Operation Midnight Hammer

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Kiltonge said:
180 tons of ordnance but 29 tons of explosive - shows how incredibly reinforced the casings must be to penetrate deeply.

To put it another way, that's 0.007% of the ( public ) yield of a B61-11.
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0.007% of a modest nuke really isn't as impressive number as you seem to think it is... I once did a rough estimate of an STS on pad blowup, and unsurprisingly it was in the ballpark of several hundreds of tons TNT. Perhaps someone has done some equivalent estimates for the recent spectacular SpaceX RUDs, but I'll leave that particular exercise to GenX.
 
B-2 Strikes on Fordo/Iran - Operation Midnight Hammer:

On the night of 21st to the 22nd of June 2025, 0210 local time, USAF B-2 raided Nuclear facilities in Iran with the largest amount of the heaviest bombs ever dropped in a single mission (not the largest tonnage) to strike the deepest buried facilities ever targeted with conventional weapons and the most critical target.

Located 300 feet under a mountain and reinforced by layers of concrete, Iran’s fortress-like Fordo facility is situated to the south of Iran’s capital of Tehran. It is the country’s most hardened and advanced nuclear site..
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U.S. forces struck sites Natanz, Isfahan and the Fordo uranium enrichment facility. [...]
Fox News reported that six MOPs struck Fordo and 30 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles fired from an Ohio-class nuclear guided-missile submarine struck targets in Isfahan and Natanz. The New York Times reported six B-2s dropped up to 12 MOPs on Fordo. It’s unclear what boat fired the TLAMs, but USS Georgia (SSGN-729), which fields more than 150 TLAMS, entered the region in September, USNI News reported at the time.
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Iran claims to have evacuated in advance some of the sensitive material from Fordo:

108162119-1750583810792-02_cargo_trucks_postioned_near_underground_entrance_fordow_fuel_enrichment_facility_19jun2025_wvl.jpg

Maxar satellite imagery of Fordo fuel enrichment facility.
Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies


SecDef Press conference at 8am/GMT-4 on the 22nd did unveil a little bit more:

Screenshot 2025-06-22 141103.png

2nd longest B-2 mission
Largest B-2 package ever with 7 bombers participating to the mission
14 GBU-57 dropped on two sites
75 PGM in total
125 US a/c in total
Unidentified Sweep and escort penetrating Stealth fighters
SEAD DEAD support pre & post strike
No shot fired by Iran defenses
No Iran a/c launched
Not a joint Israel/US operation (airspace over Iran was not shared with IDF assets)
12 submarine launched AGM-86 pre-strike (not clear at this stage if that was pre ingress or post egress)


6857f03e85e81483682c85da

©2025 Maxar Technologies
The Fordow nuclear site on June 22, 2025.
(post strike picture)

Notice, among the 6 other holes, the crater at 11 from center picture bullseye that is not present in the pre-strike picture above. I wonder why they did strike there.
 
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Does distributing knowledge of explosive lenses counts as a violation of the NPT if there are evidence/probable cause to suspect its usage in a nuclear arming program?
 
martinbayer said:
0.007% of a modest nuke really isn't as impressive number as you seem to think it is... I once did a rough estimate of an STS on pad blowup, and unsurprisingly it was in the ballpark of several hundreds of tons TNT. Perhaps someone has done some equivalent estimates for the recent spectacular SpaceX RUDs, but I'll leave that particular exercise to GenX.
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Even 400kT of the B61-11 isn't that impressive against the previous US bunker buster, the B53, which could create a crater down to 250 metres with a 9MT ground-burst. That would have vaporised the entire mountain whilst weighing 9,000lb.

Really does show the vastly different magnitudes at which nuclear weapons operate and how much MOP weighs for its comparatively limited effect.
 
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xstatic3000 said:
Per Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, some headed west as a decoy while the rest "proceeded quietly to the east with minimal communications throughout the 18-hour flight".
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It wasn't just the flight that went west, it was the AR track north of Hawaii, the C-17's from McCord that landed at Whiteman, then flew west as well. If you paid attention there were tracks headed northeast... A well-executed deception in plain sight.
 
Strategic stealth bombers is quite a barrier to entry for these type of tasks, Hyunmoo-V type missiles should be more popular.
 
Flyaway said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1936654595079459036
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That doesn't make much sense, if a bomb explodes inside a bunker, a part of the gases from the explosion are ejected through the entrance hole and another part, including the dust inside the bunker, is ejected through the ventilation tunnels, even if these are partially obstructed by NBC filters. Some radiation should have escaped outside.:rolleyes:
 
Justo Miranda said:
That doesn't make much sense, if a bomb explodes inside a bunker, a part of the gases from the explosion are ejected through the entrance hole and another part, including the dust inside the bunker, is ejected through the ventilation tunnels, even if these are partially obstructed by NBC filters. Some radiation should have escaped outside.:rolleyes:
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Iran claims to have already removed the fissile material prior to the strikes
 
Kiltonge said:
Even 400kT of the B61-11 isn't that impressive against the previous US bunker buster, the B53, which could create a crater down to 250 metres with a 9MT ground-burst. That would have vaporised the entire mountain whilst weighing 9,000lb.

Really does show the vastly different magnitudes at which nuclear weapons operate and how much MOP weighs for its comparatively limited effect.
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Or the older B41 at 10,600lb at 25 MT.
 
joshjosh said:
Iran claims to have already removed the fissile material prior to the strikes
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That would remove only a portion of the radiation, but all technological equipment must be heavily contaminated, and some radiation should have escaped after its destruction, even partial.
 
Forest Green said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1936752677439861165
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1936752677439861165
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In all fairness though, I doubt the US would have sent the B-2s directly in if Iranian IADS wouldn't have been so heavily degraded during the exchange with Israel. Or at least not without F-35s clearing the way before, given that AGM-158 probably doesn't have the necessary oomph to do significant damage to such hardened underground facilities. Meaning stanf-off munitions were never an option for such an operation.
 
mkellytx said:
It wasn't just the flight that went west, it was the AR track north of Hawaii, the C-17's from McCord that landed at Whiteman, then flew west as well. If you paid attention there were tracks headed northeast... A well-executed deception in plain sight.
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From CNN (bold characters are not my editing) :

“Operation Midnight Hammer”: The strikes involved more than 125 aircraft, including some B-2 bombers that served as a “decoy,” according to US officials.
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EmoBirb said:
In all fairness though, I doubt the US would have sent the B-2s directly in if Iranian IADS wouldn't have been so heavily degraded during the exchange with Israel. Or at least not without F-35s clearing the way before, given that AGM-158 probably doesn't have the necessary oomph to do significant damage to such hardened underground facilities. Meaning stanf-off munitions were never an option for such an operation.
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To clarify @bring_it_on's intent I'd just quote the goat himself
I don't know if you have actually followed the account. He said that the Iranian forces would extract a heavy toll given the advanced and impregnable nature of its IADS with a range of HF, VHF, and other 'highly capable' systems making up its layered defense capability. Meanwhile, neither the IAF, nor USAF/N have lost a single fast jet over Iran so far.
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yeetmahboi said:
To clarify @bring_it_on's intent I'd just quote the goat himself
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In all fairness, judging prewar Iranian iads now is not unlike laughing on US battleships role in saving Philippines in 1942.

Sudden attack is a sudden attack.
Falling to it is their absolute execution fault at all levels, but there's a reason December 7th is a day of infamy. In Japan.
 
Ainen said:
In all fairness, judging prewar Iranian iads now is not unlike laughing on US battleships role in saving Philippines in 1942.

Sudden attack is a sudden attack.
Falling to it is their absolute execution fault at all levels, but there's a reason December 7th is a day of infamy. In Japan.
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Except that it judges nothing other than the ridiculous, overblown analysis of Iran's IADS. Nothing to be said otherwise.

Funny that the shill account claimed that B-2s couldn't do standoff when it was explicitly designed with LPI attack radars and wired for SRAMs. Presumably some other cruise missiles as well. I could recall notes of contract for JASSM integration. Presumably the B-2s if produced to the original plan could supplement the Bones as well and take up the slack of carrying ACMs.
 
yeetmahboi said:
Except that it judges nothing other than the ridiculous, overblown analysis of Iran's IADS. Nothing to be said otherwise.
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Nothing especially ridiculous?

Like again, if force exists and goes into fight, it's one thing. If force was destroyed in sleeping quarters(remember that undeployed bavar-373 radar), it is another thing. Key personnel killed in Tehran sleeping with their families, come on. They didn't even get to the mass takeout order stage.

One may add that for some reason they really persisted in trying to fight as IADS.
yeetmahboi said:
Funny that the shill account claimed that B-2s couldn't do standoff when it was explicitly designed with LPI attack radars and wired for SRAMs. Presumably some other cruise missiles as well. I could recall notes of contract for JASSM integration. Presumably the B-2s if produced to the original plan could supplement the Bones as well and take up the slack of carrying ACMs.
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They could and can, it just often can be done by others just as well. Coolest thing about deep stealth is ultimately stand in, not stand off.
Striking something like Chengdu aircraft factories may be another matter, of course.
 
Or not.
 
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Sferrin said:
Or not.
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Or not. But then again, that wasn't that funny on Bataan.

Just keeping in mind that air defense was crushed before hand is important.
 
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Ainen said:
Or not. But then again, that wasn't that funny on Bataan.

Just keeping in mind that air defense was crushed before hand is important.
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I can't imagine a scenario where the US and China are trying to take out each other's aircraft production lines with conventional weapons. The very notion is ridiculous.
 
There are almost certainly Chinese aircraft spotters around Whitman. I would be astonished if Iran didn't know they were coming, but what could they do about it? Interesting that a dozen F-22s recently flew to the UK. Anybody know where they ended up? Maybe they were around just in case.

theaviationist.com

U.S. F-22 Raptors Are Deploying To The Middle East

The first 8 of 12 U.S. Air Force F-22s have departed the UK and are currently en route to the region as the White House considers whether to join Israel’s
theaviationist.com theaviationist.com
 
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