"Bunker Busters": Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Issues, FY2005 and FY2006

Abstract

Earth penetrator weapons, often called "bunker busters," burrow into the ground some tens of feet before detonating, greatly increasing their ability to destroy buried targets. The United States has several types of conventional earth penetrators. The current U.S. nuclear earth penetrator, the B61-11 bomb, cannot penetrate certain types of terrain in which hardened underground facilities may be located, so the Air Force and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are studying a more effective penetrator, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 06, 2005
Accession Number
ADA474452

Entities

People

  • Jonathan E. Medalia

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Bombs
  • Bunker Buster Bombs
  • Department Of Defense
  • Fissile Materials
  • Law
  • Munitions
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Materials
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Penetrator Munitions
  • Production Engineering
  • United States
  • Weapons
  • Weapons Effects
  • Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Explosive Engineering.
  • Nuclear Non-Proliferation and International Security