re: More Penetrating developments
From: Bruce Hall at Greenpeace
Date: March 6, 1997
Two bits of recent information about lab and Pentagon efforts to field an earth-penetrating capability for use against potential deeply buried targets. The B61-11 is a recently modified nuclear bomb being introduced into the US nuclear arsenal. It can be adjusted to a variety of yields - from a low of 300 tons to upwards of 300 kilotons.
Sandia National Laboratory
The B61-11 was authorized in August 1995 with a requested delivery date of December 31,1996. The B61-11 is a mechanical field modification to the B61-7. The B61-11 will be an earth- penetrating weapon that will replace the aging B53 bomb. The B61- 11 may be delivered by a variety of aircraft including the B-2A, F16, and the B-1B. The retrofit will consist of repackaging the Los Alamos physics package and Sandia's arming fuzing, and firing (AF&F) electronics into a new one-piece steel earth-penetrating center-case designed by Sandia. We have conducted 13 full-scale drop tests this year...(I believe they are referring to 96...the article's date is missing - Bruce)... three in Alaska and 10 at the Tonopah Test Range, in support of the development program. Sandia has also designed and is fabricating for the Air Force ten trainers and nine sets of handling gear. The program is on schedule and B61-7 to B61-11 retrofit kits were to be delivered to the Air Force in December 1996. Retrofits were scheduled to begin in January 1997.
The Kansas City plant continues to do the fabrication work for the B61-11 until at least 1999 - Bruce
JANE'S DEFENSE WEEKLY
March 5, 1997
USA WILL STUDY GROWING UNDERGROUND THREATS
By Barbara Starr
Washington, DC
The threat posed by a growing number of underground facilities in nations unfriendly to the USA will be the subject of a report commissioned by the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, Paul Kaminski.
The Defense Science Board (DSB) will report on the military and security threat posed by such underground facilities as command and control bunkers, ballistic missile sites and production and storage facilities for weapons of mass destruction.
Kaminski referred particularly to two sites: the underground chemical weapons facility at Tarhunah in Libya, and "a huge underground facility in Russia whose purpose is undetermined."
Ordering the study, Kamininski said that underground facilities can "appear in a number of forms."
This includes tunneling in mountains, "cut and cover" construction, hardened buildings above ground or basement facilities under urban civilian buildings.
The DSB was asked to look at three areas:
- The ability to find the facility. Kaminski said that facilities in remote areas are "not well covered by National sensors," and "we generally have little human intelligence [HUMINT] from such areas." The DSB was asked to examine potential collection and analysis techniques for timely detection and location of facilities.
- An examination of observation and assessment methods to determine the vulnerabilities of underground sites, including understanding site functions, connections and access to the outside and the interior structure. "This is a technically daunting task unless we have HUMINT sources or we have observed the construction of cut and cover," Kaminski said.
"A remaining option, however, is to neutralise the functioning of the facility by attacking its external connections to the outside world...[that is] destroy its entrances, power, air supply and communications for a period of time," he said. The DSB is to assess military strike tactics and tools.
The DSB report is due by year-end, with an interim report due mid-year to provide guidance for the future budget.
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