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by cjbgkagh 353 days ago
In the linear case a bomb twice the size goes twice as deep.

Take a bomb, cut it in half and drop each half separately, one after another into the same hole, would you except the cumulative depth to be greater than the whole bomb or less? Consider that in the case of the whole bomb it is equivalent to two halves arriving at the exact same time.

1 comments

It's not about bomb size.

It's about bomb quantity and sequential effects.

Scaling is about bomb size, that’s what linear was referring to. No one is arguing that multiple bombs can’t ‘drill’.
Gotcha. Sounds like we're in agreement, then.

The strike may have been able to achieve greater penetration depth with multiple sequential weapons impacting the same point (i.e. the three seen in satellite imagery).

Edit: official reporting is 6 weapons per shaft, into 3 visible entry points per shaft, so there's at least some doubling.

https://www.twz.com/air/gbu-57-massive-ordnance-penetrator-s...

I'm confident that 'drilling' with multiple bombs was the known approach prior to the attack. The planned approach to soviet bunkers was to use repeated accurate strikes of nuclear bombs to achieve a similar drilling for their bunkers.

There appears to be an assumption that the main facility was exposed to blasts from the tunnels and since that appears to be an obvious weakness I'm wondering why the Iranians wouldn't have blast doors between the tunnels and the facility as a form of redundancy. I am still worried that this is part of an approach to slowly warm Americans up to another war, much easier to sell a limit strike as a success, then 3-6 months later when the Iranians have recovered it'll be even easier to sell another strike or a more involved engagement.

Public opinion polling after the strikes, especially for independents, hasn't been favorable. 60/35 independent against? https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3925

The administration forgot the political tenet that you lead the public into supporting military action before taking the action, not after.

But I guess that level of ignorance is what you get from B-tier politicians who would sign on to this admin.