Buried 100 meters underground, Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain facility was built to be indestructible. But as Tehran escalates its blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump has warned that America’s military is aiming directly at this secret nuclear target. Can the 30,000-pound GBU-57 MOP bunker buster penetrate Iran’s deepest underground fortress, or will America target its critical entrances and ventilation shafts?
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Donald Trump Threatens Iran Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Site
01:25 - Iran Natanz Extension Built 100 Meters Underground
02:50 - Satellite Photos Reveal Pickaxe Mountain Construction Status
04:10 - Pete Hegseth Claims US Can Destroy Deep Bunkers
05:25 - GBU-57 MOP Bunker Buster 60 Meter Penetration Limits
06:50 - US Strategy to Strike Pickaxe Mountain Entrances Vents
08:15 - Iran Strait of Hormuz Blockade and Mine Explosions
09:40 - Status of Natanz Isfahan Fordow Iranian Nuclear Sites
11:00 - Will Donald Trump Strike Iran Pickaxe Mountain?
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/v8JUYcQS
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Donald Trump Threatens Iran Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Site
01:25 - Iran Natanz Extension Built 100 Meters Underground
02:50 - Satellite Photos Reveal Pickaxe Mountain Construction Status
04:10 - Pete Hegseth Claims US Can Destroy Deep Bunkers
05:25 - GBU-57 MOP Bunker Buster 60 Meter Penetration Limits
06:50 - US Strategy to Strike Pickaxe Mountain Entrances Vents
08:15 - Iran Strait of Hormuz Blockade and Mine Explosions
09:40 - Status of Natanz Isfahan Fordow Iranian Nuclear Sites
11:00 - Will Donald Trump Strike Iran Pickaxe Mountain?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/v8JUYcQS
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NewsTranscript
00:00For years, Iran has been building.
00:03Buried deep within a mountain, it's been creating a new nuclear site that is hidden from view.
00:09Hidden, but not as secret as Iran wanted it to be.
00:12Now, Iran's nuclear pickaxe mountain has been exposed,
00:17making it the number one target on earth for the US and the Trump administration.
00:22But the regime believes this mountain is indestructible,
00:25that it's buried so deep into the mountain that there is no way that the US can hit it.
00:31America responds,
00:35It all started with a threat.
00:37As Iran continues to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,
00:41and as these attacks have started to enter the Red Sea via the Houthis,
00:45and perhaps even the Caspian Sea,
00:47US President Donald Trump says that America is looking at one of the biggest targets on the Iranian mainland.
00:54Pickaxe Mountain is in America's sights because this mountain is home to a nuclear site buried deep underground.
01:00Trump's warning is clear.
01:02End the Hormuz blockade or the US will bring bombs to a pickaxe fight.
01:08We'll be hitting that area, probably pretty soon,
01:11and there's not a thing they can do about it,
01:13Trump said on July 21st as he sat alongside Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun at the White House.
01:19Aoun was there to try to secure some sort of stability for his country,
01:23following months of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group on his country's territory.
01:30Instead, he got a front row seat to Trump making it clear to the world that this stability will come
01:35through firepower.
01:36We follow the material, that's where the action is, Trump declared,
01:40before repeating his threat that the US is going to hit Pickaxe Mountain very heavily.
01:44Unfortunately, questions abound.
01:46Could the US hit this seemingly indestructible site?
01:49Would it?
01:50Why?
01:51But perhaps most importantly, and the question that we'll start with,
01:54what is Pickaxe Mountain?
01:56On the surface, it appears to be one of the many mountains and hills that dot the Iranian mainland.
02:01Certainly not nondescript, but more a landmark than some sort of threatening military site.
02:06And that was the case for decades before Iran's regime started building.
02:10Today, Pickaxe Mountain isn't just a mountain.
02:14It's a sprawling nuclear site that is believed to be one of the most secure facilities in all of the
02:19Middle East.
02:19Iran has spent years building vast tunnel complexes dozens of meters underground
02:24at what CBS News calls an extension of the Natanz nuclear facility
02:28that the US hit both during the summer of 2025 and during Operation Epic Fury.
02:33But Pickaxe Mountain is shaping up to be far more than a basic extension.
02:37This isn't like adding a garage to a five-bedroom house.
02:41Iran has spent the last few years developing this facility into one that has the potential to rival Natanz
02:47or any of the other nuclear facilities in Iran in both size and scope.
02:51Work started at the site in 2020, following a fire at the Natanz nuclear facility
02:55that clued Iran's regime into the importance of having several facilities,
02:59each serving as fail-safes for the others.
03:02Time magazine reports that this fire that served as the Pickaxe Mountain catalyst
03:06was actually an act of sabotage, providing even more incentive for the creation of a new site.
03:12After all, if Natanz could be hit once, it could be hit again.
03:15The US and Israel went on to prove Iran right in both 2025 and 2026 with bunker-busting bombs.
03:23Initially, the tunnels being dug into Pickaxe Mountain were intended to serve as replacements
03:27for the above-ground Natanz centrifuge assembly facility that had fallen victim to the fire
03:32and claimed sabotage.
03:34Again, a smart move by Iran.
03:36Take what was once accessible underground and you make it much harder for saboteurs to get to it.
03:41The new site is close to Natanz, just two kilometers away.
03:45As for how deep the site goes, that's another of the big questions.
03:48James Acton, who is the co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for
03:54International Peace, said,
03:55It's a very deep facility.
03:57We don't know exactly how deep, but it's very likely at least 100 meters deep.
04:02He also adds a worrying warning for the US.
04:04There's just no way to destroy this facility.
04:07Iran has tried its best to feed into that opinion by erecting defenses around Pickaxe Mountain.
04:12Beyond the facility being at least 100 meters underground,
04:15the mountain itself is protected by several anti-aircraft batteries.
04:19Those batteries are likely still in place.
04:22Unlike several of Iran's nuclear sites, Pickaxe Mountain has yet to be touched by US airstrikes,
04:27suggesting that the air defenses at the site are still in place.
04:30Those defenses could pose a threat to any American bombers that head to Iran's nuclear site.
04:35Pickaxe Mountain is also far from small.
04:38Satellite photos show multiple entrances into the facility,
04:41suggesting that it sprawls across 2.7 square kilometers.
04:45But the US has to deal with that size.
04:48According to Fortune,
04:49Iran intends to use it for much more than storing centrifuges.
04:53Due to the scale of the project,
04:55Pickaxe Mountain may end up being a site where Iran enriches uranium.
04:58This, in theory, could also make it a site where Iran produces a nuclear weapon.
05:03The one caveat to all of this is simple.
05:06There is no evidence that Iran has started enriching uranium
05:09or engaging in any other nuclear activities at Pickaxe Mountain.
05:12Yet.
05:13Trump himself said as much earlier in July,
05:16claiming that the US was monitoring the site
05:18but could see no evidence of nuclear activity.
05:20The Institute for Science and International Security, or ISIS,
05:25concurs as its satellite photos showcase a site that is still under construction
05:29rather than one that is being used in any operational capacity.
05:33However, that might be Iran's goal.
05:35Though Esmail Bagai, who is the spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry,
05:39also claims that there is no nuclear action at the site,
05:42ISIS hedges its own bet with the word unclear.
05:46It remains unclear when Pickaxe Mountain could be operational.
05:49It's also unclear if Iran still plans on installing a large-scale assembly facility,
05:54given the destruction of Iran's centrifuge program,
05:57including Iran's ability to make centrifuge components needed for an assembly plant,
06:01the group says in its assessment.
06:03The conclusion?
06:04Nothing seems to be happening at Pickaxe Mountain right now,
06:07but this is an underground base.
06:09Whatever lies beneath the mountain is hidden from view.
06:11And for all anybody knows,
06:13Iran may have started building tunnels from the mountain to Natanz itself.
06:17Perhaps there is a transfer of nuclear material happening right now,
06:20and nobody is the wiser,
06:21because satellite photos can only pick up what's happening above ground.
06:25That may be conjecture on our part, but it's also a possibility.
06:29We now have a decent idea of what Pickaxe Mountain is,
06:32but questions still remain.
06:34Could the US hit the site?
06:35And even if it can, would it?
06:37We'll dig into the answers to those questions,
06:38along with exploring what this is really all about in a moment.
06:42First, this is a quick reminder that you are watching The Military Show.
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06:55So, the big question.
06:57Could the US hit Pickaxe Mountain hard enough
06:59to do the level of damage needed to take the site offline?
07:03US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth seems to think so.
07:07When asked this very question, Hegseth responded,
07:10A lot of our capabilities are classified,
07:12before adding,
07:13but if anybody in the world can reach anything on God's green earth,
07:16it's the United States military,
07:18the most powerful military in the world.
07:20Well, vague is the politest word we can use to describe that statement,
07:24as Hegseth offers little in the way of an actual strategy
07:27for attacking Pickaxe Mountain.
07:28And there's a good reason why the Secretary of War seems cagey.
07:32This mountain is a tough nut to crack.
07:34Recall Acton's claim that it would be impossible
07:36to hit a bunker so deep underground.
07:39Acton supplemented that claim by pointing out
07:41that the US could attack the entrances and exits to Pickaxe Mountain,
07:45which offers a clue to the approach that might be taken.
07:47But before that,
07:48there is more that makes this nuclear site difficult to take down.
07:52DW points out that being buried 100 meters or more underground
07:55would mean that Pickaxe Mountain
07:57is the deepest of all the facilities that Iran has built so far.
08:01That, in turn, would make it much more difficult to damage
08:03with the types of airstrikes that the US has conducted
08:06against Natanz and other nuclear sites.
08:08The US and Hegseth would counter this issue
08:11by pointing out that America has bunker-busting bombs.
08:14However, whether even the largest and most powerful of those bombs
08:17could destroy a facility that is buried as deeply
08:19as the one located at Pickaxe Mountain remains to be seen.
08:23In theory, it could happen.
08:25But for the US to enjoy any success at all,
08:28it would need to deploy the biggest of its bunker-busters,
08:31the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP.
08:36Designed specifically for targets like Pickaxe Mountain,
08:39this monster of a bomb weighs 13,600 kilograms
08:42and is capable of penetrating hardened and buried targets deep underground.
08:47The warhead attached to the MOP weighs between 2,082 and 2,600 kilograms,
08:53Army Recognition points out.
08:54So the US wouldn't be delivering 13,600 kilograms of pure firepower.
08:59About a sixth of the MOP actually does the damage,
09:01but up to 2,600 kilograms detonating inside an enclosed facility
09:05is more than enough to cause severe structural damage.
09:09However, it's penetration that really matters here,
09:12and that's where the US runs into a challenge.
09:14The MOP can penetrate up to 60 meters through rock or reinforced concrete.
09:19That's 40 meters short of the Pickaxe Mountain target.
09:23If this is the case, then what can the US do to ensure that it takes out the facility?
09:27The obvious answer is repeat strikes, relying on the accuracy of the MOP,
09:32which has a circular error probable within a few meters, to do the rest of the work.
09:37This would be the simplest strategy.
09:39Hit Pickaxe Mountain once to penetrate up to 60 meters deep,
09:43then hit the exact same spot again to penetrate into the facility itself.
09:47The US would need to take care of the air defenses surrounding the facility
09:51to make this approach feasible, and there is potential for things to go wrong.
09:56Missing the target the second time around would necessitate repeated runs
10:00until the US can feel certain that it has hit Iran's underground facility.
10:04That's risky and expensive.
10:06Each MOP costs millions of dollars,
10:08and Iran only needs one air defense unit to score a direct hit
10:12to make the strike catastrophic for the US.
10:14It would also be difficult to determine just how much damage is done, if any.
10:19Pickaxe Mountain site is underground,
10:21so it's not exactly easy to assess the damage using satellite photo.
10:25But perhaps there is another option.
10:27Acton touched on it already.
10:29Strike the exits and entrances.
10:32ISIS notes that Pickaxe Mountain appears to have two pairs of above-ground entrances
10:37that would make obvious targets for the US and its massive bunker busters.
10:41The same group also points out that attacks from the past
10:44could inform America's approach to Pickaxe Mountain.
10:47In several cases, the US has struck ventilation shafts,
10:50which are weak points that could allow a weapon like the MOP
10:53to penetrate deeper than it otherwise would when hitting the ground.
10:57ISIS also points to above-ground power supply lines,
11:00which are needed to keep the facility running.
11:02So an approach starts to form.
11:04Smaller bunker buster bombs could collapse the routes in and out of Pickaxe Mountain
11:08as airstrikes take out the visible power supplies.
11:12The ventilation shafts are more of a challenge.
11:14Nobody other than Iran has the schematics for the Pickaxe Mountain site.
11:18However, America does have schematics for previous sites
11:21built by the Ahmad Nuclear Weapons Programme, ISIS points out.
11:25Assumptions about construction could be made.
11:28And even if the MOPs don't hit the vents,
11:30the damage done above-ground could be enough to shut the facility down,
11:34granting America time to take repeated cracks at getting the job done.
11:38Where there's a will, there's a way.
11:40Scratch that.
11:41Where there's a MOP, there's a way.
11:43With a theoretical approach in place,
11:45we come back to the other big question that we posed earlier.
11:48Would the US strike Pickaxe Mountain?
11:51Trump has claimed that the mountain is in America's sights,
11:53though he has also suggested that the US would strike
11:56if the situation in the Strait of Hormuz gets worse.
11:58So, once again, we come down to the main point of leverage
12:01that Iran has in its fight against the US.
12:04Blockading Hormuz has been extremely effective for Iran.
12:07This single waterway is one of the world's busiest shipping channels,
12:11with about 20% of the oil and liquefied natural gas
12:14sold around the globe moving through this strait.
12:17Blockading the strait has allowed Iran to put pressure
12:19on dozens of countries through increased oil prices,
12:22which, in turn, puts pressure on the US to halt its attacks
12:25as those affected countries come calling.
12:28In a July 24th report, the US Naval Institute said
12:31that traffic through the strait remains low
12:33following what was then the 13th straight day
12:36of renewed US strikes against Iran.
12:38There were just 78 transits between July 13th and 19th,
12:42compared to 174 the week before.
12:44Still, Trump threatens that Hormuz has to get worse
12:47before Pickaxe Mountain is hit.
12:49It just got worse.
12:50On July 26th, the news broke that an oil tanker
12:54had exploded in the strait of Hormuz
12:55after hitting a naval mine that Iran has placed in the waterway
12:59to prevent unauthorized transit.
13:01Iranian authorities claim that the tanker deviated
13:04from the designated navigational route,
13:06and it paid the price.
13:07These routes are taken by tankers that have received
13:10permission for transit from Iran,
13:12and a burning and broken oil tanker is the surest sign yet
13:15that Iran is willing to outright destroy merchant ships
13:18that don't follow its rules.
13:20As this tanker destruction happened,
13:22Iranian proxies in the Red Sea have also started attacking merchant shipping.
13:26And now the Caspian Sea may be coming into play.
13:30Also on July 26th, Al Jazeera reported that Ukraine
13:33had struck an Iranian commercial ship in the Caspian Sea.
13:37Iran's regime immediately summoned Ukrainian diplomats over the action,
13:41claiming that it was a hostile and criminal act.
13:44Ukraine says it's within its rights to attack Iranian merchant vessels
13:47due to many of those ships carrying weapons and supplies
13:50that Russia uses in its invasion of Ukraine.
13:52A powder keg has formed, and the fuse is tiny.
13:56A fight between Iran and Ukraine may be about to explode,
13:59and it's clear that Iran isn't going to heed Trump's warnings
14:02to back away from Hormuz.
14:04All of the pieces are in place for a US strike against Pickaxe Mountain now.
14:08After everything that has happened in the days since Trump delivered his warning,
14:11the US may well be planning that strike as we speak.
14:15Still, we can't ignore the fact that most seem to believe
14:17that Pickaxe Mountain isn't operational yet.
14:20That raises questions about the true value of such a strike for the US
14:23as it tries to blunt what it believes to be Iran's burgeoning nuclear capabilities.
14:28It's no secret that despite all of the clamour about the Strait of Hormuz,
14:31it's Iran's nuclear program that is America's biggest bone of contention.
14:36That program hasn't delivered a nuclear weapon.
14:38It's unclear if Iran even intends to develop a nuke,
14:41or if it's creating enriched uranium to threaten the possibility without following through.
14:46And given Iran's long history of engaging in secret nuclear projects,
14:50the US can never be quite sure about anything that the country's regime says.
14:54Maybe Pickaxe Mountain is operational.
14:57Perhaps nukes are being worked on.
14:59Those two maybes immediately turn the mountain into a valuable target for the US.
15:04On top of that, even if Pickaxe Mountain truly isn't operational yet,
15:08it's obvious that Iran intends it to be.
15:10It wouldn't be spending so much time and money on building work if it didn't.
15:14And for the US, a preemptive strike in the context of taking out the facility before it comes online
15:19might hold just as much value as an attack against one of the Iranian nuclear facilities
15:24that the US knows for sure is active.
15:26The US could also argue that it's done the damage it needs to do to Iran's other nuclear sites.
15:32Natanz, which we mentioned earlier, was struck in 2025 and again in March.
15:36Isfahan, which is Iran's largest nuclear research complex,
15:39was hit by submarine-launched cruise missiles during Operation Midnight Hammer,
15:43though there is still enough activity at the site for the US to consider a follow-up strike,
15:47the Wall Street Journal reports.
15:49Talagan 2 is also being quietly rebuilt following strikes in October 2024 and March 2026.
15:56Fordo may be a non-factor.
15:58It was the site that the US hit using its ventilation shaft strategy
16:01that we suggested may be a possibility for Pickaxe Mountain.
16:05There are still above-ground targets at that site, though, making it ripe for another strike.
16:09So America has options.
16:11But when it really comes down to it, Pickaxe Mountain has become the number one target.
16:16If it wasn't, Trump, Hexeth, and the administration wouldn't be mentioning it by name.
16:20For the US, this may not be about whether the facility is operational or not.
16:24Pickaxe Mountain may instead be about the message that will be sent.
16:27This is Iran's deepest nuclear facility.
16:30If the US is able to hit that facility using its mops,
16:33Iran learns that even when burrowing so deep underground that it's technically outside of the mops range isn't a solution.
16:40That could put pressure on Iran to end the Hormuz blockade.
16:43At least, that seems to be America's plan.
16:45Only time will tell if the US is serious about its Pickaxe Mountain threats.
16:49The only thing that's certain is that the one thing Iran has been trying to hide for years has just
16:54become the priority target for the United States military.
16:57And it may not just be the moth that the US brings to Pickaxe Mountain.
17:01Smaller bunker busters weighing 907 kilograms have already been used against Iran's missile cities, where they've collapsed tunnels and taken
17:09out entrances.
17:09Could those smaller bombs make an appearance at Pickaxe Mountain?
17:13Decide for yourself if they could help the US by watching our video, where we examine their previous use in
17:18Iran.
17:19And if you enjoyed this video, remember to subscribe to the military show and enable notifications to keep up with
17:25our coverage of the latest developments in the Gulf region.
17:28And thank you as always for watching.