Iranian nuclear Sites seem not to be save against nuclear earth penetrating attack.
" (..) a tunnel buried 2km deep would be squeezed by the rocks"
"(..) tactical nuclear warhead could trigger seismic activity which would release total energy up to 1,000 times that produced by the weapon itself"
" (..) B61 nuclear bomb(...) has a yield ranging from 0.3 to 50 kilotons (..) can be delivered by hypersonic missile to evade missile defence systems"
"(..)destruction caused by a nuclear bunker buster using the latest technology could reach three to 10 times deeper underground than previously thought."
Thanks to
@Stryker1982 mentioning this youtube channel in the chill thread. I watched all videos on the same time i read your Post.
All began with watching this analyse:
After that I researched for this topic and found following sources:
South China Morning Post
Yahoo Article with reference to South China Morning Post
Interesting comment by user on that topic (Yahoo)
Main Source: Li Jie, lead project scientist with the Army Engineering University of PLA in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in a paper published in the peer-reviewed
Chinese Journal of Rock Mechanics and Engineering
Opinion:
if this is true, hardly any bunker is unassailable. So a relatively small nuclear weapon could destroy almost any bunker. This danger applies not only to Iran's nuclear facilities, but also to the nations that could be planning such an attack against Iran.
Through the development of hypersonic weapons, any air defense would have no chance for the time being, especially since it cannot be guaranteed that every air defense can be maintained over the entire duration of a war at any time and in any place. In other words, a state is reached in which one party can inflict damage on the other and that (when using a weak warhead with a large depth of penetration into the earth) little to no fallout occurs and every target is eliminated.
Previously there were 2 obstacles that would have prevented such weapons from being used.
1.) Nuclear fallout would outlaw any aggressor internationally. If Israel or the US plans to attack Iran with a small nuclear warhead deep underground without any fallout, they could do so now if the warhead penetrates deep enough into the earth.
Conclusion:
Under these circumstances, there is no other option for Iran than to necessarily produce its own nuclear weapons. That would be the absolutely necessary logical consequence of these developments.
Question:
What is your opinion about that new development? Would you take it serious?
What impact will have such a development on iranian strategy or specially on irans enemy strategy ?
Would the inhibition threshold of the West now be lower to equip e.g. a hypersonic missile with a 1 kt warhead and then detonate it 60 meters underground, e.g. at Fordow or the underground missile cities? Or would this only be one of the last options in the context of a war?