The M114 bomb was a four-pound U.S. anti-personnel bomb and biological

cluster bomb A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicl ...

sub-munition. The M114 was used in the

M33 cluster bomb M33, M-33, or M.33 may refer to: * M-33 (Michigan highway), a state highway in Michigan * M33 cluster bomb, a Cold War-era U.S. biological cluster bomb * HMS ''M33'', an ''M29''-class monitor warship of the Royal Navy * M33 helmet, used by the It ...

History

The M114 was a sub-munition for the M33 cluster bomb, as such, it was the first standardized U.S. biological weapon in 1952.Croddy, Eric and Wirtz, James J. ''Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology, and History'',
Google Books
, ABC-CLIO, 2005, p. 75, (), accessed November 13, 2008. The M114 was an improved version of a British World War II-era bomblet that was designed to disperse

anthrax Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium ''Bacillus anthracis''. It can occur in four forms: skin, lungs, intestinal, and injection. Symptom onset occurs between one day and more than two months after the infection is contracted. The sk ...

.Kirby, Reid.
The CB Battlefield Legacy: Understanding the Potential Problem of Clustered CB Weapons
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Army Chemical Review ''Army Chemical Review'' is prepared twice a year by the United States Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) School and the Maneuver Support Center, Directorate of Training, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. This magazine presents ...

'', pp. 25-29, July–December 2006, accessed November 12, 2008.

Specifications

The M114 was similar to a

pipe bomb A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device which uses a tightly sealed section of pipe (material), pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple Explosive material#Low explosives, low explosi ...

, it had a tube with a diameter of . 108 M114s were clustered into the M33 cluster bomb;Smart, Jeffery K.
Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare
'': Chapter 2 - History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: An American Perspective,
PDF
p. 51), ''

Borden Institute The Borden Institute is a U.S. Army “Center of Excellence in Military Medical Research and Education”. In 1987, U.S. Army Colonel Russ Zajtchuk conceived the idea for a “Center of Excellence in Military Medical Research and Education,” u ...

'', Textbooks of Military Medicine, PDF via

Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base Maxwell Air Force Base , officially known as Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, is a United States Air Force (USAF) installation under the Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The installation is located in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. O ...

, accessed November 13, 2008. each had its own detonator and was ejected from the M33 while the bomb was still aloft.Regis, Edward. ''The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project'',
Google Books
, Macmillan, 2000, p. 140, (). Each M114 held 320 milliliters of ''

Brucella suis ''Brucella suis'' is a bacterium that causes swine brucellosis, a zoonosis that affects pigs. The disease typically causes chronic inflammatory lesions in the reproductive organs of susceptible animals or orchitis, and may even affect joints and ...

''.

References

{{U.S. biological weapons Biological weapon delivery systems Submunitions Military equipment introduced in the 1950s