'DEEP DIGGER' concept for destruction of undergroud targets

It is possible that bunkers such as those in Iraq are buried under dozens of metres of rock. To break into something that deep you need a drilling effect. And that's the idea behind rapid-fire cannons such as "Deep Digger", being developed by Advanced Power Technologies.

The US Army has been breaking through concrete with cannon fire for years. An army manual states that it takes 20 rounds from a standard 25-millimetre cannon to make a breach in a brick wall large enough to walk through. It takes 25 rounds if the wall is made from 20-centimetre-thick concrete.

The idea behind APT's device is to concentrate the same number of rounds on digging a smaller hole, to make a tunnel wide enough to deliver a bomb through a metre of concrete. And APT's approach is far more effective than standard ammunition. As the missile approaches the target, it fires ahead rounds that split up on impact, breaking up an area several times greater than the diameter of the warhead. This efficiently reduces rock to fine gravel. The rear of the round contains blasting slurry, a type of semi-liquid explosive used in mining and quarrying. Moments after the shell's impact, the slurry spreads out to fill the cavity and then explodes, clearing away the debris.

This technology is being used to create a burrowing bomb. With several 25-millimetre gun barrels in the nose, it can blast its way down to the required depth before exploding. Its exact capabilities are highly classified, but according to an APT source it can already throw debris clear from a shaft 50 metres long, and may ultimately be capable of far greater depths.

Sorry no link, this came from a restricted site.

[Edited on 21-5-2003 by mad scientist]

Well, well... Project Deep Digger,

It's good to see that someone else has stumbled onto this massive project. From my perspective, Deep Digger makes the Manhattan Project look like a High School Science Fair. The implications of Deep Digger are mind boggling, to say the least. If anyone can't see the forest for the trees, just go to Google and type in the words-- tactical unattended ground sensors seismic -- and you will begin to get a feel for the enormity of this project. Here are a few choice examples:
SPIE
Analysis of Unattended Ground Sensors in Theater Missile Defense
AN/SYQ-23 Joint Service Imagery Processing System (JSIPS-N)
Geophysics � Tactical Unattended Ground Sensors
SEG/EAEG 3D Modeling Committee

As a weapons analyst I can assure you that the end technologies discussed above have marginal, yet effective Tactical applications like bunker busting. If the people designing these 3D seismic imaging and targeting technologies have not realized their potential as a first-strike nuclear weapons system for neutralizing Command and Control, C4I facilities of the Russian Rocket Forces, than they are full blown morons!

They have also tested these 3D seismic honing technologies from space-born platforms at White Sands Missle Test Range with the aid of the Orbital Access Corporation no less than three times. They used Pershing II re-entry vehicles with a redesigned B-61 mod 10 warhead, (Without the Plutonium) to pierce underground bunkers. Humm.... from space.

The Wright Labs Armament Directorate has also been testing and designing Unattended Ground Sensors that can be deployed from orbit. They work!

Well, since we've come this far, let's do some basic math... we have 3D Seismic honing sensor arrays which can be deployed from orbit and we've proven that we can deploy earth-penetrating nuclear warheads from orbit...
humm..... 1+1=

Well, so much for my plan to move to Kartchner Caverns and setting up my hideout.

Dang.

Back in 1997 when I first started researching Deep Digger I was browsing through the Advanced Concepts Technologies Demstrations web site at DARPA. I know, a popular place to hang out, but anyway, I found this image..



I was thrilled to death to see that they actually showed the UGS sensor array deployed around the underground target, so I copied the image and e-mailed all of my buddies that were doing similar weapons research on seismic arrays. Well, the next day I went back to DARPA's lil' shop of Horrors and they had removed this image and replaced it with one without the UGS sensors. Shortly after this little incident, other key documents began disapearing off of DARPA's and the Wright Labs Armament Directorate's site.

I guess I hit a nerve. So, feeling that I was getting close to the intended use of this array I thought that it was time to start talking to some of the engineers who developed the seismometers for this sensor.
I found the guy who designed this gadget and he worked for NASA/JPL under a contract from the Defense Special Weapons Agency, (later renamed the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.) But these guys are the ones who work for the DOE and make all of our nukes. This lead me back to the Wright Labs Armament Directorate's where they had built a huge pneumatic cannon for shooting these UGS's into solid Granite. Here I found out about the New Millennium Mars Microprobe which had earth penetrating seismometers.

Unbelievable, I thought, if they could deploy these arrays on Mars and make near real-time 3D seismic maps than these arrays would be indispensable in a First-Strike scenario on Russian ICBM fields. They could map out the multiple command and launch centers and simultaneously guide in earth penetrating warheads with a mid-course guidance module, simular to that currently being used by the AGM-130. This is when I started searching for the control suite, and found it, the JSIPS suite anboard the JSTAR aricraft.

Cool as hell, some guy hundreds of miles away just sits there in a JSTAR aircraft monitoring a near real-time image (with sounds and smells) of underground command bunkers and missiles silos, somewhere in the frozed Siberian permafrost, guiding in a first-strike from orbit. The Russians would only have seconds to respond! And we would only have to use about 20 - 30 low yield warheads to completely neutralize the entire Russian Rocket Force. The only problem with this whole scenerio is those damned Typhoon class subs and that strange underground complex under the Urals, Yamantau. These are probably the only two reasons it hasn't been done to date.


[edit on 18-10-2004 by Rotwang]

Man gotta dig this place...
Yamantau

There's also other way for making of penetrator munitions/missiles more effective... multiple warheads.


You can put damn big shaped charge to CALCM so its definitely extremely effective against any hardened target which isn't burrowed underground.
And there should be room for very big primary warhead. (Block I has 3000 lb blast fragmentation warhead)

With supersonic missile and penetrating primary warhead this could be very effective combination.

If it is that easy to convert a GBU-15 to an AGM-130, perhaps it may be just as easy to convert a B-61 mod 11. Check out FSA's info on the AGM-130A.

Read this Research Doc... BALLISTIC MISSILE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

... then let your jaw hit the ground!

Trident D-5 ... special emphasis on the fourth paragraph.

Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator ... this is the ever popular B-61 Mod 11.

The Forest for the Trees, Earth-Penetrating Weapons and remember, add to this weapon the UGS 3D seismic array and you can't miss!

Now since we may allow ourselves an element of artistic flare, I thought I might spin an impossibly unbelieveable Nuclear Fairytale... here it goes:

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a Rogue Super-Power. And this Giant, all-consuming Octopus was running out of energy. And whenever this Giant Octopus got hungry and didn't have enougt to consume, he would throw violent fits and take whatever it was that he was craving. Once even, in the middle of one of his wild, orgiastic tantrums, he even ram-sacked a neighbor's home, claming that this neighbor was very, very bad and was hiding something. And as the Octopus was pretending to search the neighbor's home with one tentacle, the other seven were cleaning out his cupboard. The villagers knew just what this sly beast was up to, but they couldn't stop him, he just had too many arms.

Well, one villager became very upset and scolded the Octopus. This villager, Ivan, knew that it was only a matter of time before the Octopus realised that he had the village's largest proven reserves of this really good stuff. Ivan became very unsettled, and ran home to try to figure out a way to protect his reserves. Ivan pondered, "These reserves are just too large for me to protect and none of the other villigers is brave enough to stand by me when the Octopus finally comes for me."

Ivan thought hard. "What if I dig a deep hole, a hole so deep that the Octopus' arms will never reach down? Yes, and I'll hide all of the best weapons I have in this deep cavern!" Ivan then began to dig furiously, stashing his best mobile launchers in several different hubs, with each hub having hundreds of outlets to the surface. Ivan knew the Octopus couldn't possibly stick his arms down that many holes all at once. For if he tried, Ivan would unleash certian death on the greedy Octopus.

Now the Octopus saw Ivan digging in his back yard one day and the Octopus yelled at Ivan in his terrible voice, "What are you doing little peasant! What are you trying to Hide!" Ivan stood up strait and replied in an equally terrible voice, "Stick your arms down there and find out!" This puzzled the Octopus. "No one has ever yelled at me," he thought, and went home only to ponder what was in that hole and how to get it out, because he knew he would have to cleanse that hole before he could steal Ivan's booty.

On his way home it struck the Octopus, "Ureka!" he proclaimed, "I've got it, I will grow bigger and better arms and I will show that vulgar little peasant who is King!" So off he went to grow new arms, the likes that no one in the village had ever seen before. And as he grew these new arms he squandered more and more of the village's scarse resources and sparked off a great famine in the county. The Octopus was now blind with rage, "I am the only thing that matters, my will is God's Will!" he proclaimed to the villagers, "Die if you must, for I will smash Ivans dream of equality."

Years passed, Ivan's backyard was covered with mounds of dirt, even his prized garden buried under tons of dirt. The village lay in waste and the Octopus' yard was filled with rotting obsolescent arms. Nowhere in the county was there a scrap of food, even the rats had vanished. But the Octopus pressed on to take Ivan's booty. On the last day of battle, Ivan fell, and the invertebrate cephalopod climbed the tallest of Ivan's mounds and proclaimed himself King over this Valley of Death.


[edit on 8-10-2004 by Rotwang]

Didn't they do something similar in "The Core"?

Originally posted by llama009
Didn't they do something similar in "The Core"?

The ship in the core used high powered lasers. If they had that technology there wouldn't be any need to deploy CE and KE weapons.