Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit
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The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is a American strategic bomber aircraft manufactured by Northrop Grumman. The aircraft is featured in multiple giant monster and kaiju films, beginning with Cloverfield.
History
- Cloverfield (2008)
- Shin Godzilla (2016)
- Rampage (2018)
- Shin Ultraman (2022)
Cloverfield
As New York was almost completely evacuated, the United States Air Force called in a B-2 Spirit bomber to attack Clover. The group aboard the last UH-1 Iroquois to depart from the city watched as the advanced aircraft flew towards Clover, dropping Mark 82 bombs onto his back. The bombing run succeeded, seemingly killing the beast, and the bomber flew away to return to base. As the UH-1 flew over the growing dust cloud, Clover suddenly lurched out of the gloom and struck the helicopter, sending it spiraling down where it crash landed in Central Park. Although the bombs were successful in injuring Clover, he was only stunned for a few moments.
Rampage
After George, Ralph, and Lizzie routed the U.S. military in downtown Chicago, Colonel Blake authorized the use of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast against the monsters, to be delivered by a B-2 Spirit out of Whiteman Air Force Base. He ignored Agent Harvey Russell's pleas to give Davis Okoye and Dr. Kate Caldwell time to administer R-19 to curb the monsters' aggression. Nonetheless, they tricked George into swallowing one of the doses as the B-2, escorted by two F/A-18C Hornets, closed in on the city. George soon returned to his normal disposition and killed Lizzie after Okoye goaded the crocodile into decapitating Ralph. Seeing that the threat had passed, Blake called off the airstrike.
Reiwa era
Shin Godzilla
As Godzilla approached the heart of Tokyo, the United States Air Force scrambled three B-2 Spirit bombers of the 509th Bomb Wing to attack the creature with Massive Ordnance Penetrator II (MOPII) bombs. A large portion of the city, including the Prime Minister's residence, was evacuated, and a bomber dropped two MOPIIs onto Godzilla's back, blasting off one of his dorsal fins and causing him to bleed. Godzilla roared in pain and, as the bombing continued, began giving off an intense purple glow. Godzilla spewed black smoke from his mouth, which ignited into a stream of fire before condensing into a focused purple beam. Godzilla aimed beam into the sky above him, slicing the first B-2 clean in half. The second and third B-2s circled back towards Godzilla and dropped additional MOPIIs. Godzilla retaliated by launching atomic beams from between his dorsal plates, destroying the bombs midair and obliterating an additional bomber. Godzilla proceeded to fire his atomic breath throughout Tokyo, immolating several of its wards in one fell swoop.
Despite the failure of the B-2s to kill Godzilla, their efforts were not in vain, as following his encounter with the aircraft, Godzilla became wary of any munitions and military vehicles near him. This was used to the JSDF's advantage in the second phase of Operation Yashiori, as Godzilla wasted his energy repeatedly attacking and destroying waves of Predator and Reaper drones sent his way, despite their weapons' inability to harm him.
Shin Ultraman
To stop Gabora from burrowing towards a nuclear waste storage facility, the SSSP purchased Massive Ordnance Penetrator IIs from the United States, which operated three B-2 Spirits to deploy them. After an initial bombing run caused Gabora to begin to move at a higher speed, the B-2s continuously dropped MOPIIs along his path, eventually driving him to resurface from underground. However, the bombs had failed to injure Gabora, as his armor plating had shielded him from the worst of the concussive effects of the blasts, and to make matters worse, the monster had continued on the path towards his intended target, now traveling the final stretch of his journey above ground. It was estimated that it would take six months for the bombs to be resupplied, as the three B-2 Spirits had no choice but to return to the United States.
Capabilities
Weapons
MOPII
The B-2 Spirits in Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman drop MOPIIs, a fictional iteration of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker-buster bombs. The MOPIIs were the only conventional weapons shown to be effective against Godzilla, severing one of his dorsal fins and drawing blood. Gabora's armor plating meant that he was able to survive a sustained bombing run consisting entirely of MOPIIs without any injury, though the explosions of the bombs agitated him and eventually forced him to surface from underground.
The real MOP is an air dropped, earth-penetrating, anti-fortification, non-nuclear bunker busting bomb and one of the most powerful non-nuclear bombs in the world. The B-2 Spirit is currently the only aircraft capable of carrying it. After being dropped by a bomber, the bomb is guided towards a target with either GPS aided Inertial Navigation System (INS) or by laser-designation fired by the aircraft with the MOP adjusting it's flight path to the most intense area of laser sparkle by using the four lattice tail-fins to control it's flight path.[2][3] The bomb has four short-span wings on its body and a slender profile, making the bomb aerodynamic enough to achieve supersonic speeds after being dropped from a high altitude. The bomb weighs 30,000 pounds, with a narrow head made of tungsten to punch through solid rock and a body made out of hardened ferro-cobalt alloy to survive impact. All these factors allow the weapon to penetrate 60 meters (200 feet) through 5,000 psi reinforced concrete, 40 meters (125 feet) through moderately hard rock and 8 meters (25 feet) through 10,000 psi reinforced concrete like an armor piercing missile or bullet.[4] The bomb is equipped with a delayed-action fuse, allowing the warhead to survive the impact, not detonating until the bomb has stopped traveling underground. The bomb is armed with a 5,300 or 6,000 pound High Explosive (HE) warhead, with an explosive velocity of about 3–9 kilometers per second causing the shock wave to pass through material at supersonic speeds.[5] The warhead detonates with the explosive yield of over 4,000 MJ.[6]
Video games
- Godzilla Battle Line (2021) - Android, iOS, and PC
Godzilla Battle Line
- Stars: ★
- Energy cost: 5
- Attack speed: 2.4 seconds
- Target: Leader/Facility
- Movement speed: 24
- Search range: 50
- Reach: 30
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Gallery
Screenshots
Cloverfield
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A B-2 Spirit drops bombs on Clover
Shin Godzilla
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A brightened shot of the MOPIIs dropped on Godzilla
Shin Ultraman
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A B-2 Spirit drops MOPIIs on Gabora
Trivia
- The use of fictitious MOPIIs in Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman may have been attempts to skirt around the practical limitations of the B-2 Spirit, which can only hold two of the enormous MOPs at one time. In Shin Godzilla, three of the planes appear to take part in the attack on Godzilla, but drop more than six bombs.
- The B-2 Spirits in Shin Godzilla were deployed from the 509th Bomb Wing. The aviation component of the unit, the 509th Operations Group, descended from the 509th Composite Group, which deployed the two Boeing B-29 Superfortresses that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[7]
- Almost every B-2 Spirit is named after a U.S. state; the B-2 which nearly airstrikes Chicago in Rampage bears the fictitious and ironic name Spirit of Illinois. A B-2 in Shin Ultraman possesses the fictional serial number 88-0382 and name Spirit of Idaho.
- At the time of Shin Godzilla's release, the MOP was the most powerful non-nuclear bunker buster in existence. The weapon is part of the "Big-Blu" series of Guided Bomb Units which includes the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), the most powerful non-nuclear bomb at the time of its creation and nicknamed the "Mother of All Bombs."[8]
References
This is a list of references for Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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