Defense procurement

US Buys More Bombs to Target Nuclear Weapons Stored Underground

The US just ordered a lot more of the bombs tailored for missions of “reaching and destroying our adversaries’ weapons of mass destruction located in well-protected facilities,” scenarios that call to mind potential military foes like Iran or North Korea.

The Pentagon is paying Boeing for about $21 million worth of Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, the largest bomb in the US arsenal not packing a nuclear punch. The 33,000-pound MOP outweighs the "Mother of All Bombs" by about 10,000 pounds and is intended for targets in caves or underground tunnels or bunkers. The US Air Force's B-2 Spirit bomber can carry about two at a time.

The number of munitions to be procured was not disclosed.

The February 8 contract announcement follows an apparently successful upgrade of the bomb in late January, the fourth such round of upgrades the bombs have received. The modification "improved the weapon's performance against hard and deeply buried targets," a US Air Force spokesman told Bloomberg.

The GPS-guided weapon is "designed to accomplish a difficult complicated missions or reaching and destroying our adversaries' weapons of mass destruction located in well-protected facilities," according to an Air Force fact sheet summary on the weapon.