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Sometime around 2012, Gary Stradling looked into a deep hole at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and pondered the future of the 30,000-pound GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs, America’s largest conventional weapon. The hole was made during testing of the MOP and Stradling, at the time, was division chief of the Nuclear Detection Division of the J9 directorate at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). While he was not involved in MOP testing, Stradling was “intensely interested in the science of earth penetrating munitions having had professional engagement in related subjects at different times in my highly-varied career.”
2012年左右的某个时候，加里·斯特拉德林（Gary Stradling）看着新墨西哥州的白沙导弹范围的一个深洞，并思考了30,000磅重的GBU-57/B大型弹药穿透器（MOP）Bunker Buster Bombs的未来，美国最大的常规武器。该洞是在当时对拖把和跨越的测试期间造成的。虽然他没有参与拖把测试，但跨界“对我高度变化的职业生涯的不同时期有专业参与的地球式弹药科学感兴趣”。
Me, standing at the edge of a MOP crater on a mountain top at White Sands Test Range, where detailed studies of massive earth penetrators were studied for effectiveness against deeply buried targets by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) —formerly Defense Nuclear Agency.… pic.twitter.com/JYq1V2xO6q — Gary Stradling (@gary_stradling) June 24, 2025
我，站在白沙测试范围内的山顶上的拖把火山口的边缘，对大规模的地球穿透器进行了详细研究，以有效性地由防御威胁降低的核代理机构（DTRA） - 成长的国防核代理机构。
In addition to leading the Hypervelocity Impact team at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), he served as a science advisor, detailed from LANL to the Nuclear Forces Policy Office of the Secretary of Defense. He later served with the Office of Military Applications at LANL and is now retired. We spoke to Stradling about his observations of the testing that led up to the MOP and its recent use against Iranian nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer, which resulted in 14 being dropped by B-2 Spirit stealth bombers on two very hardened locations that were key to Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The questions and answers were lightly edited for clarity. You can read more about the fascinating 15-year development of the MOP in our deep dive here.
除了领导洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室（LANL）的超速影响小组外，他还担任科学顾问，从兰尔详细介绍了国防部长的核力量政策办公室。后来，他在兰尔（Lanl）担任军事申请办公室，现已退休。我们谈到了他对导致拖把的测试的观察结果及其在午夜锤子行动中对伊朗核设施的使用，这导致14个被B-2 Spirit Stealth Bombers抛弃，这是两个非常坚固的地点，这是伊朗生产核武器的能力的关键。为了清楚起见，对问题和答案进行了轻微的编辑。您可以在这里深入潜水中阅读有关拖把的15年开发的更多信息。
Q: Talk about how researchers dug into the mountain and blew it up. Can you provide more details about that?
问：谈论研究人员如何挖出山并炸毁它。您能提供有关此的更多详细信息吗？
A: Well, the mountain in White Sands, they specifically picked mountainous areas that were solid rock, and they used state-of-the-art tunneling technology to make the kind of cavities in the mountain that you would put this kind of [Iranian nuclear] facility in. I think that there is a lot of work that DOD has done in these kinds of facilities that is highly classified, and I couldn’t talk to you about it. This is very sophisticated work. It is not casual, and it’s not speculative. These are real experts who are doing the work. Careful, technical, quantitative work to be able to deliver this kind of war-fighting capability to the services.
答：好吧，他们专门采摘了扎实岩石的山地，他们使用了最先进的隧道技术来使您将这种[伊朗核]设施放入山上。我认为DOD在这类设施中所做的很多工作都非常分类，而且我无法对您进行交流。这是非常复杂的工作。它不是随意的，也不是投机性的。这些是从事这项工作的真正专家。精心，技术，定量的工作，能够为服务提供这种战斗能力。
Q: Describe the scene as you were looking into the MOP hole.
问：当您看着拖把洞时，描述场景。
A: The picture that you have of me is standing at the entrance hole where the MOP went into the mountain that had a crosshair on it, and the hole was really close to the crosshair, and it was a big hole, and I’m standing right at the edge of the barrier to keep people from falling into this big hole. And the hole went down into a chamber that had been mined into the hard rock below that was intended to simulate, or to be very much like these hardened facilities.
答：您所拥有的照片正站在入口处，拖把进入山上的山上，上面有十字路口，洞真的靠近十字准线，这是一个大洞，我站在障碍物的边缘，以防止人们跌入这个大洞。孔进入了一个被开采到旨在模拟的坚硬岩石中的房间中，或者非常像这些坚固的设施。
Q: When you were looking at this hole, what were you thinking in terms of what the weapon could be used for? And did you ever imagine that it could be used as accurately as it was in Operation Midnight Hammer?
问：当您看着这个洞时，您对武器的使用方式在想什么？您是否曾经想象过它可以像在Midnight Hammer上一样准确地使用它？
A: Well, during my time at Los Alamos in the nuclear weapons directorate, when I came back to Los Alamos in 2000, I was in what was called the Military Applications Office and worked closely with STRATCOM and developmental ideas for how nuclear weapons could be used for some of these applications. So I had the opportunity to look at what it really takes for a weapon to penetrate into the ground. And one of the things that became clear to me was that this is not just something that if you hit it harder, you go deeper, or if you make it bigger, you go deeper. There are real limitations to how deep you can get into rock when you plunge something into it.
答：好吧，在我在核武器局的洛斯阿拉莫斯（Los Alamos）期间，当我2000年回到洛斯阿拉莫斯（Los Alamos）时，我在所谓的军事申请办公室工作，并与Stratcom和发展方面的核武器如何用于某些申请。因此，我有机会查看武器渗透到地面上真正需要什么。对我来说，一件很清楚的事情是，这不仅仅是如果您更难击中它，更深入，或者使它变得更大，您会变得更深。当您将某些东西插入其中时，您可以进入岩石的深度有真正的局限性。
It’s very interesting to have gone from that background, that computational background, to standing over such a hole that had been blown into a mountain. One of the things that has been discussed is, can you do what they call multiple miracles – sequential miracles? If you can drop a weapon – if you’ve got three B-2s up there – and they each drop a weapon that can vector itself to a very highly accurate position in a mountain, and you can penetrate with one and blow a hole, and then all of that material is suspended. And you have another one come in immediately afterwards and penetrate through much softer material, until you get into hard material, and you penetrate that, and then you explode, and you levitate all that material. Then you bring a third one in after it, you could start thinking about digging really deeply in. Now, I’ve got no idea whether this operation, Midnight Hammer, I think, is the term that was used, whether that was such a sequential process with that kind of accuracy [it was, each hole got six MOPs]. But, gee, that’s awesome, to be able to have subsequent devices, avoid the blast of the previous ones, and yet penetrate in and, like a sledgehammer, drive through again and again into a harder material.
从那种背景，计算背景转到被吹入山上的洞里，这是非常有趣的。讨论的事情之一是，您能做他们所谓的多个奇迹 - 顺序奇迹吗？如果您可以丢下武器 - 如果您在那里有三个B-2 - 并且他们每个人都会丢下一个可以将本身矢量矢量矢量倒置到高度准确位置的武器，并且您可以用一个武器穿透并吹一个孔，然后所有这些材料都被悬挂。然后，您将立即进一步进来，并通过更柔和的材料穿透，直到您进入硬材料，然后穿透它，然后爆炸，然后将所有这些材料浮动。然后，您将第三个带入之后，您可以开始考虑真正的挖掘。现在，我不知道该操作（我认为午夜锤子）是否是使用的术语，是否是这样的准确性的顺序过程（每个孔都有六个MOPS）。但是，哎呀，这真是太棒了，能够配备后续设备，避免对以前的设备进行爆炸，但像大锤一样渗透，然后一次又一次地驶入更难的材料。
A satellite image of Fordow taken on June 22 showing two groups of impact points following the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes. Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies
6月22日拍摄的Fordow的卫星图像显示了午夜锤击行动后的两组影响点。卫星图像©2025 Maxar Technologies
Q: So you have to make sure that the subsequent MOPs don’t get affected by the overpressure and explosive force of the previous ones, right?
问：因此，您必须确保随后的拖把不会受到以前的拖把的影响，对吗？
A: Right. So you’d have to have those in a sequence that took all of that into account. You’re surely going to have suspended material. But if you can avoid the shock from the initial explosion for the second and third penetrators – you know that that is really highly, highly tuned delivery, and we have gotten very good now. I’m not saying that I know anything about that. I’m just saying that that was part of the discussion during the time that I was working on it, could we actually do these sequential miracles and get these things on target? And when we watch Elon Musk land rocket ships, we go, maybe we’re in that kind of a world.
答：对。因此，您必须将所有这些都考虑到所有这些。您肯定会有悬挂材料。但是，如果您可以避免第二和第三个穿透器的最初爆炸爆炸的冲击 - 您知道这确实是高度，高度调整的交付，我们现在已经变得非常好。我并不是说我对此一无所知。我只是说那是我在进行讨论期间讨论的一部分，我们真的可以做这些顺序的奇迹并将这些事情带到目标上吗？当我们观看Elon Musk Land Rocket船时，我们走了，也许我们处在那种世界中。
A rare ‘live’ GBU-57/B MOP pictured at Whiteman Air Force Base. U.S. Air Force
在怀特曼空军基地（Whiteman Air Force Base）的罕见“现场” GBU-57/B拖把。美国空军
Q: When you were there, what was the sense of whether these so-called multiple miracles would ever come to pass?
问：当您在那里时，这些所谓的多个奇迹是否会过去的感觉是什么？
A: Oh, I think everybody was optimistic and skeptical simultaneously. We know how hard these jobs are.
答：哦，我认为每个人都同时乐观和怀疑。我们知道这些工作有多艰难。
Q: You talked about doing computational work. What were you considering as you were doing computational work on how these things could achieve the maximum effectiveness?
问：您谈到了从事计算工作。当您在进行计算工作时，您正在考虑这些事情如何实现最大效率？
A: Early in my career, I was diverted to a project called the Hypervelocity Impact Project … It was a project at Los Alamos that mirrored other things that had been going on in other places. There was a place in Germany where you take small particles and you accelerate – you put a charge on small iron particles and you accelerate them through a very large electric field using a Van de Graaff accelerator. And so we had particles that were growing between five and 50 kilometers per second that were not just atoms, but they were chunks of iron, very small chunks, but they were macroscopic. And then we measured the impact craters into different kinds of materials, and we calculated what those impacts would look like. So we gained a pretty good idea of how effective such a technique would be.
答：在我职业生涯的早期，我被转移到了一个名为“超速影响项目”的项目……这是洛斯阿拉莫斯的一个项目，反映了其他地方正在发生的其他事情。在德国有一个地方，您可以采取小颗粒并加速加速 - 您在小铁颗粒上加了电荷，然后使用Van de Graaff加速器通过非常大的电场加速它们。因此，我们的颗粒的生长在每秒5到50公里之间，不仅是原子，而且是铁的大块，很小的块，但它们是宏观的。然后，我们将影响陨石坑测量到各种材料中，并计算出这些影响的外观。因此，我们对这种技术的有效性有了一个很好的主意。
One interesting fact about the MOP: The US appears to have tested it against a real underground facility just 30 kilometers south of the site of the world’s first nuclear weapons test. Thread from a recent OSINT side quest. 1/10 pic.twitter.com/M9yLZ5lRiX — Fabian Hinz (@fab_hinz) June 25, 2025
关于拖把的一个有趣的事实：美国似乎已经在世界第一次核武器测试地点以南仅30公里处的真实地下设施进行了测试。来自最近的Osint侧任务的线程。1/10 pic.twitter.com/m9ylz5lrix - Fabian Hinz（@fab_hinz）2025年6月25日
So later, when I came back from the Pentagon and was in the Military Applications Office, people were talking about using penetrators with nuclear weapons, a theoretical discussion. I don’t know if there ever was a nuclear penetrator program. And so I got a chance to study the physics of the penetrators. The question of how much acceleration or deceleration could nuclear weapons tolerate? Because, as one of these MOP devices goes into a solid rock mountain is going to decelerate rapidly, and if you’ve got fragile stuff inside the casing, you could break it. So those are the the kind of questions that you had to deal with. And of course, you can design just about anything because we have very clever people, but that’s one of the questions.
因此，后来，当我从五角大楼回来并在军事申请办公室回来时，人们在谈论使用具有核武器的穿透器，这是一个理论上的讨论。我不知道是否有核穿透器计划。因此，我有机会研究穿透器的物理学。核武器可以容忍多少加速或减速的问题？因为，由于这些拖把设备之一进入坚固的岩石山将很快减速，如果您的套管内部有脆弱的东西，则可以将其打破。因此，这些就是您必须解决的问题。当然，您几乎可以设计任何东西，因为我们有非常聪明的人，但这是其中一个问题。
So how deep can you go with a penetrator? If you just have a solid piece of tungsten, and you deliver it at infinite velocity, would it go all the way through the Earth? And the answer is no, it would go a certain depth, and then would stop. Even if it was solid tungsten, three feet in diameter and 30 feet long, there is going to come a point where it’s going to lose all of its momentum, and that energy will be dissipated into sort of a half sphere. So understanding that there are limitations to penetrators, and there are limitations to what kind of forces, shock forces that the explosive package can tolerate, is part of the question. So that was very interesting for me, then to be standing on this mountain, looking down in this hole, and then touring the … facility that had had the experience of having a MOP device dropped on it.
那么，您可以使用穿透器的深度呢？如果您只有一块坚固的钨，并且以无限速度传递，它会一直穿过地球吗？答案是否定的，它将进行一定的深度，然后停止。即使它是坚固的钨，直径为三英尺，长30英尺，也将会失去其所有动力，并且能量将被散布成一个半球。因此，了解穿透器存在局限性，并且爆炸套件可以容忍的力量是什么样的力量，这是问题的一部分。因此，这对我来说非常有趣，然后站在这座山上，向下看这个洞，然后参观……有拖把设备掉落的经验的……设施。
Q: What year was that?
问：那是哪一年？
A: Probably 2012 or 2013.
答：可能是2012年或2013年。
The video montage of MOP testing released last week also included this still picture showing the inside of a tunnel after being struck. DOD
上周发布的拖把测试的视频蒙太奇还包括这张静止图片，显示了隧道的内部。国防部
A still picture of a crater left by a MOP during a test that was included in the video montage released last week. DOD capture
在上周发布的视频蒙太奇中包含的测试中，拖把留下的火山口的静止图片。国防部捕获
Q: Is there a concern that radioactive materials like enriched uranium could be disturbed by the force of the MOPs?
问：是否有人担心放射性材料（如富集的铀）可能会被拖把的力所打扰吗？
A: If you’re blasting into a facility that has nuclear materials, it’s always possible for some of that material to vent out as that shock wave goes through the material and finds ways to you know, you don’t know whether it is completely enclosed or whether you’ve got ventilation ducts or whatever. But I frankly don’t think that’s a big issue. It’s enormously overplayed by the green community that the amount of material that you’d have and its effect on anything is. My sense is that it’s very small.
答：如果您正在爆炸到具有核材料的设施中，那么当冲击波通过材料并找到您知道的方法时，某些材料总是有可能排出的，您不知道它是否已完全封闭，或者您是否有通风管道还是其他。但是坦率地说，这不是一个大问题。绿色社区夸大了您所拥有的材料量及其对任何物质的影响。我的感觉是它很小。
Q: You mentioned that you have experience in developing the signatures to look for radioactive materials and enrichment. Can you talk about that?
问：您提到您有开发签名以寻找放射性材料和丰富的经验。你能谈谈吗？
A: There is a large national and international technology effort to understand, detect and analyze signatures of nuclear proliferation. This has been an ongoing DOD/DOE effort for decades; the IAEA in Vienna does some of this. The U.S. has a large nuclear monitoring system that at one point was under my purview. I funded that and the staff who were the DOD overseers of that. There are contractors who do this work. Some of the national laboratories do a lot of work on that.
答：有一项庞大的国家和国际技术努力来理解，检测和分析核扩散的特征。数十年来，这一直是国防部/多国的努力。维也纳的IAEA做了其中的一些。美国有一个大型的核监测系统，在我的职权范围内。我资助了这一点的工作人员。有一些承包商从事这项工作。一些国家实验室为此做了很多工作。
So, there are seismic sensors and where they’re positioned and how they’re monitored and analyzed can tell you whether you see a lot of seismic activity on the Earth. And you have to understand the geology of the Earth. And then when you see signals, you will see if there’s a nuclear explosion or an earthquake. You will see it across what is becoming a vast array of seismic sensors today, and you could do a lot of analysis on the nature of the explosion and its location. So that’s one very interesting thing. Can you tell if Iran conducts a nuclear test? If North Korea conducts a nuclear test? Pakistan, India, etc. If they conduct a nuclear test, there is a lot that this community is going to know about it.
因此，有地震传感器以及将其定位的位置以及如何监视和分析可以告诉您您是否在地球上看到很多地震活动。您必须了解地球的地质。然后，当您看到信号时，您将看到是否有核爆炸或地震。您将在当今已成为一系列地震传感器的内容中看到它，您可以对爆炸及其位置的性质进行大量分析。所以这是一件非常有趣的事情。您能说出伊朗是否进行核试验？如果朝鲜进行核试验？巴基斯坦，印度等。如果他们进行核试验，那么这个社区将了解很多。
And so also, if somebody conducts a nuclear test, you have more than seismic activity. You can watch the mining activity using overhead imagery. You can smell – you can sniff the air and see whether there are radioactive materials that have particular characteristics that would result from a nuclear test. And if there’s a fair amount, you can know about the nuclear test by knowing what the salad of isotopes is that comes off of the test. And so you’ve got their half lives, and you can detect what their isotopes are, and so on. So there is a great deal of work that goes on.
因此，如果有人进行核试验，那么您的地震活动不仅仅是地震活动。您可以使用高架图像观看采矿活动。您可以闻到 - 您可以嗅到空气，看看是否有具有特殊特征的放射性材料会导致核试验产生的特征。而且，如果有相当数量的数量，您可以通过知道哪种同位素的沙拉来了解核试验。因此，您已经拥有了他们的一半生命，并且可以检测他们的同位素是什么，依此类推。因此，正在进行大量工作。
The office that I had at DTRA was a relatively small office compared to the work being done at the Department of Energy and at the Air Force, and also other international partners that work in this area.
与在能源部和空军部完成的工作以及在该领域工作的其他国际合作伙伴相比，我在DTRA的办公室是一个相对较小的办公室。
President Mohammad Khatami visits Iran’s Uranium Conversion Facility, just outside the city of Isfahan, 410 kilometers south of the capital of Tehran, March 30, 2005. Getty Images
总统穆罕默德·哈塔米（Mohammad Khatami）在2005年3月30日在德黑兰首都以南410公里的伊斯法罕市访问伊朗的铀转换设施。
Q: And as chief of the DTRA office developing technologies for detecting nuclear proliferation, particularly clandestine nuclear testing, that’s where your experience comes in with how to find this stuff, correct?
问：作为DTRA办公室的负责人开发了用于检测核扩散的技术，尤其是秘密核试验，这就是您如何找到这些东西的经验，对吗？
A: Right. The Proliferation Technology Office really had responsibility for figuring out how to enhance, how to make better our capability to know exactly what potential proliferators were doing and what activities they were conducting. There’s a huge effort across the intelligence community to know who the scientists are and what kind of technologies are going there, and whether we could embargo technologies to slow down the spread – a huge effort going on from early days to try to limit the spread of nuclear weapon technology, the kinds of things that are at the cutting edge now. Can you sense? Can you smell the air? How close can you get to the event? Where can you take a sample? Can you measure something seismically? Can you see a flash if there’s a nuclear explosion? Can you see a flash from space? And would that flash tell you? Would it tell you with confidence that it was a nuclear flash, or might it be something else? Might it be a meteorite? So those are the kinds of things that the Proliferation Technologies Office cared about.
答：对。扩散技术办公室确实有责任弄清楚如何增强，如何使我们更好地了解可能的扩散剂的能力以及他们在进行什么活动。整个情报界都付出了巨大的努力，以了解科学家是谁，以及哪种技术正在进行，以及我们是否可以禁运技术来减缓蔓延的速度 - 从早期开始付出了巨大的努力，以限制核武器技术的传播，这些事物现在处于最前沿。你能感觉到吗？你能闻到空气吗？您能与活动有多近？您可以在哪里取样？你能在地震上衡量一些东西吗？如果发生核爆炸，您能看到闪光灯吗？你能看到太空的闪光灯吗？那闪光灯会告诉你吗？它会充满信心地告诉您这是核闪光灯，还是其他东西？可能是陨石吗？因此，这些是扩散技术办公室关心的事情。
And we weren’t alone. DOE has groups working on that, and has an organization that works on that, and also people at Los Alamos here up on the Hill are actively working in some of those areas. And I actually contracted as a DTRA manager. I contract with Los Alamos to help me in some of those areas.
而且我们并不孤单。Doe有一个努力的团体，并有一个从事这一点的组织，洛斯阿拉莫斯的人们在山上的某些地区正在积极工作。我实际上是DTRA经理。我与洛斯阿拉莫斯（Los Alamos）签约，以帮助我在其中一些领域。
Los Alamos National Laboratory. (DOE)
洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室。（DOE）
Q: As far as we know, Iran is still not at the threshold of creating a nuclear weapon. What are the kinds of things that would have been done to get a sense of what’s happening in Fordow and Natanz and Isfahan, and what might be happening now in the wake of these attacks?
问：据我们所知，伊朗仍然没有建立核武器的门槛。为了了解福多，纳坦兹和伊斯法罕正在发生的事情，该怎么做的事情是什么？在发生这些攻击之后，现在可能会发生什么？
A: The time it takes to refine uranium is much less once you have a few percent concentration. The time it takes to go from natural uranium to a few percent is long. The time it takes to go from 8% to weapons-grade is short. And I think that legislators and the general public just don’t appreciate that the process of refinement can go very fast in the late stages. It’s not linear in any sense.
答：精炼铀的时间要少得多。从天然铀到几个百分之几的时间是很长的时间。从8％到武器级的时间很短。而且我认为立法者和公众只是不欣赏精致过程在后期的速度很快。从任何意义上讲，它都不是线性的。
Q: If you were a betting man, what would you say the odds are of the Iranians having a nuclear device sometime this year?
问：如果您是一个博彩人，您会说今年某个时候伊朗人拥有核装置的可能性是什么？
A: Howard, I can see your headline right now. Dr. Stradling, former DTRA blah, blah, blah says the Iranians … I actually would not make such a guess, such a headline. I would just say I think that to presume that they don’t have one is overly optimistic. To presume that they don’t have sufficient nuclear material, to presume that they don’t have a tested device, we may not have intelligence that tells us they do, but to presume that they don’t is, I think, overly optimistic, and I really love President Trump. He’s my kind of guy. I mean, he has amazing huevos and a determination to do good in a way that I see good, and yet he wants to have positive reports. And I understand him saying, ‘Somebody told me that this was the best, you know, the best penetrating attack ever in the history of mankind,’ and that’s the way he talks. But I don’t want him to be embarrassed by finding out later that the uncertainty of the battlefield still applies, even to this latest attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities – that things don’t go as well as we expected, and that’s the nature of warfare.
答：霍华德，我现在可以看到您的标题。Stradling博士，前Dtra Blah，Blah，Blah说伊朗人……我实际上不会做出这样的标题。我只想说我认为他们没有一个人过于乐观。为了假设他们没有足够的核材料，以假设他们没有经过测试的设备，我们可能没有智慧告诉我们他们确实做到了，但是我认为他们没有过度乐观，我真的很喜欢特朗普总统。他是我的人。我的意思是，他有着惊人的休武斯，并决心以我看到的方式做好事，但他想获得积极的报道。我理解他说：“有人告诉我，这是人类历史上有史以来最好的穿透进攻最好的，”这就是他说话的方式。但是，我不希望他以后发现战场的不确定性仍然适用，即使是对伊朗核设施的最新攻击，事情的发展仍然不如我们预期的那样，这就是战争的本质。
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com
联系作者：howard@thewarzone.com
