Bomb Clusters

Zirconium. While almost any metal in the finely divided state exhibits pyrophoric properties, a few metals when abraded emit a shower of sparks of sufficient temp to ignite hydrocarbon vapors. Cerium is the best known metal of this kind for commercial purposes, such as gas lighter flints. For military purposes Zr is the most used. It has found applications in HE and armor-piercing incendiary ammo, the lining of shaped-charge rounds, and in incendiary cluster bombs (Ref 7, pp 100-01)... 

Accdg to TM 9-1985-4, listed here as Ref 2, the Army Type 2 1/3-kg Cluster Bomb contd Hollow Charge of 50/50-RDX/TNT (pp 29—30 with Fig 25). There were also Type 3 Conical Antitank Hand Grenade with HoC (pp 230-31 with Fig 175) and 30 40-nun HoC Rifle Grenades (pp 239—41 with Fig 182)... 

See Vol 4, this Encycl, pp D940-R D941-L). The Rockeye is a new cluster bomb which can contain either anti-personnel or antitank bomblets. The Fireye is a new incendiary bomb and the Sadeye is another cluster bomb designed to be air-launched. It contains a large number of bomblets. The Weteye is a new chemical bomb of the non-lethal variety designed to replace the Navy MK 94 Ref R.L. Johnston, "Air Armament , Ordnance 61, 121(1966)... 

The first bombs developed by the US Navy, CBU-55, were used in Vietnam, and tests to perfect an advanced version of the weapons system have continued. The CBU-55B air-to-surface free-fall cluster bombs were developed for helicopter.and siow-speed fixed-wing aircraft delivery to clear helicopter landing zones of mines booby traps. This FAE bomb was designed to disperse a mixt of vaporized fuel (ethylene oxide, propylene oxide, m e thy lacetylene/propa diene/pro pane and others) in a cloud 50 ft in dram and approx 8 ft thick. It has three 100-lb individual canisters 13.6 inches in diam by 21 inches long, each containing ca 72 lbs of fuel. The canisters separate from the dispenser after... 

Flaming Thermit. An incendiary mixture developed by the British during WWI and used in dietr small unit (cluster) bombs. It was a mixture of commercial thermit and barium nitrate... 

Bomb Functioning Tests, Bombs which are loaded with service chges and equipped with std fuzes are released for impact on land water using the full range of fuze settings. This requirement applies to all bombs, except Cluster Bombs Practice Bombs Refs 1) Hayes (1938), 612-13 2) Ohart... 

This is the most advanced of the WAAM concepts and entails loading miniature missiles, each with its own new-technology seeker into cluster-bomb containers for low-level stand-off... 

Rockeye. A US Navy general-purpose antiarmor cluster bomb designed for use against heavy tanks, trucks, and flak sites. It weighs 500 lbs and has a mechanical time fuze which dispenses bomblets at a selected time, dispensing them over a wide area... 

Spherical charges (Fig. 7.20) which have initiating charges in the centre and are used as an approximation for grenades (and many cluster bombs), have a similar relationship ... 

During World War II, the USA and Canada resinned the study of ricin, now given the military symbol Whiskey (W), for use in cluster bombs (Audi et al, 2005). Although different bomb concepts were produced, the end conclusion was that it was no more economical than using phosgene, a highly toxic colorless gas used to manufacture pesticides. 

Laboratories were built at Fort Detrick where colonies of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were fed on a diet of syrup and blood. They laid their eggs on moist paper towels. The eggs would later turn into larvae, and eventually into a new generation of mosquitoes. The Fort Detrick laboratories could produce half a million mosquitoes a month, and by the late fifties a plan had been drawn up for a plant to produce one hundred and thirty million mosquitoes a month. Once the mosquitoes had been infected with yellow fever, the Chemical Corps planned to fire them at an enemy from cluster bombs dropped from aircraft and from the warhead of the Sergeant missile. 

The American M 34 cluster bomb had been fitted with extra handles so that it could be carried by British bombers. 

The 4-lb bombs were loaded, 106 at a time, into 500-lb aircraft cluster bombs. Twenty cluster bombs were regarded as enough to knock out a flying bomb site, 1,000 would contaminate a small island , z,ooo a large town of twenty-five square miles. Both the British and the German civilian populations were defenceless against anthrax to which there was no known prophylactic measure . 

It is commonly assumed that the British never came near the manufacture of real nerve gas weapons. Yet the devices tested in Nigeria show how far advanced was their development. The weapons included Z5 lb artillery shells, 5i-inch naval shells, mortar bombs, and small bomblets for use within a larger aircraft cluster bomb . All were British-made. 

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