seat. 'She grew up there,' he said. Most world leaders, no matter their electoral successes, have to answer to the stock markets. Yet Trump has seemingly forced Wall Street to accept his protectionist trade agenda after months of turbulence. The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq have all surged in recent days. And he looks like the victor in his row with Elon Musk, who has watched Tesla's value fall while Trump has swelled his own fortune by embarking on cryptocurrency ventures that blur the line between business and politics. So can the president be stopped? The Democrats have faint hopes of restricting Trump's power by winning seats in the midterms next November. They believe they can reclaim the House of Representatives, though the Senate looks more challenging. The left of the party has been energised by the campaign of the youthful Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner in the New York mayoral elections. Yet Trump, a relentless campaigner who gave freewheeling speeches in Iowa and Florida this week as part of a packed schedule that would have surely exhausted his predecessor, appears up for the fight. Despite his age there is little sign Trump's stamina is waning — nor his appetite for power. At the end of the week in which he succeeded in passing flagship legislation, he returned to a refrain from his first spell in office and the campaign trail,by sharing online the front page of the New York Post with the headline: 'Tired of winning yet?'
