Tulsa World (Oklahoma) March 31, 2003
Saddam up in air over 'bunker buster' bomb
By Phil Mulkins, World Action Line Editor
What's this "bunker buster" bomb I hear about on TV? -- D.J.
The 5,000-pound "bunker buster," officially designated Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28), is a 19-foot laser-guided conventional bomb with a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead containing 630 pounds of high explosive. Its nose is fitted with a laser-guidance package. When the bomb is dropped, an operator aims a laser at the target and the bomb guides itself to the reflected laser spot.
According to GlobalSecurity.org, the bomb was made early in the 1991 Persian Gulf War from surplus 14-1/2-inch-diameter artillery barrels. It was designed to penetrate earth and concrete before exploding inside hardened Iraqi command centers deep underground.
The bomb was hurriedly assembled for special targets during Operation Desert Storm -- designed, fabricated and loaded in record time.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the GBU-28 was little more than an idea. A week later the Air Force asked the munitions industry for ideas on a deep-penetrating, delayed-detonation bomb, based on existing materials. The original models were fabricated Feb. 1, 1991, from surplus 8-inch artillery tubes.
The project was approved Feb. 14, and explosives for the initial units were "hand-loaded by laboratory personnel into the bomb body, partially buried upright in the ground outside a laboratory in New York," GlobalSecurity's Web site says.
With personal interests set aside and traditional approaches overruled, the design team worked, trading time against cost, risk and performance. They reused existing subsystems to create the prototype.
The first two units were delivered to the Air Force in mid-February, and the first flight to test the guidance software and fin configuration was Feb. 20. A sled test Feb. 26 proved the bomb could penetrate more than 20 feet of concrete. An earlier flight test demonstrated the bomb's ability to penetrate 100 feet of earth.
The Energetic Materials Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory, home of the High Explosives Research and Development Facility, delivered the first two warheads to the Desert Storm theater Feb. 27, 1991.
The Air Force produced a limited quantity of the GBU-28 during Desert Storm, but only two were dropped, both by F-111Fs.
After the war, the Air Force incorpo rated some modifications to the bomb and further tested it. A 1997 budget request listed $18.4 million for 161 GBU-28s.
The bomb was used April 28, 1999, in Yugoslavia and Oct. 10, 2001 in Afghanistan.
Contracts have been issued for a new version -- the EGBU-28 ("E" for "enhanced") -- of the "bunker buster." It will use an "inertial measurement unit" with Global Positioning System guidance so it can be dropped, with extreme accuracy, at higher altitudes and in foul weather without laser guidance.
The order is for 350 of the bombs. Development is to begin this year and production is to start in 2005.
Submit Action Line questions to 699-8888 or by e-mail at phil.mulkins@tulsaworld.com. Action Line pursues consumer complaints submitted with photocopies of documentation to Tulsa World Action Line, P.O. Box 1770, Tulsa, OK 74102-1770.
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