500lb Series Bomb lethality

I was wondering what the blast, shrapnel, and casualty radius would be for a 500lb series bomb? If anyone has either used or worked with these class of explosive I would appreciate your advice. Thanks.

People don't generally talk about the effectiveness of weapon systems (even one as plain-jane as an iron bomb).

The manufacturer has a site with somewhat vague data, but as to radii, that I would imagine really depends on the fusing (airburst vs. contact vs. delay...).

http://www.ordtech-industries.com/2products/Bomb_General/Mk82/Mk82.html

Durring Anaconda in Afghanistan I heard they were dropping 82s within 50m of the good guys. From what I understand they did not have line of sight to the impacts so no shrapnel. The big killer from what I hear is the overpressure (concusion) from the burst. And as Guysmiley said fusing has a huge impact on the kill radius of the weapon. Airburst being the most deadly. As far as numbers on the effective range with any type of employment I have none. Sorry.

The first Google hit on "blast radius" "mk-82" turns up this link: http://unsd.macrossroleplay.org/b52stratofortress.html

There's a list of weapons deployed by the B-52 along with some stats on each.

Salute!

Having dropped thousands of the Mk-82's, a few hundred Mk-81's and Mk-83's and a few dozen Mk-84's:

- Mk-82's with "instant" fuze are good for shrapnel, not much blast. We could drop one within 10 meters of a truck and it kept rolling on blown tires. Frags went out a few hundred meters, and I picked one up when following too close to my lead one day. Pissed off crewchief, but no bad damage - thing was size of a hot dog weiner

The fuze extender helped with the frags and was great for troops in the open - maybe 30-40 meter lethal radius.

We dropped on an AAA or artillery gun one day and had to have the gun within the crater to take it out. Figure 5 meters radius.

- The Mk-81 250's had about the same frag pattern as the 500 pound Mk-82. Not much blast, but good for bunhers if you got a 5 meter error.

- MK-83's had slightly more frag than Mk-82, but lots better blast.

- Mk-84 had great blast, but frags were,'t much more then Mk-82 or Mk-83. They were best used witjh small delays for hard tgts. The newer 2000 pounders with the penetrating design were lots better for hard tgts. I-2000 comes to mind, but that one is 20 years old.

Hope that helps

Gums sends ....

Thanks for the replies guys, this helps a lot. I'm helping make a mod for a game and I'm having some trouble finding some military sources the weapons that are going to be in it. This really does make life a lot simpler.

Gums wrote:- Mk-82's with "instant" fuze are good for shrapnel, not much blast. We could drop one within 10 meters of a truck and it kept rolling on blown tires. Frags went out a few hundred meters, and I picked one up when following too close to my lead one day. Pissed off crewchief, but no bad damage - thing was size of a hot dog weiner

The fuze extender helped with the frags and was great for troops in the open - maybe 30-40 meter lethal radius.

Hi Gums
So its a case of probability? You mentioned 30-40 metres for troops in the open but your aircraft got fragged further out. So troops/a soldier could be killed while a few hundred metres out but the chances are extremely low?

Obi