By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior
US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers destroyed Houthi five hardened weapons storage sites buried underground with precision strikes, demonstrating the Pentagon and its allies appear to have the surveillance and intelligence capabilities to locate buried weapons caches and the bunker-buster, earth penetrating weapons to destroy them.
There have been many air strikes from F/A-18s over Houthi territory to destroy launchers, equipment and other more visible surface assets, and the US Navy has on several occasions fired ship-launched Tomahawks into Houthi controlled areas of Yemen to destroy similar targets. The use of B-2s against hardened underground targets, however, would suggest that the US and its allied forces were able to acquire the requisite intelligence information needed to precisely locate these hidden weapons stashes. Underground weapons are likely buried for the specific purpose of remaining undetectable to overhead EO/IR cameras, sensors and even satellite imagery, yet it appears US forces were able to locate them regardless. Not only do these strikes appear to reveal successful targeting and intelligence-gathering operations, but they also indicate an ability to “destroy” underground targets from the air over Houthi territory in Yemen.
“U.S. forces targeted several of the Houthis’ underground facilities housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region. This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a written statement from the Pentagon.
How were these underground weapons caches found? There are a number of interesting possibilities or potential methods of discovery which could be at play here. One simple explanation could simply be HUMINT, meaning the US was able to learn the exact location of these weapons storage areas from human beings on the ground in the area providing crucial sensitive information. Perhaps sources (people) supportive of US efforts on the ground in Yemen were able to learn the whereabouts of the buried weapons? Yet another possibility is through various technologies and surveillance strategies. For instance, even if the weapons were buried to avoid overhead detection, perhaps long-range sensors or drones were able to detect personnel or equipment and weapons being moved in and out of the locations from the air? Such surveillance methods are often referred to as “pattern of life” detection, meaning perhaps drones were able to repeatedly detect forces delivering weapons to a specific entrance to an underground weapons facility. Theses days, advanced algorithms can identify precise moments of relevance across countless hours, days even weeks of aerial drone-collected surveillance data. The ability to find and target these Houthi locations likely involved a mixture of a number of these kinds of intelligence-gathering methods.
Also, apart from simply “finding” the locations, the Pentagon was able to effectively “destroy” otherwise difficult to reach underground targets from the air. The US Air Force has many “bunker-buster” earth penetrating weapons capable of breaking through hundreds of feet of concrete, rock and solid ground with a delayed fuse to detonate or “explode” at a specific desired depth. One such Air Force weapon is identified as the BLU-109, an earth penetrating round able to detonate 550 pounds of explosive material using a “mechanical-electrical” delayed action fuse, according to an interesting essay from the US Air Force’s Hill AFB called Lockheed BLU-109/B Hard-target Warhead. The BLU-109 was used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan and is roughly 2,000 pounds and able to drop from many Air Force fighter jets such as an F-15 or F-16. Most recently, variants of the BLU-109 are being used by Israel in the ongoing air campaign against Hezbollah. Another bunker-busting option could be the well-known Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) GBU-57, the largest earth penetrating bomb in the US arsenal. The GBU-57 weighs 30,000 pounds can can only be carried by large bombers such as a B-2. As a massive explosive, the MOP is reserved for large underground targets such as an Iranian or North Korean underground nuclear facility; it is likely much too large for what was likely necessary to destroy buried Houthi weapons caches. However, the fact that B-2s were used suggest that perhaps some of the larger or heavier bunker buster variants were used, if not the MOP. B-2s may have also been used for their stealth properties, given that the Houthis may operate some Russian-built air defenses sent from Iran, a threat scenario which may indicate the necessary use of B-2s. Most of the strikes on visible Houthi targets have likely come from stand-off distances where stealth may not have been as crucially needed, yet bunker busters need to be dropped from “overhead,” more vulnerable points of attack.
“The employment of U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate U.S. global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere,” Austin said in a statement.
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