Joseph Trevithick
U.S. military aircraft employed GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) and laser-guided 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets around the operation to strike Iranian nuclear facilities earlier this year, according to Pentagon budget documents. It does seem somewhat unlikely that APKWS IIs were used directly in the strike mission, which we will address directly. Compared to what we’ve learned about the B-2 stealth bombers that dropped GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker-buster bombs during Operation Midnight Hammer, much is still unknown about the contributions of other U.S. forces to the mission and in the lead-up to it.
The Pentagon has previously said that 125 aircraft, including the B-2s, took part in Operation Midnight Hammer. President Donald Trump has also said that the force package included stealthy F-22 Raptor and F-35 fighters, as well as dozens of aerial refueling tankers. The B-2s dropped 12 MOPs in total on Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facility at Fordow and another two on an underground site at Natanz, according to U.S. officials. The Iranian nuclear facility at Isfahan was also subjected to a barrage of more than two dozen Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles fired from a single submarine, very likely the Ohio class guided missile submarine USS Georgia.
A graphic with details about Operation Midnight Hammer that the Pentagon first showed at a briefing the morning afterward. DOD
“As the Operation Midnight Hammer strike package entered Iranian airspace, the U.S. employed several deception tactics, including decoys as the fourth and fifth generation aircraft pushed out in front of the strike package at high altitude and high speed, sweeping in front of the package for enemy fighters and surface to air missiles,” Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press briefing the morning after the operation, but did not elaborate. “As the strike package approached Fordow and Natanz, the U.S. protection package employed high-speed suppression weapons to ensure safe passage of the strike package with fighter assets employing preemptive suppressing fires against any potential Iranian surface-to-air threats.”
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