Massive Ordnance Penetrator Available for Combat

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The Air Force’s new bunker-busting behemoth, the aptly named Massive Ordnance Penetrator, is now available for combat on the B-2 stealth bomber, according to service officials. Whiteman AFB, Mo., home of the B-2 fleet, received its first batch of MOPs in September, and the bombs are “ready for operational use,” an Air Force acquisition official told the Daily Report in a written response to a query. The 30,000-pound-class conventional weapon, when coupled with the stealthy, penetrating B-2, gives US planners a potent means of attacking the most challenging types of hardened and underground targets. Previously, these targets were difficult, if not impossible, to reach with other bunker busters due to the targets’ depth beneath the surface and the type of protective layers covering them. There is “no other weapon that can get after those hard and deeply buried targets like MOP can,” said Brig. Gen. Scott Vander Hamm, who oversees the B-2 fleet, in an interview earlier this month. Continue

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org