{"id":48903,"date":"2026-05-29T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2026\/05\/29\/pentagon-looks-to-reinvent-the-bunker-buster-bomb\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:16:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:16:37","slug":"pentagon-looks-to-reinvent-the-bunker-buster-bomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/industry\/techwatch\/2026\/05\/29\/pentagon-looks-to-reinvent-the-bunker-buster-bomb\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon looks to reinvent the bunker-buster bomb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With nations such as Iran protecting their arsenals by burying them deep underground, the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is searching for new types of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/air\/2026\/02\/13\/us-air-force-buying-more-bunker-buster-bombs-after-iran-nuclear-strikes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/air\/2026\/02\/13\/us-air-force-buying-more-bunker-buster-bombs-after-iran-nuclear-strikes\/\">bunker-buster bombs<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The goal is to go beyond the traditional brute-force approach of giant bombs that rely on the force of gravity to smash their way deep into the ground before exploding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During World War II, the Royal Air Force dropped 22,000-pound \u201cGrand Slam\u201d bombs. Eight decades later, the U.S. Air Force has used the 30,000-pound <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2025\/06\/22\/here-are-the-bunker-buster-bombs-used-on-irans-fordo-nuclear-facility\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2025\/06\/22\/here-are-the-bunker-buster-bombs-used-on-irans-fordo-nuclear-facility\/\">GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator<\/a> in the campaign against Iran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, DARPA wants to pivot away from the traditional bunker busters and instead manipulate shock waves to destroy targets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe government is explicitly interested in concepts that move beyond traditional mass-velocity scaling and empirical design toward mechanisms that deliberately shape, steer, amplify, or suppress stress waves within homogeneous and heterogeneous materials,\u201d according to DARPA\u2019s Request for Information. The deadline is June 26. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAreas of interest include, but are not limited to, transient material state manipulation under extreme loading, non-linear and anisotropic wave control, dynamic impedance matching, controlled failure initiation and progression, and the coupling of structural, material, and geometric effects to achieve step-change performance against complex targets,\u201d DARPA continued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DARPA also seeks \u201cnew regimes of performance or observability in shock-dominated environments.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Potential advances include \u201carchitected or actively tunable materials, novel fabrication methods that embed function into structure,\u201d and \u201cadvanced diagnostics capable of resolving high-strain-rate phenomena in situ.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DARPA\u2019s quest for better bunker-busters comes as the future of warfare heads beneath the surface. Iran has embedded nuclear facilities and missile stockpiles <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2025\/07\/03\/why-its-hard-to-know-the-damage-the-us-did-to-irans-nuclear-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2025\/07\/03\/why-its-hard-to-know-the-damage-the-us-did-to-irans-nuclear-program\/\">inside mountains<\/a>. North Korea uses bunkers and tunnels to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2018\/11\/13\/us-analysts-say-they-found-secret-north-korean-missile-sites-but-trump-says-theres-nothing-new\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2018\/11\/13\/us-analysts-say-they-found-secret-north-korean-missile-sites-but-trump-says-theres-nothing-new\/\">conceal<\/a> nuclear sites, missile launchers and artillery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even non-state actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah \u2014 and before them, the Viet Cong \u2014 waged war from underground. In the Ukraine War, drones have become such a pervasive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2025\/12\/11\/a-drone-war-is-more-silent-and-more-deadly-and-america-is-behind\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2025\/12\/11\/a-drone-war-is-more-silent-and-more-deadly-and-america-is-behind\/\">threat<\/a> that human soldiers spend much of their time in bunkers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rooting out insurgents from tunnels is hard enough, as the U.S. Army\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenmusa.org\/articles\/tunnel-rats-of-the-vietnam-war\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thenmusa.org\/articles\/tunnel-rats-of-the-vietnam-war\/\">\u201ctunnel rats\u201d<\/a> can attest. Trying to destroy an Iranian nuclear site 300 feet underground is an order of magnitude harder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s why weapons like Grand Slam and the Massive Ordnance Penetrator were invented. But the Grand Slam could be carried only by a specially modified Lancaster four-engine bomber, while the MOP is dropped by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2026\/04\/07\/b-2s-flew-36-hour-mission-to-target-iranian-revolutionary-guard-meeting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2026\/04\/07\/b-2s-flew-36-hour-mission-to-target-iranian-revolutionary-guard-meeting\/\">B-2 bomber<\/a>, of which the U.S. Air Force has only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/air\/2025\/12\/15\/b-52-with-key-radar-upgrade-flies-to-edwards-for-testing\/?contentQuery=%7B%22includeSections%22%3A%22%2Fhome%22%2C%22excludeSections%22%3A%22%22%2C%22feedSize%22%3A10%2C%22feedOffset%22%3A235%7D&amp;contentFeatureId=f0fmoahPVC2AbfL-2-1-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/air\/2025\/12\/15\/b-52-with-key-radar-upgrade-flies-to-edwards-for-testing\/?contentQuery=%7B%22includeSections%22%3A%22%2Fhome%22%2C%22excludeSections%22%3A%22%22%2C%22feedSize%22%3A10%2C%22feedOffset%22%3A235%7D&amp;contentFeatureId=f0fmoahPVC2AbfL-2-1-8\">19 operational<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DARPA\u2019s RFI doesn\u2019t mention reducing the size of bunker-buster bombs. But if scientists can devise ways to exploit shock waves to destroy targets, this opens the possibility of smaller bunker-busters that can be carried by a variety of aircraft. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The goal is to go beyond the traditional brute-force approach of giant bombs and instead manipulate shock waves to destroy targets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":109539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":49,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[11,12,49,19,48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3415],"class_list":["post-48903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global","category-industry","category-techwatch","category-pentagon","category-the-americas"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"G262EHSKBND4LCJHOAVIW37ZSM","arc_canonical_url":"\/industry\/techwatch\/2026\/05\/29\/pentagon-looks-to-reinvent-the-bunker-buster-bomb\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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