The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has notified Congress that it intends to sell Israel some 6,900 tail kits which can turn “dumb” bombs into satellite-guided “smart bombs,” including bombs capable of penetrating hardened targets, Bloomberg Business Week reported.
Some of the hardened targets one would immediately think about are those underground nuclear plants the Iranian government has been so chatty about this past decade or so.
According to BBW, the sale will includes 1,725 all-weather satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM tail kits with BLU-109 bombs, which are 2,000-pound, hard-target penetrators.
Bombs delivered this way are among the most precise weapons in the U.S. and Israeli arsenal. They can be dropped by F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.
The BLU-109 is a so-called bunker buster, designed to “defeat an enemy’s most critical and hardened targets,” such as protected weapons storage sites, and penetrate as much as six feet of reinforced concrete, according to a U.S. Air Force fact sheet.
The BLU-109 has a steel casing about 1 inch thick, filled with 530 lb of Tritonal. It has a delayed-action tail-fuse.
The sale will replenish Israel’s inventory after the attacks on Arab terrorist enclaves in Gaza last month. During Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense, Israeli forces carried out more than 1,000 attacks in Gaza
According to equities.com, the Government of Israel has requested a sale of 6,900 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) tail kits (which include 3,450 JDAM Anti-Jam KMU-556 (GBU-31) for MK-84 warheads; 1,725 KMU-557 (GBU-31) for BLU-109 warheads and 1,725 KMU-572 (GBU-38) for MK-82 warheads); 3,450 MK-84 2000 lb General Purpose Bombs; 1,725 MK-82 500 lb General Purpose Bombs; 1,725 BLU-109 Bombs; 3,450 GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs; 11,500 FMU-139 Fuses; 11,500 FMU-143 Fuses; and 11,500 FMU-152 Fuses.
Also included are spare and repair parts, support equipment, personnel training and training equipment, publications and technical documentation, U.S. Government and contractor engineering and technical support, and other related elements of program support. The estimated cost is $647 million.
Worth every penny.
According to the Pentagon, the proposed sale of munitions will not alter the basic military balance in the region.
That’s good.