| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Earthquake Array Hits Deeper Than Nukes |
| 2007-01-25 |
| Hat Tip: DefenseTech.org Attacking hardened and deeply buried target is one of the Air Force’s biggest challenges. They are meeting this challenge with a devastating new approach: a focused underground shockwave that amounts to an artificial earthquake. At present the kinetic approach – a.k.a. ‘brute force’ – is favored; the most powerful weapon in the inventory is the BLU-113, a 4,600 lb weapon with a thick steel casing capable of piercing 22 feet of concrete -- or 100 feet of dirt -- before exploding. There are plans to go even bigger, with a monster 30,000 lb ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’ which would take the maximum depth to 60 feet. That’s about as big as you can carry on a plane. I’ve described Deep Digger here previously. Unlike earlier weapons this is an active penetrator, a bomb that actually burrows into the ground by drilling a shaft with volleys from seven cannon. In a demonstration last year a Deep Digger prototype penetrated more than 30 feet of limestone. The makers were tight-lipped about how much further it could go. This presentation from David Burns of the Medium Caliber Weapons Systems Branch of ARDEC reveals much more about the weapon than previously released. In particular, it is described as being able to dig down to 150 feet. That’s impressive on its own, but the ‘Concept Of Operations’ in Slide 4 is staggering: an array of 20 Deep Diggers would be detonated together to produce a shockwave which will collapse all underground structures to a depth of 300 feet over a 200-yard square area. |
| Posted by:FOTSGreg |
| #27 SPACE 1999??? I hear PRAVDA now - first the Moon now the Earth. Hear us, SUN, now we're not only gonna destroy the Moon, next we're also gonna crack the Sphere of the Earth too, just becuz we can. Surrender unconditionally now or we'll destroy our own planet. That'll teach/show the Sun who's boss, you betcha. LIKE RADICAL ISLAM, NOTHUN' SAYS SHEER POWER + MIGHT THAN SELF-DESTRUCTION/SUICIDE. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-01-25 23:04 |
| #26 perfecto 3dc! :-) |
| Posted by: Rd up out of the Well 2007-01-25 20:19 |
| #25 There is This view point of Randy Newman's - but he meant it as satire.. Now it fits so well No one likes us I don't know why. We may not be perfect But heaven knows we try. But all around even our old friends put us down. Let's drop the big one and see what happens. We give them money But are they grateful? No they're spiteful And they're hateful. They don't respect us so let's surprise them; We'll drop the big one and pulverize them. Now Asia's crowded And Europe's too old. Africa's far too hot, And Canada's too cold. And South America stole our name. Let's drop the big one; there'll be no one left to blame us. Bridge: We'll save Australia; Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo. We'll build an all-American amusement park there; They've got surfing, too. Well, boom goes London, And boom Paris. More room for you And more room for me. And every city the whole world round Will just be another American town. Oh, how peaceful it'll be; We'll set everybody free; You'll have Japanese kimonos, baby, There'll be Italian shoes for me. They all hate us anyhow, So let's drop the big one now. Let's drop the big one now. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-01-25 19:20 |
| #24 Shipman: yes and no. Even Truman didn't use nukes until he got an estimate that it would take an invasion force of 2M to take Japan, at tremendous loss of life. And sure he was right to use them, then. However, nukes really aren't that hard to make anymore. So you save the US and the world an s-load of problems by getting into the habit of not using them. By remaining the weapons of last resort, it saves us a lot of grief in the long run. Right now, Iran is trying to build weapons. This forces Egypt, Saudi, and probably several others to want nukes, too. The Norks get obnoxious, so Japan and Taiwan want nukes. So it puts us on the spot. If, by whatever conventional means, we can stop Iran; and if we and the Chinese can stop Nork, then we can migrate several nations away from wanting nukes, too. And less is better with nukes. If not right now, in a decade or two I don't want some pissant country thinking that it has "plausible deniability" in sneaking a nuke into the US and popping it in, say, Chicago. So the big question becomes how many US lives is it worth it to conventionally attack Iran, instead of using nukes. George Bush is asking himself that same question right now. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-01-25 19:12 |
| #23 send Joe Wilson to sift through the radioactive debris |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-01-25 19:09 |
| #22 Shipman - We wouldn't want to unduly traumatize the Dems... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-01-25 19:05 |
| #21 Or, yeah, we could just nuke 'em and deny it. Who's to gainsay us? Hell, we need to steal a chapter from our adversaries. No need to go through great roundabout ways of destroying things and leaving a thin vaneer of deniablity. Hell, forget the nukes, just bomb 'em and deny it. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-01-25 18:50 |
| #20 Still waiting for Rods from God |
| Posted by: DMFD 2007-01-25 18:01 |
| #19 I hope the water supply won't be affected. *snort* |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-01-25 18:00 |
| #18 3dc, This will create an extreme pimple effect.. 3dc I think that if we squeeze the r cubes hard enuff we can go all the way from pimple to ZIT! |
| Posted by: Twelfth Imami 2007-01-25 17:57 |
| #17 Shipman - I'm a dreaming that maybe a 100 mile circle around would have all it's underground structures shattered... It could be tuned - and yes - hundreds or thousands.. It's just pretty deniable.... The world would suspect something, but then they always do... If there are lateral drilling then location's would not be suspect... Most would assume some strange powerful earthquake... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-01-25 17:49 |
| #16 Why not drop a series of bunker busters down the same hole, if you want to get your boom way down deep? Imagine four or five going down an ever deeper crater. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2007-01-25 17:37 |
| #15 Or possibly even nano-rigs. PIMF!! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-25 17:27 |
| #14 Nano-rugs, Shipman? 3dc, that sounds like a simple engineering problem... and we've got lots of engineers here, for some reason. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-25 17:26 |
| #13 :> Good Heavens! You're channeling MooseyMan, how many of these rigs would be needed? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? Is there any chance the rigs could be made smaller? I mean realy small, tiny even? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-01-25 17:18 |
| #12 Oh and if the holes are properly drilled and shaped then the nukes could be shaped charges and you don't get the r cubed energy loss. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-01-25 17:13 |
| #11 I've always had this fantasy dream... you know one of those late at night vivid dreams you can remember... where... Seismic sensing is used to measure time to target from various radial distances and arcs to the center. Now you have oil drilling rigs drill deep shafts and set noise makers to aid the sensing. This can be done a various distances on the radial lines from a target. (Maybe hundreds of miles away...) anyway so enough holes are drilled to make a circular wave front compressing in toward the center target. enough inner circles are created along these radials to create second and third wavefronts to wall in and compress the initial wavefront when it bounces back. This will create an extreme pimple effect.. Now these holes should be drilled into continental bed rock outside the target country involved. Now. Insert nukes into these holes that are timed off the wave speed to target. Fill the holes with concrete (even if in the sea) Set off in proper sequence and slip away. (from the distance seismic waves should appear to come from the center and you have just enabled haliburton's earthquake division... Who us? We know nothing... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-01-25 17:06 |
| #10 I like the acronym - MOP. So, when can we mop up Iran's nukular installation? |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-01-25 16:22 |
| #9 Earthquake Array Hits Deeper Than Nukes Manalo.. fetch me some more Depends Quick! |
| Posted by: Twelfth Imami 2007-01-25 15:35 |
| #8 It would seem to me to be a lot more cost-effective to make a deep digger that was a massive thermobaric bomb. While such targets are hardened against compression, a massive implosion, sucking all the oxygen out of the air, would be a major bummer. The initial explosion, maybe propane and oxygen, would fracture the "shell", then it would be like a massive simultaneous cave-in. Aw, leave it to the experts. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-01-25 15:14 |
| #7 I certainly hope we get the video on You Tube. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-01-25 14:38 |
| #6 It's the Barnes Wallis Grand Slam for a new generation. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-01-25 14:37 |
| #5 Made in USA, Tested in Indonesia???? |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2007-01-25 14:36 |
| #4 Oh the humanity! It would kill baby ducklings, too! Quick, we need a UN condemnation and international outcry! Get the press working on slanting everything against this! The people they kill in any undergroud bunkers are mothers/fathers, sons/daughters, etc., who cares if they are trying to make Uranium to hand to terrorists so they can wipe me out! Make sure they can only use it if they do an environmental impact study on the local endangered Persian Fluffy Bunny herd! |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-01-25 13:47 |
| #3 Uhh, yeah, nice try. But when the 12th Imam arrives he will fly superfast around the Earth backwards and it will be like your little ground penetrators never even existed. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-01-25 13:39 |
| #2 Did they translate the press release into Farsi? |
| Posted by: occasional observer 2007-01-25 13:01 |
| #1 Miss Johnson, get our lawyers on the phone... |
| Posted by: Halliburton: Earthquake/Tsunami Division 2007-01-25 12:46 |