U.S. F-15E Strike Eagles Deploy GBU-31 Bunker-Buster Bombs Against Hardened Targets in Iran
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Images released by U.S. Central Command on March 5, 2026 show U.S. Air Force F-15 strike fighters carrying four GBU-31(V)3/B bunker-buster JDAM bombs during sorties over Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury. The heavy precision loadout signals a shift toward sustained deep-strike attacks on hardened Iranian military targets as the U.S. and Israel expand air operations.
On March 5, 2026, imagery released by U.S. Central Command on its official X account showed U.S. Air Force F-15 strike fighters loaded with four GBU-31(V)3/B JDAM bunker-busting bombs and an AIM-120 AMRAAM during ongoing sorties over Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury. In the accompanying message, CENTCOM stressed that “the U.S. Air Force continues to execute a high volume of airstrikes into Iran” and highlighted that the U.S. and Israel are dominating the skies of Iran. This visual confirmation of a heavy F-15 bunker-buster loadout offers a precise snapshot of how U.S. airpower is being applied to crush hardened Iranian military infrastructure and reinforce American strategic credibility in the Middle East.
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Newly released U.S. Central Command imagery shows U.S. Air Force F-15 strike fighters carrying four GBU-31(V)3/B bunker-buster JDAMs during Operation Epic Fury sorties over Iran, highlighting a shift toward sustained deep-strike attacks against hardened military infrastructure (Picture Source: U.S. Air Force / U.S. CENTCOM)
Operation Epic Fury has rapidly evolved into a high-tempo air campaign in which American and Israeli air assets are conducting deep interdiction, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), and leadership-targeting missions across Iran’s military architecture. U.S. reports indicate that as American and Israeli forces have established localized air superiority, the air tasking order has transitioned from initial stand-off cruise missile and stealth bomber strikes to an increasing use of gravity and glide munitions delivered by tactical aircraft. In that context, the F-15s shown by CENTCOM are functioning as deep-strike workhorses: multi-role platforms flying from regional bases, rotating through tanker-supported orbits, and cycling through targets on Iran’s integrated air defense system, ballistic-missile infrastructure, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command nodes.
At the heart of the loadout is the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, a guidance tail kit that converts “dumb” free-fall bombs into all-weather precision-guided munitions. The U.S. Air Force fact sheet notes that JDAM combines a GPS-aided inertial navigation system in the tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces, allowing the weapon to autonomously navigate to pre-programmed coordinates once released from the aircraft. In optimal GPS conditions, JDAM routinely achieves a circular error probable (CEP) of five meters or less, effectively turning a 2,000-pound-class bomb into a surgical instrument capable of striking fixed or relocatable targets even through cloud layers, smoke, or night conditions that would defeat legacy laser guidance. The system supports a wide release envelope, from low-altitude toss deliveries to high-altitude, off-axis lofts, giving F-15 crews considerable flexibility in how they manage threat rings from Iranian surface-to-air missile batteries.
The specific variant visible in the CENTCOM image, the GBU-31(V)3/B, marries the JDAM guidance kit to the BLU-109 2,000-pound hard-target penetrator. The BLU-109 uses a thick forged-steel casing around roughly 550 pounds of high explosive, producing a weapon designed to punch through heavily reinforced concrete and earth-covered structures before detonating on a programmed delay. Open U.S. sources credit the BLU-109 class with penetration in the order of 1.2 to nearly 2 meters of reinforced concrete under representative impact conditions, depending on strike velocity and fuze settings. When paired with JDAM’s GPS/INS guidance, the resulting weapon gives U.S. Air Force the ability to service deeply buried command posts, hardened aircraft shelters, missile storage vaults, and elements of Iran’s dispersed nuclear and ballistic-missile support network with high single-shot kill probability.
What makes the CENTCOM photo particularly telling is the carriage of four GBU-31(V)3/Bs on a single F-15, a heavy strike load that still sits comfortably within the F-15E Strike Eagle’s designed payload capacity of more than 23,000 pounds. The Strike Eagle was built for long-range interdiction without dedicated escort, combining a powerful APG-70/82 radar, terrain-following modes, conformal fuel tanks and high-thrust engines to push large bomb loads deep into contested airspace. With four 2,000-pound bunker-busters and the ability to program separate coordinates into each JDAM, a single F-15 sortie can hold multiple hardened aim points at risk on a single pass, or pair weapons in ripple releases against especially robust targets such as deeply buried command centers or missile tunnel portals. In practice, these jets are likely being cued by space-based ISR, long-endurance drones, and RC-135/EP-3 electronic intelligence platforms, allowing weapon system officers to refine coordinates and release geometry moments before weapons pickle.
JDAM’s inherent glide capability, and, in some cases, extended-range wing kits derived from the JDAM-ER program, further enhances this effect by letting weapons coast tens of kilometers beyond the release point, reducing the time the aircraft must spend inside the densest layers of Iranian air defenses. Even with baseline tails, the Air Force lists JDAM’s range at roughly 15 miles from high altitude, and JDAM-ER wing kits tested by allied air forces have extended that to 40–45 miles or more, especially for lighter 500-pound-class bodies. For Iranian defenders, this means that radar tracks of inbound F-15s do not precisely indicate which hardened site will be hit or even when the jet must cross a specific missile engagement zone; weapons can be lofted or tossed from unexpected azimuths, compressing reaction timelines for both point-defense systems and personnel sheltering inside underground complexes.
Hanging under the wing alongside the bomb racks, the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) turns this F-15 configuration into a self-escorting strike fighter. The AIM-120 family is a beyond-visual-range missile using inertial mid-course guidance with datalink updates and an active radar seeker in the terminal phase; later C and D variants offer significantly expanded no-escape zones and engagement envelopes beyond 40–100 nautical miles depending on launch conditions. With a top speed around Mach 4 and high off-boresight maneuverability, AMRAAM allows F-15 crews to prosecute air-to-air engagements while remaining focused on their strike mission, relying on AWACS and Link-16 data to cue long-range intercepts. In the heavily networked battlespace over Iran, that means a Strike Eagle carrying four heavy bunker-busters does not require a dedicated fighter escort; it can defend itself against any surviving Iranian fighters or drones while still executing its programmed weapons run.
The F-15’s heavy GBU-31(V)3/B loadout and the presence of AIM-120 illustrate the preferred American concept of operations for Epic Fury’s mature phase: self-escorted deep-strike packages that rely on precision, massed effects and vertical escalation rather than sheer sortie counts alone. As B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and cruise-missile salvos have shredded Iran’s most capable strategic air defenses and underground missile sites, tactical fighters are increasingly being pushed “deeper inside Iran” to prosecute follow-on targets with gravity and glide munitions. JDAM-equipped F-15s can re-attack damaged facilities, collapse remaining access tunnels, and quickly crater runways or dispersal pads used by Iran’s strike aircraft and UAVs, all while operating under the umbrella of U.S. and Israeli air supremacy and electronic warfare.
The choice to highlight this particular image, four 2,000-pound bunker-busters ready to fall on hardened Iranian soil, sends a direct message to Tehran and its proxy network: no underground facility is safe simply because it is buried. U.S. government statements continue to describe Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and Operation Epic Fury is being framed in Washington as a campaign designed to dismantle the regime’s ability to fund, arm and direct militant groups across the region. Precision penetrators like the GBU-31(V)3/B give U.S. leaders a non-nuclear tool to reach into hardened command bunkers, ballistic-missile tunnels and Quds Force facilities that underpin Iran’s asymmetric warfare strategy. For allies in the Gulf, Europe and the Indo-Pacific, the combination of sustained sortie generation, deep-strike reach and hardened-target kill capability showcased in the CENTCOM photo underscores that U.S. airpower retains both the will and the means to impose unacceptable costs on a regime that continues to weaponize terrorism as state policy.
The image of an F-15 bristling with four BLU-109-equipped JDAMs and an AIM-120 encapsulates the core of American airpower in Operation Epic Fury: precision, depth, and dominance in the air domain brought to bear against a hostile regime that has long relied on underground sanctuaries and proxy warfare. The United States is not merely flying symbolic patrols; it is systematically taking apart hardened nodes of Iranian power with munitions tailored to crush concrete, steel and command structures alike while keeping its own aircrews protected behind layers of technology, training and allied integration. As long as aircraft configured like those shown by CENTCOM continue to cycle through the air tasking order, Iran’s leadership will be forced to reckon with the reality that U.S. and Israeli forces can reach deeply into their most fortified strongholds and impose strategic outcomes on timelines set in Washington, not in Tehran.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
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Images released by U.S. Central Command on March 5, 2026 show U.S. Air Force F-15 strike fighters carrying four GBU-31(V)3/B bunker-buster JDAM bombs during sorties over Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury. The heavy precision loadout signals a shift toward sustained deep-strike attacks on hardened Iranian military targets as the U.S. and Israel expand air operations.
On March 5, 2026, imagery released by U.S. Central Command on its official X account showed U.S. Air Force F-15 strike fighters loaded with four GBU-31(V)3/B JDAM bunker-busting bombs and an AIM-120 AMRAAM during ongoing sorties over Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury. In the accompanying message, CENTCOM stressed that “the U.S. Air Force continues to execute a high volume of airstrikes into Iran” and highlighted that the U.S. and Israel are dominating the skies of Iran. This visual confirmation of a heavy F-15 bunker-buster loadout offers a precise snapshot of how U.S. airpower is being applied to crush hardened Iranian military infrastructure and reinforce American strategic credibility in the Middle East.
Newly released U.S. Central Command imagery shows U.S. Air Force F-15 strike fighters carrying four GBU-31(V)3/B bunker-buster JDAMs during Operation Epic Fury sorties over Iran, highlighting a shift toward sustained deep-strike attacks against hardened military infrastructure (Picture Source: U.S. Air Force / U.S. CENTCOM)
Operation Epic Fury has rapidly evolved into a high-tempo air campaign in which American and Israeli air assets are conducting deep interdiction, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), and leadership-targeting missions across Iran’s military architecture. U.S. reports indicate that as American and Israeli forces have established localized air superiority, the air tasking order has transitioned from initial stand-off cruise missile and stealth bomber strikes to an increasing use of gravity and glide munitions delivered by tactical aircraft. In that context, the F-15s shown by CENTCOM are functioning as deep-strike workhorses: multi-role platforms flying from regional bases, rotating through tanker-supported orbits, and cycling through targets on Iran’s integrated air defense system, ballistic-missile infrastructure, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command nodes.
At the heart of the loadout is the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, a guidance tail kit that converts “dumb” free-fall bombs into all-weather precision-guided munitions. The U.S. Air Force fact sheet notes that JDAM combines a GPS-aided inertial navigation system in the tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces, allowing the weapon to autonomously navigate to pre-programmed coordinates once released from the aircraft. In optimal GPS conditions, JDAM routinely achieves a circular error probable (CEP) of five meters or less, effectively turning a 2,000-pound-class bomb into a surgical instrument capable of striking fixed or relocatable targets even through cloud layers, smoke, or night conditions that would defeat legacy laser guidance. The system supports a wide release envelope, from low-altitude toss deliveries to high-altitude, off-axis lofts, giving F-15 crews considerable flexibility in how they manage threat rings from Iranian surface-to-air missile batteries.
The specific variant visible in the CENTCOM image, the GBU-31(V)3/B, marries the JDAM guidance kit to the BLU-109 2,000-pound hard-target penetrator. The BLU-109 uses a thick forged-steel casing around roughly 550 pounds of high explosive, producing a weapon designed to punch through heavily reinforced concrete and earth-covered structures before detonating on a programmed delay. Open U.S. sources credit the BLU-109 class with penetration in the order of 1.2 to nearly 2 meters of reinforced concrete under representative impact conditions, depending on strike velocity and fuze settings. When paired with JDAM’s GPS/INS guidance, the resulting weapon gives U.S. Air Force the ability to service deeply buried command posts, hardened aircraft shelters, missile storage vaults, and elements of Iran’s dispersed nuclear and ballistic-missile support network with high single-shot kill probability.
What makes the CENTCOM photo particularly telling is the carriage of four GBU-31(V)3/Bs on a single F-15, a heavy strike load that still sits comfortably within the F-15E Strike Eagle’s designed payload capacity of more than 23,000 pounds. The Strike Eagle was built for long-range interdiction without dedicated escort, combining a powerful APG-70/82 radar, terrain-following modes, conformal fuel tanks and high-thrust engines to push large bomb loads deep into contested airspace. With four 2,000-pound bunker-busters and the ability to program separate coordinates into each JDAM, a single F-15 sortie can hold multiple hardened aim points at risk on a single pass, or pair weapons in ripple releases against especially robust targets such as deeply buried command centers or missile tunnel portals. In practice, these jets are likely being cued by space-based ISR, long-endurance drones, and RC-135/EP-3 electronic intelligence platforms, allowing weapon system officers to refine coordinates and release geometry moments before weapons pickle.
JDAM’s inherent glide capability, and, in some cases, extended-range wing kits derived from the JDAM-ER program, further enhances this effect by letting weapons coast tens of kilometers beyond the release point, reducing the time the aircraft must spend inside the densest layers of Iranian air defenses. Even with baseline tails, the Air Force lists JDAM’s range at roughly 15 miles from high altitude, and JDAM-ER wing kits tested by allied air forces have extended that to 40–45 miles or more, especially for lighter 500-pound-class bodies. For Iranian defenders, this means that radar tracks of inbound F-15s do not precisely indicate which hardened site will be hit or even when the jet must cross a specific missile engagement zone; weapons can be lofted or tossed from unexpected azimuths, compressing reaction timelines for both point-defense systems and personnel sheltering inside underground complexes.
Hanging under the wing alongside the bomb racks, the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) turns this F-15 configuration into a self-escorting strike fighter. The AIM-120 family is a beyond-visual-range missile using inertial mid-course guidance with datalink updates and an active radar seeker in the terminal phase; later C and D variants offer significantly expanded no-escape zones and engagement envelopes beyond 40–100 nautical miles depending on launch conditions. With a top speed around Mach 4 and high off-boresight maneuverability, AMRAAM allows F-15 crews to prosecute air-to-air engagements while remaining focused on their strike mission, relying on AWACS and Link-16 data to cue long-range intercepts. In the heavily networked battlespace over Iran, that means a Strike Eagle carrying four heavy bunker-busters does not require a dedicated fighter escort; it can defend itself against any surviving Iranian fighters or drones while still executing its programmed weapons run.
The F-15’s heavy GBU-31(V)3/B loadout and the presence of AIM-120 illustrate the preferred American concept of operations for Epic Fury’s mature phase: self-escorted deep-strike packages that rely on precision, massed effects and vertical escalation rather than sheer sortie counts alone. As B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and cruise-missile salvos have shredded Iran’s most capable strategic air defenses and underground missile sites, tactical fighters are increasingly being pushed “deeper inside Iran” to prosecute follow-on targets with gravity and glide munitions. JDAM-equipped F-15s can re-attack damaged facilities, collapse remaining access tunnels, and quickly crater runways or dispersal pads used by Iran’s strike aircraft and UAVs, all while operating under the umbrella of U.S. and Israeli air supremacy and electronic warfare.
The choice to highlight this particular image, four 2,000-pound bunker-busters ready to fall on hardened Iranian soil, sends a direct message to Tehran and its proxy network: no underground facility is safe simply because it is buried. U.S. government statements continue to describe Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and Operation Epic Fury is being framed in Washington as a campaign designed to dismantle the regime’s ability to fund, arm and direct militant groups across the region. Precision penetrators like the GBU-31(V)3/B give U.S. leaders a non-nuclear tool to reach into hardened command bunkers, ballistic-missile tunnels and Quds Force facilities that underpin Iran’s asymmetric warfare strategy. For allies in the Gulf, Europe and the Indo-Pacific, the combination of sustained sortie generation, deep-strike reach and hardened-target kill capability showcased in the CENTCOM photo underscores that U.S. airpower retains both the will and the means to impose unacceptable costs on a regime that continues to weaponize terrorism as state policy.
The image of an F-15 bristling with four BLU-109-equipped JDAMs and an AIM-120 encapsulates the core of American airpower in Operation Epic Fury: precision, depth, and dominance in the air domain brought to bear against a hostile regime that has long relied on underground sanctuaries and proxy warfare. The United States is not merely flying symbolic patrols; it is systematically taking apart hardened nodes of Iranian power with munitions tailored to crush concrete, steel and command structures alike while keeping its own aircrews protected behind layers of technology, training and allied integration. As long as aircraft configured like those shown by CENTCOM continue to cycle through the air tasking order, Iran’s leadership will be forced to reckon with the reality that U.S. and Israeli forces can reach deeply into their most fortified strongholds and impose strategic outcomes on timelines set in Washington, not in Tehran.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
