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'Divine Strake' - testing for Iran?
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'Divine Strake' - testing for Iran?
The US will conduct a high-explosives test in June at the U16B complex on the Nevada Test Site to determine how effectively a massive conventional bomb would perform against fortified underground targets.
Codenamed 'Divine Strake', the test will not involve a conventional bomb as such, but will detonate a vast pile (amounting to 700 tonnes) of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO) with 136 kg of C-4 explosive - the US equivalent of Semtex - as the initiator. As part of a series conducted by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the explosion will be equivalent to more than half a kiloton or 500 tonnes of TNT, the largest conventional explosion to date.
The test comes at a time when military strikes against Iran in a bid to halt Tehran's nuclear programme are being hotly debated. Hardened and deeply buried targets are increasingly used to conceal and protect command-and-control facilities and storage of non-conventional weapons. Recent satellite imagery shows that Iran is defending its 16 m deep uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz from attack by burying them under 25 m of dirt, cement and concrete.
The Divine Strake simulation will involve detonating the explosives on top of the surface above the tunnel rather than against the tunnel entrances. It will be conducted in a limestone bed to simulate the likely geological situation of known targets. According to the DTRA, it will assess the capability of computer codes to predict the ground-shock environment and associated tunnel response to the detonation. Of secondary interest is the air blast produced by a buried charge and its modification as it propagates over the local terrain.
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