Now that imagery has emerged, I think my take from last night is vindicated - the damage seen thus far is not consistent with extremely large "bunker-buster" bombs but with lighter standoff weapons that caused only surface damage.The Iranians also clearly had ample warning.
Contra to anyone claiming we don't know what a Massive Ordnance Penetrator impact will or should actually look like, we actually have a fairly good idea of exactly what effects such a weapon produces on the ground because very similar weapons were deployed during the Second World War - the Grand Slam and Tallboy bomb (figure 1). The Grand Slam was a 10,000kg penetrator bomb with 4300kg of explosive filling and the Tallboy was a 5400kg bomb with 2400kg of explosive filling. Meanwhile the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator is a 12,300kg bomb with approximately 2400kg of explosive fill; the MOP is publicly reported to have about 50% better penetration than the Grand Slam (60m vs 40m of earth) combined with a near-identical explosive fill to the Tallboy. Its effects on the ground should look fairly similar to both of these weapons.
What effect did these WWII earthquake bombs have on the ground? Well, they left GIGANTIC craters, as wide as 40 meters and as deep as 25 meters (see figure 2, the aftermath of an attack with these weapons - admittedly in earth, but their effects on reinforced concrete were just as spectacular). If MOPs were used in Iran last night - particularly multiple rounds delivered into the same hole - we would expect to see massive cratering, the sides of mountains blown out and landslides. These are not subtle weapons.
What did we actually see when the sun came up and the usual brOSINT-IMINT satellites did their passes this morning? Well, allow me to refer you to figure 3, showing polite six-meter bomb scars with some thrown-up dust on the ridge above Fordow, precisely what you would expect from, say, the thousand-pound warhead on a Tomahawk or JASSM. It's enough, however, for Trump to declare victory and go home.
Moreover it appears that the Iranians had so much warning of an impending attack - possibly via official or semi-official channels - that they not only evacuated equipment out of Fordow (figure 4, showing a large truck convoy spotted on the road outside prior to the strike) but they then buried the entrances to the facility to mitigate the effects of attack against the entry tunnels.As an aside, if the Iranians did in fact evacuate centrifuges and other critical machinery or even enriched uranium from Fordow then the Israelis would have had an opportunity to hit them in transit - an opportunity which they do not appear to have been able to close despite likely knowing about it given the scale of the operation and the amount of surveillance on Fordow.In sum - My theory from last night is, I believe, vindicated. I think this was a low-risk, low-impact attack with standoff munitions that had minimal effect on Iranian nuclear capabilities, but may open some political space for conflict deescalation or at least lessen political pressure on Trump from the Israel lobby to do something to bail out Netanyahu.
www.opindia.com
Don't listen to this guy. He's retarded and talks bullshit all the time.
