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A bunker buster is a type of munition that is designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground, such as military bunkers.
Though these bombs might be thought of as "bunker busters" today, the original "earthquake" theory was more complex and subtle than simply penetrating a hardened surface. The earthquake bombs were designed not to strike a target directly, but to impact beside it, penetrate under it, and create a 'camouflet', or large buried cavern, at the same time as delivering a shock wave through the target's foundations. The target then collapses into the hole, no matter how hardened it may be. The bombs had strong casings because they needed to travel through rock rather than reinforced concrete, though they could perform equally well against hardened surfaces. In an attack on the Valentin U-Boat pens at Farge, two Grand Slams went through the 15 ft (4.5 m) reinforced concrete hardening—equalling or exceeding the best current penetration specifications.
The British Disney bomb (officially "4500 lb 2,000 Concrete piercing/Rocket Assisted Bomb", also known as the "Crab") was a World War II device designed to be used against U-boat pens and other super-hardened targets. Devised by Captain Edward Terrell RNVR of the Admiralty's Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development, it had a streamlined hardened case and weighed about including the rocket assembly. The actual explosive content was about .
For accuracy, the bombs had to be dropped precisely from a pre-determined height (usually ). They would free-fall for around 30 seconds until, at , the rockets were ignited, causing the tail section to be expelled. The rocket burn lasted for three seconds and added to the bomb's speed, giving a final impact speed of , approximately Mach 1.29.Other sources mention a striking speed of . (, ) Post-war tests demonstrated that the bombs were able to penetrate a thick concrete roof, with the predicted (but untested) ability to penetrate of concrete.
During Operation Desert Storm (1991), there was a need for a deep penetration bomb similar to the British weapons of World War II, but none of the NATO air forces had such a weapon. As a stop-gap, some were developed over a period of 28 days, using old 8 inch (203 mm) artillery barrels as casings. These bombs weighed over two tons and carried of high explosive. They were laser-guided and were designated "Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28)". It was proven effective for the intended role.
An example of a Russian bunker buster is the KAB-1500L-Pr. It is delivered with the Su-24M and the Su-34 aircraft. It is stated to be able to penetrate 10–20 m of earth or 2 m of reinforced concrete. The bomb weighs , with being the high explosive penetrating warhead. It is laser guided and has a reported strike accuracy of CEP.
The US has a series of custom made bombs such as the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs to penetrate hardened or deeply buried structures:
| GBU-10, GBU-15, GBU-24, GBU-27, AGM-130, GBU-31(V)3/B & GBU-31(V)4/B |
| GBU-15, GBU-24, GBU-27, AGM-130 |
| GBU-15, GBU-24, AGM-130 |
| GBU-28, GBU-37 |
| GBU-57 |
Turkey is another country known to be developing bunker busters, such as the SARB-83 and NEB-84.
Modern bunker busters may use a conventional fuze, but some also include a microphone and microcontroller. The microphone listens, and the microcontroller counts the number of floors until the bomb breaks through the desired numbers of floors. Northrop Grumman is working on the Hard Target Void Sensing Fuze (HTVSF), an electronic and cockpit programmable fuze capable of destroying deeply buried targets. It provides multiple delay arming and detonation times, as well as a void-sensing capability, which allows for precision activation of the fuze for weapons to explode when they reach an open space in a deeply buried bunker.
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