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)

> - 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.

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

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

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.

> 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?

> 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.)

> Fordow is 300ft

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

Why a no-fly zone?

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