QUAKE ATTACK. Check out this interesting report on conventional bunker busting munitions at Defense Tech. It's a bit technical, but the upshot is that conventional munitions can do a remarkably good job of destroying underground bunkers, better, in fact, than extant nuclear bunker busters. Drop enough "Deep Diggers" and the result is an earthquake that will collapse just about any bunker or, at the very least, the access tunnels to extremely deep bunkers. Moreover, there's no reason to think that the limits of conventional bunker busting munitions technology have been reached, suggesting that additional research could produce even more impressive results.
This makes me wonder why some in the Pentagon and in associated neoconservative defense circles remain committed to developing new nuclear bunker busting weapons. If conventional munitions can destroy or entomb just about any conceivable bunker, why would anyone ever need new nukes? The answer, it seems to me, is political as much as it is technical. Conservative defense analysts still resent the limitations on nuclear technology created by both international agreements and various permutations of anti-nuclear groups in the 1970s and 1980s. To put it as simply as possible, hippies hate nukes, and hippies are obviously wrong, so therefore nukes must be good, in spite of any practical difficulties that might crop up. Trying to develop new bunker busting nukes is a way of yelling "Screw you!" at the imaginary hippies under the bed ...
-- Robert Farley
