The Mark 84 or BLU-117 is an American

general-purpose bomb A general-purpose bomb is an air-dropped bomb intended as a compromise between blast damage, penetration, and fragmentation in explosive effect. They are designed to be effective against enemy troops, vehicles, and buildings. Characteristics ...

. It is the largest of the

Mark 80 A general-purpose bomb is an air-dropped bomb intended as a compromise between blast damage, penetration, and fragmentation in explosive effect. They are designed to be effective against enemy troops, vehicles, and buildings. Characteristics ...

series of weapons. Entering service during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, it became a commonly used US heavy

unguided bomb An unguided bomb, also known as a free-fall bomb, gravity bomb, dumb bomb, or iron bomb, is a conventional or nuclear aircraft-delivered bomb that does not contain a guidance system and hence simply follows a ballistic trajectory. This described ...

(due to the amount of high-explosive content packed inside) to be dropped. At the time, it was the third largest bomb by weight in the US inventory behind the

BLU-82 The BLU-82B/C-130 weapon system, known under program "Commando Vault" and nicknamed " Daisy Cutter" in Vietnam for its ability to flatten a section of forest into a helicopter landing zone, is an American conventional bomb, delivered from eith ...

"Daisy Cutter" and the M118 "demolition" bomb. It is currently sixth in size due to the addition of the

GBU-28 The GBU-28 is a 5,000-pound (2,268 kg) class laser-guided "bunker busting" bomb produced originally by the Watervliet Arsenal, Watervliet, New York. It was designed, manufactured, and deployed in less than three weeks due to an urgent need ...

in 1991, the

GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB , colloquially known as the "Mother of All Bombs") is a large-yield bomb, developed for the United States military by Albert L. Weimorts, Jr. of the Air Force Research Laboratory. It was first tes ...

(MOAB) in 2003, and the

Massive Ordnance Penetrator The GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a precision-guided, " bunker buster" bomb used by the United States Air Force. This is substantially larger than the deepest-penetrating bunker busters previously available, the GBU-28 and ...

Development

The Mark 84 has a nominal weight of , but its actual weight varies depending on its fin,

fuze In military munitions, a fuze (sometimes fuse) is the part of the device that initiates function. In some applications, such as torpedoes, a fuze may be identified by function as the exploder. The relative complexity of even the earliest fuze d ...

options, and retardation configuration, from . It is a streamlined steel casing filled with of

Tritonal Tritonal is a mixture of 80% Trinitrotoluene, TNT and 20% aluminium Powder (substance), powder, used in several types of ordnance such as air-dropped bombs. The aluminium improves the total heat output and hence Impulse (physics), impulse of the ...

high explosive. The Mark 84 is capable of forming a crater wide and deep. It can penetrate up to of metal or of concrete, depending on the height from which it is dropped, and causes lethal fragmentation to a radius of . Many Mark 84s have been retrofitted with stabilizing and retarding devices to provide precision guidance capabilities. They serve as the warhead of a variety of precision-guided munitions, including the

GBU-10 The GBU-10 Paveway II is an American Paveway-series laser-guided bomb, based on the Mk 84 general-purpose bomb, but with laser seeker and wings for guidance. Introduced into service c. 1976. Used by USAF, US Navy, US Marine Corps, Royal Australi ...

GBU-24 GBU-24 Paveway III or simply GBU-24 is a family of laser-guided bombs, a sub-group of the larger Raytheon Paveway III family of weapons. The Paveway guidance package consists of a seeker package attached to the nose of the weapon, and a wing kit ...

GBU-27 The GBU-27 Paveway III (Guided Bomb Unit) is a laser-guided bomb with bunker busting, bunker buster capabilities, it is a GBU-24 Paveway III (fitted on the warhead of the BLU-109 bomb body) that has been redesigned to be used by the Lockheed F-117 ...

Paveway Paveway is a series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). ''Pave'' or PAVE is sometimes used as an acronym for ''precision avionics vectoring equipment''; literally, electronics for controlling the speed and direction of aircraft. Laser guidance is ...

laser-guided bomb A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly p ...

GBU-15 The Rockwell International Guided Bomb Unit 15 is an unpowered glide weapon used to destroy high-value enemy targets. It was designed for use with F-15E Strike Eagle, F-111 'Aardvark' and F-4 Phantom II aircraft. The GBU-15 has long-range maritime ...

electro-optical bomb, GBU-31 JDAM and Quickstrike

sea mine A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, any v ...

s. The HGK is a Turkish guidance kit used to convert 2000-lb Mark 84 bombs into GPS/INS guided smart bombs. According to a test report conducted by the United States Navy's Weapon System Explosives Safety Review Board (WSESRB) established in the wake of the

1967 USS Forrestal fire On 29 July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier after an electrical anomaly caused a Zuni rocket on an F-4B Phantom to fire, striking an external fuel tank of an A-4 Skyhawk. The flammable jet fuel spilled across the flight dec ...

, the

cooking off Cooking off (or thermally induced firing) is unfired weapon ammunition exploding prematurely due to heat in the surrounding environment. The term is used both for detonation of ammunition not loaded into a weapon, and unintended firing of a lo ...

time for a Mk 84 is approximately 8 minutes 40 seconds.

References

External links

Mk65 Quick Strike Mine

{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Cold War aerial bombs of the United States Aerial bombs of the United States Military equipment introduced in the 1970s

Development

See also

References

External links