New Video Of B-2 Bomber Dropping Mother Of All Bunker Busters Sends Ominous Message

The B-2 Spirit is still America's silver bullet over 20 years after it entered operational service and 30 years since it began its flight test program. Its nuclear capability remains a key component of America's Nuclear Triad, but its ever-evolving, long-range, deep-penetrating, conventional strike abilities are what has made the Spirit the plane that often goes to work first when America's armed forces get a 911 call. One of the most important weapons in the B-2's repertoire is the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)—the most powerful non-nuclear bunker buster on the planet weighing in at a whopping 33,000 pounds. 

The B-2 can carry a pair of them.

This weapon, paired with the B-2's ability to sneak deep into enemy territory, give the United States the ability to destroy the most fortified and high-value bunkers on earth. This is the weapon that will be put to work on the very first moments of a U.S. air campaign in North Korea or Iran. It is a highly unique capability that no other air arm of on earth possesses. 

In the past, we have seen some lower quality video of a B-2 dropping a MOP for testing, but now the USAF has posted a very high-quality video of a recent test showing two of the giant weapons being employed near-simultaneously. And it is something to behold:

One has to be suspicious of the timing of the release of this video,—which came with no detailed description—as tensions are ratcheting up between the U.S. and both Iran and North Korea. 

The MOP is precision guided primarily using GPS, similar to the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). Yet even the bunker buster variants in that series of weapons are incomparable to the mighty MOP. This precision guidance is thought to allow the MOP to not only hit deeply-buried installations at their weakest points, but it offers the potential to 'layer-in' multiple MOPs on a single pinpoint location—in effect 'digging' down to where the soil, rock, and concrete end and the vital infrastructure begins. 

The Air Force is fully aware of how important this weapon is, even against a peer state like China that has gone as far as constructing a massive submarine base inside a mountain, and the service is ordering new and improved versions of the MOP that you can and should read all about in this past highly-detailed article of ours. 

The crystal-clear video of not one, but two MOPs being employed against a ground target certainly sends the clear message to America's potential foes that it has the ability to reach out and touch even the most hardened, well defended, and far-flung of facilities without going nuclear. If the video got our attention, it surely got the adversary's as well. 

Think of it as a friendly reminder of just what's at stake when it comes to going to war with the United States military. Above all else, it pretty much underlines the fact that a decapitation strike is possible even if the top regime members being targeted are hiding out in places meant to be immune from enemy bombardment. 

It's a sobering reality, to say the least. 

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com