Oct 4/06: The Boeing Company in St Louis, MO received a $9 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification. This effort will design and test “a large penetrating munition” in order to “demonstrate the weapon’s lethality against multi-story building with hardened bunkers and tunnel facilities,” and to reduce technology risk for future development. This program is funded by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and work will be complete October 2009. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base, FL issued the contract (FA8651-04-D-0427/P00002).
The USA already has the 5,000 pound GBU-28 “bunker-buster” bomb. Details regarding this new weapon were not released, though its statement of capabilities lead one to believe it is more of a weapon for situations similar to Hezbollah-Iran-Syria’s recent “Rocket War,” rather than a substitute for the nuclear RNEP.