That's what they want you to think, but we have no evidence to either direction. And I doubt we will ever have a definitive answer.

You triggered a thought: what if those bunker busters carried a payload of corrosive material, something that the explosive event could deeply embed into the concrete, slowly degrading its strength - possibly until total failure?

My guess: that bunker buster attack was twice as successful as the missile attack on the the airfield in Qatar.

2 x 0 = 0.

Now accepting bets on when we will find out that Trump had a secret call with Ali Khamenei where they negotiated the whole thing ahead of time, thus explaining the movement of the Uranium out of the facility, the movement of our servicemen out of the airbase, etc. etc.

By your math, they absolutely can simply try again: one more time.

By my math, the bunker-buster bomb makers just got a big new contract.

something something DOGE of WAR something...

Don't give any voice whatsoever to the concept that nukes might possibly be acceptably used, anywhere, anytime, for any reason.

They can try one more time but worse

Egyptians stacked blocks of stone to build the pyramids.

Roman concrete was impressively strong.

Neither of them had steel-reinforced concrete.

Neither did Gothic cathedrals, which is why they needed flying buttresses.

Reinforced concrete as we know it today is a 19th century innovation, as I understand it.

Reinforced concrete - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

Maybe the commenter was thinking of adobe.

Why? The kinds of UHPC being discussed in the article weren't available even in the United States until the year 2000 but most of Iran's nuclear facilities were built between 1974 and 2005. Even their primary enrichment facility in Fordow, which was struck with MOPs, was started no earlier than the mid-2000s as it was still unfinished in 2009.

Basically the majority of Iran's facilities, even their major ones, are too old to have the kind of concrete being discussed in the article.

There's also the fact that the majority of Iran's nuclear facilities were built before UHPC, the concrete discussed in the article, was available!

What material would that be? Corrosives have limits, they can't just keep dissolving stuff forever.

And what would "total failure" look like? It's a mountain, it's not going to just collapse into goo.

My first thought is actually getting the corrosive substance onto enough of the concrete would be difficult, assuming they aren’t able to penetrate the concrete then they have to rely on it seeping from the ground, or if they can penetrate then the substance is only really going to be in the chamber where the buster detonated.

I have zero experience with ordnance or busting bunkers though so that’s just a shot in the dark

That's why we need the Orbital Ion Cannon.

Goddamn GDI bootlicker!

I did NOD see that coming.

You can't win, Kane!

Go Iran? Really? Such a privileged life you live.

I thought we do know the depth of the bunkers though. And that American bombs can’t go that deep, even multiple of them

Corrosives have limits, they can’t just keep dissolving stuff forever.

Thus, the explosive assist for initial penetration. The type would depend on the composition of the concrete, you'd probably be more successful targeting the tension strength of the fibers or metals instead of the compression strength of the cement.

And what would “total failure” look like? It’s a mountain, it’s not going to just collapse into goo.

You don't need goo, you just need enough weakening that it no longer supports the 250' of loose rubble atop it and collapses into the interior space.

I love how unhinged random fan wikis sound without context. Here for instance: Bunker Buster, see also: Concrete Donkey and Buffalo of Lies

My first thought is actually getting the corrosive substance onto enough of the concrete would be difficult

Yeah, if the concrete is 40' thick and they're only getting 10' of penetration with the explosives, then this isn't going to do much. But if it's 20' thick and they got through the first 12 with HE, the remaining 8 are going to have a lot of cracks to admit slow liquid death.

I have zero information on what the reinforcers are in the concrete, so shot in the dark is about right. Glass might be tough - unless you could deliver hydrofluoric acid effectively. Metals - we're not going to want to wait for iron to oxidize, looks like hydrogen embrittlement with HF again - so maybe that's the magic sauce. Nasty stuff, but that's what weapons manufacturers are good at handling and packaging: nasty stuff.

2000 lbs of HF poured on the surface isn't going to do much to the buried chamber, but 2000 lbs of HF delivered into the freshly stressed and heavily cracked concrete layer under all the dirt - that could be a problem for future use of the facility.