The M125 bomblet was a U.S. chemical sub-munition designed to deliver the nerve agent sarin. It was brought into service in 1954 with the M34 cluster bomb as part of the first U.S. air-delivered nerve agent weapon.

History

The M125 bomblet was a sub-munition of the

M34 cluster bomb The M34 cluster bomb was the first mass-produced United States Army weapon meant to deliver the chemical agent sarin (GB). A large stockpile of M34s was destroyed between 1973 and 1976. History As the United States Army Chemical Corps focused its ...

, which was first brought into regular service by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

in 1954.Smart, Jeffery K.
Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare
'': Chapter 2 — History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: An American Perspective,
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pp. 41-42), ''

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, accessed December 28, 2008. In development the M125 was known as the E54R6 bomblet (shortened to E54). The M34 and its payload of M125s was the first air-delivered

nerve agent Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class of organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme that ...

weapon in the U.S. chemical arsenal. Later, the Chemical Corps developed chemical-biological warheads for multiple missile systems including,

Matador A bullfighter (or matador) is a performer in the activity of bullfighting. ''Torero'' () or ''toureiro'' (), both from Latin ''taurarius'', are the Spanish and Portuguese words for bullfighter and describe all the performers in the activit ...

, Rascal,

Snark Snark may refer to: Fictional creatures * Snark (Lewis Carroll), a fictional animal species in Lewis Carroll's ''The Hunting of the Snark'' (1876) * Zn'rx, a race of fictional aliens in Marvel Comics publications, commonly referred to as "Snark ...

, and

Navaho missile The North American SM-64 Navaho was a supersonic intercontinental cruise missile project built by North American Aviation (NAA). The final design was capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the USSR from bases within the US, while cruising at ...

s. These warheads incorporated the M125 bomblet and the

M114 bomblet The M114 bomb was a four-pound U.S. anti-personnel bomb and biological cluster bomb sub-munition. The M114 was used in the M33 cluster bomb. History The M114 was a sub-munition for the M33 cluster bomb, as such, it was the first standardized U.S ...

. Over 21,000 of the M125 containing M34 bombs were destroyed at

Rocky Mountain Arsenal The Rocky Mountain Arsenal was a United States chemical weapons manufacturing center located in the Denver Metropolitan Area in Commerce City, Colorado. The site was completed December 1942, operated by the United States Army throughout the late ...

in 1976.

Specifications

The M34 was designed to hold 76 M125 bomblets, arranged in four groups of 19. Each bomblet held of the nerve agent sarin, and of the explosive

tetryl 2,4,6-Trinitrophenylmethylnitramine commonly referred to as tetryl ( C7 H5 N5 O8) is an explosive compound used to make detonators and explosive booster charges. Tetryl is a nitramine booster explosive, though its use has been largely superseded ...

.Mauroni, Albert J. ''Chemical Demilitarization: Public Policy Aspects'',
Google Books
, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, p. 19, (). The ten pound cylindrical M125 bomblet also held an opening delay, fuze and parachute, as well as a burster, which contained the explosive. A M34 cluster bomb, fully loaded with M125 bomblets, had an agent weight to weapon weight ratio of 17 percent; the M34 and M125 were not the best delivery system. Eventually, cylindrical chemical bomblets, such as the M125, were supplanted by spherical models because they could obtain a greater coverage area.Kirby, Reid.
The CB Battlefield Legacy: Understanding the Potential Problem of Clustered CB Weapons
", ''

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 ...

'', July–December 2006, accessed December 28, 2008.

References

{{U.S. chemical weapons Chemical weapon delivery systems Submunitions Cold War weapons of the United States Chemical weapons of the United States