[missedthecue]

They can penetrate 60m of soil. They cannot penetrate 60m of concrete. Reinforced concrete at about 5000psi would only get penetration of 8-15m.

The facility is beneath 80m of limestone which in the Qom formation is roughly equivalent to about 5000psi concrete.

Beneath the limestone, sits the facility itself which is encased in high performance concrete. So these bombs need to pen 80m of 5000psi material and then a unknown depth of high performance concrete.

[reissbaker]

There is no public information about what kind of material 60m refers to, and the best guesses of reinforced concrete are 18m. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-57A/B_MOP While a single bomb would be insufficient, you don't need that many to get to 80m.

And US military assets are often much more powerful than publicly advertised...

[missedthecue]

A bomb penetrating 18m of reinforced concrete doesn't excavate 18m of concrete. It would weaken it by some percentage through fractures and overpressure but you'll need to pen it again with the second bomb.

[dontTREATonme]

They dropped six.

[kcplate]

According to the pentagon briefing this morning they dropped 14. News is reporting that it was in 3 specific locations and they were dropped successively. Assuming most detonated successfully, that much specialized ordinance did some damage. This bomb was specifically designed for this very purpose and you have to realize that capabilities that are reported are probably pretty conservative vs what the bomb is actually capable of doing.

I know a bunch of armchair generals on here are speculating that this was ineffective, but time will tell.

[trogdor]

> you have to realize that capabilities that are reported are probably pretty conservative vs what the bomb is actually capable of doing

Why do you believe that to be true?

[kcplate]

Because it’s always the case with the US military equipment capabilities that full capability is never disclosed. What possible reason would the military have in divulging actual specs?

Military: We can penetrate up to 200 feet with this new bunker buster bomb that we spent a billion dollars on…specifically for this site and some sites in North Korea.

Enemy: Build the bunker at 300 feet, I hear their best bunker buster is only effective to 200 feet.

Military: Damn, foiled again!

[saberience]

Six spread across three sites, two on each site. I highly doubt the deepest site is out of commission.