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Named for a mythical French sword, the BLU-107 Durandal was a special type of bomb developed jointly by France and Israel during the 1960s to destroy air base runways. The weapon was used to devastating effect by the Israelis during the Six Day War.
The bomb was designed to be deployed from the French fighter-bombers which formed the central core of the Israeli Air Force's order of battle during the 1950s and 1960s. When dropped over a runway, the bomb was designed to fall to a certain altitude before a parachute deployed to slow its fall. A retro-rocket then fired, to stabilize the bomb at an attitude of sixty degrees from the perpendicular. Once the bomb reached a set altitude, a booster rocket would fire, causing the bomb to penetrate through runway concrete deep into the ground. Finally, the embedded bomb would explode, leaving a 5 metre deep crater in the tarmac that was impassable to enemy jet aircraft.
The development of these bombs was ordered long before the Six Day War was anticipated. Israeli military planners knew that mastery of the Middle East's skies was the key to Israeli survival in any war. Many of the Egyptian air bases, particularly the forward bases in the Sinai, lacked multiple runways. Thus, their entire compliment of aircraft could be neutralized by a single well-placed strike. The IAF's commander, Motti Hod, noted in reflection that "a jet aircraft is the deadliest weapon in existence -- in the sky. But on the ground, it is useless."
Several hundred Durandal bombs were employed in the first waves of the Israeli attack against the Egyptian air force, effectively immobilizing the bulk of Egypt's planes, which were then demolished by strafing and rocket fire from subsequent attack waves. The tactic was successful beyond the wildest dreams of IAF planners; within the first hour of the war, the Egyptian air force was battered to the point of tactical impotence by the loss of hundreds of planes. "A stone -- just one, but one of agonizing weight -- rolled off my heart," said Hod later regarding the success of the attack.
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