Designed With Iran In Mind: Meet MOP, Boeing's New Bunker-Busting Super-Bomb

As U.S. concern about the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran have grown, weapons designers have been working on bombs capable of destroying those countries' underground nuclear sites. Some nuclear facilities in both countries are believed to be buried deep, so U.S. designers — including some from Boeing — are developing a new class of bombs for plowing through hundreds of feet of earth and concrete before detonating. The latest of these weapons is the MOP — short for Massive Ordnance Penetrator — built by Boeing's Advanced Systems unit in St. Louis. The 20-foot-long bomb that weighs 30,000 pounds — much heavier than the 21,000-pound MOAB, or Massive Ordnance Air Burst bomb, unveiled in the prelude to the Iraq war. The MOAB was designed by the Air Force Research Lab and is built at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma.