America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say
Up until now, in the quiet arms race between concrete and bombs, the concrete has been winning
While President Trump declared that the operation “completely and totally obliterated” the sites, Iranian officials downplayed the attacks. As of publication time, it’s unclear the level of damage inflicted based on satellite imagery alone, but a CNN report published on Tuesday afternoon claims that the strikes on Iran did not destroy the country’s nuclear program and has instead only set it back by a matter of months, according to early U.S. intelligence.If history serves as any indication, there is a chance Iran’s underground nuclear facilities could be partially or wholly intact. That’s because up until now, in the quiet arms race between concrete and bombs, the concrete has been winning.
In the late 2000s, for instance, rumors circulated about a bunker in Iran struck by a bunker-buster bomb. The bomb had failed to penetrate—and remained embedded in—the surface of the bunker, presumably until the occupants called in a bomb-disposal team. Rather than smashing through the concrete, the bomb had been unexpectedly stopped dead. The reason was not hard to guess: Iran was a leader in the new technology of Ultra High Performance Concrete, or UHPC, and its latest concrete advancements were evidently too much for standard bunker busters.
In a First, America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say
The U.S. made history with the first use of its largest bunker-buster bomb. Experts are waiting to see if Iran’s bunkers survived the unprecedented strikes.