The leadership of the US armed forces has developed a project to expand an army plant in southeastern Oklahoma that specializes in the production of ammunition, Bloomberg reports, UNN reports.
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According to the agency's interlocutors, the company's capacity will be increased by the fall of 2024.
One of the key munitions produced by the Oklahoma plant is the GBU-57 precision-guided bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, Bloomberg notes. It is capable of penetrating the ground to a depth of 61 meters before exploding and is designed to defeat heavily fortified underground military installations.
According to the U.S. Armed Forces' project, the additional facility on the territory of the army plant will cover 70 square miles (181 square kilometers). According to the experts interviewed by the agency, this expansion will increase production to six to eight bombs per month. Currently, the company's production capacity is two bombs. The construction is scheduled to be completed by late spring or early fall this year, and the ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for July 30, Bloomberg reports.
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The GBU-57 bomb was developed by Boeing in 2007 at the request of the US Army to destroy underground fortifications in Iran and the DPRK. In 2018, the fourth modernization of the bomb was carried out, which significantly improved the characteristics of the munition for destroying hard-to-hit and deeply located targets. The bomb weighs 13.6 tons and has a yield of almost 2.5 tons of explosives. It is the most powerful non-nuclear munition in the US arsenal.