New Photos Of Massive Ordnance Penetrator Bunker Buster Bomb At Whiteman AFB Emerge
May 3, 2023 Military Aviation, WeaponsDAVID CENCIOTTI
Massive Ordnance Pentetrator
GBU-57 MOP at Whiteman AFB (Image credit: Whiteman AFB FB page)
The shots give an idea of the size of the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator).
The B-2 Spirit stealth bombers of the 509th Bomb Wing based at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, are the only aircraft in the U.S. Air Force inventory currently capable to operationally drop the massive 30,000-lb (14,000 kg) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
Sometimes mistaken with the 11-ton, parachute deployed, GBU-43B MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) also known as “Mother Of All Bombs”, the largest conventional air dropped weapon ever employed by the U.S. military, dropped by an Air Force Special Operations MC-130 Combat Talon II on an ISIS cave complex target in Afghanistan, for the very first time on Apr. 13, 2017, the 14-ton GBU-57 MOP is a 20-foot long GPS-guided bomb said to be able to penetrate 200 feet of concrete before exploding.
The B-2 can carry two MOPs in its internal bomb bay.
Images of the MOP are pretty rare. In 2013, we published here an interesting photo of a B-2 sitting next to a GBU-57. In December 2018, we found footage of a B-2 dropping a MOP in a video of the 393rd Bomb Squadron, one of the units that operate the Spirit stealth bomber as part of the 509th BW.
https://theaviationist.com/2023/05/03/photos-of-mop-at-whiteman-afb-emerge/
