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coliveira 16 hours ago

Bunker buster is not necessarily a solution for this. It was created for normal bunkers, WW2 style of construction. What they have in Iran are construction sites very deep in the mountains. I wouldn't be surprised if this type of bombs can't do more than superficial damage to the sites.

pigbearpig 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Right...the GBU-57 having been placed into service in 2011 was surely created to destroy 65-year old bunker designs.

15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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trhway 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

GBU-57 reaches 200ft depth, Fordow is 300ft. The seismic wave of explosion at 200ft of several tons of TNT would reach 300ft with pretty damaging energy.

And, if it weren't enough, you can always put a second bomb into the hole made by the first one.

To the commenters below:

- nobody would let Iran to come even close to remilitarizing again. No centrifuges, and no placing them or anything similar under ground, etc.

- I do think that US may get involved in enforcement of no-fly zone over Iran. The no-fly is necessary, and Israel just doesn't have enough resources. The further scenario that i see is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44343063

- jugding by, for example, the precise drone strikes on the top military commanders, Israel has had very good intelligence from Iran, so i'm pretty sure that general parameters like the depth were well known to them (the public statement of 300ft may be a lie, yet the point is that US and Israel know the depth and thus weapons to use)

roenxi 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> - nobody would let Iran to come even close to remilitarizing again. No centrifuges, and no placing them or anything similar under ground, etc.

How would they enforce that? It is underground, they can't exactly monitor what is down there with satellite photos. There'd need to be something like a blanket ban on underground mining across the whole of Iran and probably a country-wide occupation to enforce the ban. Otherwise it seems quite difficult to identify where the hypothetical centrifuges are.

missedthecue 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

GBU-57 reaches 200ft of soil and gravel. Not 200ft of 5000psi limestone typical of the Qom formation in that area of Iran.

trhway 13 hours ago | parent [-]

That limestone probably much better transfers the seismic wave of the explosion though.

missedthecue 12 hours ago | parent [-]

The equipment in the facility isn't bolted into the limestone though. The facility is inside ultra high performance concrete and if the Iranian engineers had two braincells, dampening layers. They were building it for this moment after all.

crazylogger 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I imagine Iran will just pick a 1000-meter mountain to dig under then?

SllX 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Supposedly we dropped six, but I'm interested in any information that comes out about the final damage to see if this was sufficient. Ideally this would be the beginning and end of our direct engagements in this conflict.

EDIT: I kind of wish you had broken your "commenters below" piece into separate replies, but I assume this one was directed at me:

> - I do think that US may get involved in enforcement of no-fly zone over Iran. The no-fly is necessary, and Israel just doesn't have enough resources. The further scenario that i see is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44343063

I didn't even consider a no-fly zone, and perhaps. I mean at this point, the current Iranian regime is in the most precarious situation it has ever been in whether they go for the kill against Ali Khamenei or just keep picking out the people below him and the IRGC's ability to fight. But if we do this, then we, and I guess I mean we now that we've actually bombed them, then we're committing to more than just taking out their nuclear capabilities, but we're committing to seeing a full regime change come to fruition.

To be blunt, given our most recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm still very much of the opinion that the least amount of American involvement, the better. If our bombs help curtail Iran's nuclear weapon R&D and we didn't lose a single B-2 in the process, then great, we've done some good for the world[1], but our track record on seeing regime changes through to the end has been less than fabulous.

[1] Still waiting to see how successful the mission was towards this goal by the way.

shepherdjerred 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I wonder if we have that mission accomplished banner in storage somewhere

14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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owebmaster 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> then great, we've done some good for the world

Please don't bring this kind of BS to the discussion

KaiserPro 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> nobody would let Iran to come even close to remilitarizing again. No centrifuges, and no placing them or anything similar under ground, etc.

Well given that we've been trying to stop that for many years, I doubt its within the US's gift to change that.

Also what has iran got to loose now? like its already being bombed to shit. It's lost a generation to the iran/iraq war, why not another one where they take the USA, israel and saudis with them?

> I do think that US may get involved in enforcement of no-fly zone over Iran.

that sounds like a forever war. Moreover trump doesn't have the attention span to deploy a nofly zone for any length of time.

also, have you see the size of iran?

> Israel has had very good intelligence from Iran, so i'm pretty sure that general parameters like the depth were well known to them

yup, but the performance of munitions is unknown. Moreover they are not actually going to tell anyone the real results of the strike. Can you imagine generals telling Hegseth that his plan idea has failed because the clearly articulated unknowns came to pass. let alone trump?

JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> you can always put a second bomb into the hole made by the first one

This is tremendously difficult. There is nothing unclassified to suggest we can do this. (There is also no evidence it didn’t occur. Just clarifying the borders of the fog of war here.)

trhway 11 hours ago | parent [-]

The JDAM precision is 5m.

More than 30 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiriyah_shelter_bombing

"At 04:30 on the morning of 13 February, two F-117 stealth bombers each dropped a 910 kilograms (2,000 lb) GBU-27 laser-guided bomb on the shelter. The first bomb cut through 3 metres (10 ft) of reinforced concrete before a time-delayed fuse exploded. Minutes later, the second bomb followed the path cut by the first bomb."

4 hours ago | parent | next [-]
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JumpCrisscross 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Huh. Thank you. I'm still cautiously sceptical this scaled to the 57, but less so than before.

coliveira 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Fordow is 300ft

You seem to believe they really have accurate information about these installations. I doubt it.

creato 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They had pinpoint accurate information about a lot of senior leaders, that seems a lot harder to know than a stationary facility's location and layout.

roenxi 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Tracking a person actually seems pretty easy to do. Hack their phone, launch ze missiles. Obviously not trivial, but it is pretty easy to imagine a chain of events involving a little social engineering and a little spycraft involving the major tech companies. The Iranians thought they were mid-negotiations and assassinating their leadership seems counterproductive even in hindsight, I doubt they were using heightened opsec.

Getting the layout of an underground facility, on the other hand, is quite hard to do even on purpose. They'd really want the engineering plans I suppose - which should be quite secure even on a bad day. I wouldn't assume it was secure but it'd be harder than finding senior leadership who often go out in public or to their kids school plays in a regular year.

cryptonector 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

German contractors helped the Iranians lots. I would be good money that they have been debriefed and/or spied on.

cryptonector 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why a no-fly zone?

tguvot 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

no fly or not no fly, but iranian foreign minister had to ask permission from idf in order to fly out to geneva