Who do you drop a nuclear bunker buster on?

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

All built under clay

When were they built? Were nuclear weapons or penetrating PGMs design
consideration?


For the cabinet war rooms no, for Northwood nuclear weapons
were certainly a consideration

I certainly agree they are stable under normal conditions, and, for that
matter, the German bombing of WWII. I'm not as convinced that 617
Squadron, using the Tallboy, couldn't have broached them, much less if
more modern weapons were used.

Neither am I but thats not the issue. Tunnels arent just
hard to damage they're hard to find, especially in a
closed society




And won't have much effect on a modern penetrating or high blast
weapon.

It wasnt suggested it would, however a 100ft of clay or
sandstone, especially if properly reinforces is rather
difficult to penetrate using conventional weapons.

The interim "bunker buster" rigged from old artillery barrels penetrated
over 100 feet of hardened clay (caliche) in the US trials before
deployment. They never did dig it out.

And how many would you need to collapse 10
miles of tunnel ?


Cheyenne Mountain isn't only granite, it's granite in a matrix of
steel
stabilizing bolts. Zhiguli is presumably comparable.

I think the Syrians know about steel and concrete too.

I didn't say steel and concrete, but steel and granite. Cheyenne
Mountain was selected, in part, because it is a mountain, and it was
possible to tunnel in from the side. Even so, there was a significant
amount of construction (and excavated rock and soil) that would have
been visible in overhead imagery. I find it hard to believe that Syria
could have (1) found an appropriate granite mountain and (2) hidden from
satellites the evidence of building a major shelter.


You are the only one fixated on granite.

You may recall that the only weapons able to
penetrate the concrete U-Boat pens were the
Tallboys and Grandslam weapons used by the
RAF and the former were definitel marginal
against some of the later pens

What is plausible is that the Syrians might have improved some of the
karst caves, which would be much more hardened than the sandstone
through which the qanats are built. Improved karst, however, isn't the
same as reinforced granite.


The Syrians cant re-order the geology of their country but they
can still hide stuff in tunnels

I will grant that you can superharden something of the size of an ICBM
silo with steel and concrete, although some of the techniques need
research. Again, the construction is difficult to hide from
overheads--it is much more distinctive than a truck of mystery materials.

Difficult to be sure BUT the Serbians managed to hide a lot
of stuff in Kosovo as did the Iraqi's. The UN inspectors
found underground complexes hidden beneath civilian
facilities on numerous occasions



In the middle east the techniques for building extensive
underground tunnels have been know since antiquity.
The network of irrigation tunnels in Iran are known
as the qanat and in Arabia they call them the falaj.

Exactly. The qanats are what I'm describing in the Syrian lowlands.
They
don't and can't go deeply enough to withstand modern bombing.

But tunnels built using modern techniques can and do.

If the Syrians did build such a complex, I suspect we would know about
it. We tracked their attempts to build a subway system, which were
abandoned.

Civilian systems are rather easier to track than military ones
but we may well know about it. That doesnt mean they
couldnt build em though. I suspect any such were built more
with the IDF in mind than the USAF

Keith

In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

All built under clay

When were they built? Were nuclear weapons or penetrating PGMs design
consideration?


For the cabinet war rooms no, for Northwood nuclear weapons
were certainly a consideration

While I cannot get into specifics, it's no accident that US continuity
of nuclear operations focuses on getting the NCA (and successors)
airborne. No one makes it a secret that Cheyenne Mountain and Site R
would not stand up to a fUSSR ICBM attack, given both yields and
accuracy. I'd assume the same is true of Northwood.

Incidentally, some studies of a superhardened shelter, intended for the
DC area, have been declassified -- IIRC, they are online in the National
Security Archive at George Washington University. The idea was deemed
infeasible for a nuclear war environment.



I certainly agree they are stable under normal conditions, and, for
that
matter, the German bombing of WWII. I'm not as convinced that 617
Squadron, using the Tallboy, couldn't have broached them, much less if
more modern weapons were used.

Neither am I but thats not the issue. Tunnels arent just
hard to damage they're hard to find, especially in a
closed society

Agreed. Also note that large tunnel complexes become more vulnerable to
advanced detection systems, such as ground-penetrating radar, thermal
imaging, and probably an assortment of other MASINT methods. Silo-sized
shelters -- sure. Hard to find.


And won't have much effect on a modern penetrating or high blast
weapon.

It wasnt suggested it would, however a 100ft of clay or
sandstone, especially if properly reinforces is rather
difficult to penetrate using conventional weapons.

The interim "bunker buster" rigged from old artillery barrels
penetrated
over 100 feet of hardened clay (caliche) in the US trials before
deployment. They never did dig it out.

And how many would you need to collapse 10
miles of tunnel ?

If there's a 10-mile tunnel, it's going to be easier to find. No one
bomb (other than large thermonuclear) is going to take out the system.

But how many exits and ventilation shafts are there? Collapse the
exits, and what's underground is useless.

You may not have seen my earlier post --- substitute "hard rock" for
"granite." For fairly small installations, such as ICBM silos,
high-grade concrete can do -- although the silos themselves are tunneled
into hard rock.

The Syrians cant re-order the geology of their country but they
can still hide stuff in tunnels

Hide, yes. Protect if found, no.



Civilian systems are rather easier to track than military ones
but we may well know about it. That doesnt mean they
couldnt build em though. I suspect any such were built more
with the IDF in mind than the USAF

Depends on size. At some point, the problem of disposing of the
excavation becomes an issue.

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 20:48:53 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:



For the cabinet war rooms no, for Northwood nuclear weapons
were certainly a consideration

One must assume that the other side would have made an awful mess of NW
london just to knock out Northwood.


greg


--
"vying with Platt for the largest gap
between capability and self perception"

"Greg Hennessy" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 20:48:53 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:



For the cabinet war rooms no, for Northwood nuclear weapons
were certainly a consideration

One must assume that the other side would have made an awful mess of NW
london just to knock out Northwood.



That assumption was fair I suspect, I never thought
the Soviets would take us off the target list cause
Brent Council declared us a nuclear free zone

Keith

In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

"Greg Hennessy" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 20:48:53 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:



For the cabinet war rooms no, for Northwood nuclear weapons
were certainly a consideration

One must assume that the other side would have made an awful mess of NW
london just to knock out Northwood.



That assumption was fair I suspect, I never thought
the Soviets would take us off the target list cause
Brent Council declared us a nuclear free zone


*sigh* should they, then, have built Northwood in Slough?

Howard Berkowitz wrote in news:hcb-
:




While I cannot get into specifics, it's no accident that US continuity
of nuclear operations focuses on getting the NCA (and successors)
airborne. No one makes it a secret that Cheyenne Mountain and Site R
would not stand up to a fUSSR ICBM attack, given both yields and
accuracy. I'd assume the same is true of Northwood.

IMO,Cheyenne Mountain would be a VERY tough nut to crack regardless of
megatonnage.
Shock waves may be a different matter.




--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

In article , Jim Yanik
wrote:

Howard Berkowitz wrote in news:hcb-
:




While I cannot get into specifics, it's no accident that US continuity
of nuclear operations focuses on getting the NCA (and successors)
airborne. No one makes it a secret that Cheyenne Mountain and Site R
would not stand up to a fUSSR ICBM attack, given both yields and
accuracy. I'd assume the same is true of Northwood.

IMO,Cheyenne Mountain would be a VERY tough nut to crack regardless of
megatonnage.
Shock waves may be a different matter.

While I can't get into specifics, the Air Force has justified its
continued existence on the basic of existing construction, plus low air
conditioning costs. Again from public statements, look at the CEP and
yields of a regiment of SS-18s.

In article , Howard
Berkowitz writes
In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:


Depends on size. At some point, the problem of disposing of the
excavation becomes an issue.

Such activities could be hidden. You could tunnel out into the
countryside from an urban area where there is normal building
development, dig your bunker from within that tunnel, and use that
tunnel to take away the spoil from your deep shelter excavations. Who
counts the trucks leaving a civil development area?

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth

In article , Howard
Berkowitz writes
In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:

"Greg Hennessy" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 20:48:53 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:



For the cabinet war rooms no, for Northwood nuclear weapons
were certainly a consideration

One must assume that the other side would have made an awful mess of NW
london just to knock out Northwood.



That assumption was fair I suspect, I never thought
the Soviets would take us off the target list cause
Brent Council declared us a nuclear free zone


*sigh* should they, then, have built Northwood in Slough?

I assume you are thinking of:

'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough,
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow,
Swarm over, Death!'

Post-war, Slough council did invite Betjeman to visit - to witness that
things had been improved. He declined...

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth

In article , Keith Willshaw
writes

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote in message
...
In article , "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:


SNIP rocky bits

You are the only one fixated on granite.

You may recall that the only weapons able to
penetrate the concrete U-Boat pens were the
Tallboys and Grandslam weapons used by the
RAF and the former were definitel marginal
against some of the later pens

We had this discussion last year, I recall archiving your excellent
description of pen construction.

I read elsewhere that some Grandslams were observe to embed themselves
up to 10-12 feet in the pen roof of one site (forget which) before going
bang. The Terrell rocket-propelled bombs provably got through 20 feet
of pen roof, but with a light (500 pound) charge. (Actually an
advantage - the blast trashed the pens contents but left the structures
intact for the mushroom growers...)

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth