Forum: Air Power

Habu2's post is a graphic example of the difference between a FAE and today's MK77 Firebomb.

A USMC F-18 Driver posted this on the ACIG Forum today. EP

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MK-77 on a U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C ...

mk-77 pic1

mk-77 pic2

mk-77 pic3

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I want to see what happened to the house!

A bit of a technical question guys:

Why did the U.S. military in RVN use tumbling cannisters for napalm, why not use fin stabilized type cannisters. IIRC, a tumbling napalm will need multiple fusses to detonate it while the other would only require one, since it stabilized by fins.

Maybe one of our weapons troops or Vietnam veteran friends may be able to answer this one, but I believe the old nape canisters exploded with an impact-initiated fuel ignitor, and a combination of gravity and kinetic energy.

The tumbling helped spread the napalm over a wider area.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

Guys

If I can chime in here, and Gums your going to have to help me on this one.

On day we were tasked to escort a C-130 that was going to clear a Helo pad northeast of Bien Hoa. Now how the hell does a 130 clear a site????? But our was not to question why so off we go.

We met the 130 at the preplanned point fell into a loose formation with him at about 10 grand and off we went. At the IP we spread out to about 1000 feet and watched as the rear ramps opened, a very large chute deploy and drag out a HUGE cannister (about 6 or 8 feet in diameter and about 10 feet long) with a 6 foot spike on its nose.

Down it goes towards the sprawling jungle gentlely in the breeze. When it doesn't explode right after it penetrates the thick jungle cover below we figure its a dud and prepare to exit the area. About 30 seconds later we see, hear, and feel (at 10,000 feet) an explosion the likes of which we never witnessed before. When the smoke cleared there was a good size Helo pad able to support three or four choppers at the same time. It just shredded everything in the immediate area and send out an overpressure wave they really rocked the little A-37 around a bit. THis was our first exposure to a new type of FAE which I was told weighed in at 10,000 pounds and named "Fat Albert" (I think--- GUMS am I right on the name???)

The Snake

You are correct Snake! That would be the BLU-82, aka, "Fat Albert", aka "Daisy Cutter". A very, very mean weapon. Twisted Evil

A buddy of mine works with a unit near Gums's neck of the woods that drops the Daisy Cutters out of, surprisingly enough, one of the very same Hercs which you saw. They are some of the oldest Hercs still flying, but are constantly being upgraded with a lot of spooky stuff we can't discuss here. Shocked

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

Salute!

Two things 'fore I hit the rack.

1) Snake saw the really big Fat Albert. First and only one I saw was tested on one of the Tropic Moon A-1's who were at Bien Hoa for a few weeks.

Sucker looked like some giant "toy rocket" or sumpin'. Large tube with a cone on top.

We later found out it was one of the first FAE doofers.

2) The finned nape was good for getting down thru trees, and it also worked very well from the higher speed jets. in the SLUF, the computer had decent ballistics for it, and we could drop very high and further away and still be accurate.

Trouble with finned nape was the small pattern compared to the unfinned, tumbling BLU-27 and BLU-1C.

Let's face it, the stuff was great for troops in the open or for fragile structures. Very good for instilling fear, but not really good for most else. We saw gomers shooting outta the smoke just econds after the fire went over the gun pit. Hold your breath and duck. My brother-in-law was a grunt and repeated the same observation.

out,

Forum: Air Power

Nape Runs