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| Mark 65 General-Purpose (GP) Bomb | |
|---|---|
| Type | Low-drag general-purpose bomb |
| Place of origin | United States |
| Production history | |
| Designed | 1939 |
| Produced | 1939 |
The Mark 65 one thousand-pound (450 kg) general-purpose bomb was developed for the U.S. military in 1939. The designation was AN-M65.
The M65 design was specialized to contain a higher portion of explosive weight in a lighter casing. Up until this period a typical general-purpose bomb was 50% casing weight and 50% explosive material. The AN series of designs used a lighter-weight higher-strength steel casing with the goal of having up to 65% of the finished bomb weight be explosive material. [1] [2] [3]
The Mark 65 entered production in 1939 and was used extensively in World War II and the Korean War. As more bombing roles were shifted to light jet aircraft that carried bombs externally rather than inside an internal bomb bay, the shape of bomb casings was studied. In the early 1950s this research caused production to shift from the AN series bombs to the Mark 80 series streamlined designs still in use today.
During the height of the American bombing campaign in Vietnam during 1967, the Mark 80 series bombs were being used faster than they were being manufactured, leading to a shortage in the Mark 83 one thousand-pound bomb that had replaced the Mark 65 in naval service. To fill the shortage until new Mark 83 bombs could be delivered, the U.S. Navy used the remaining Mark 65 bombs it had left over from the Korean War. An indeterminate number of these stored Mark 65 weapons were used until the supply was exhausted.
This weapon was involved in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire, which killed 134 sailors and injured 161.
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The Mark 84 or BLU-117 is an American general-purpose bomb. It is the largest of the Mark 80 series of weapons. Entering service during the Vietnam War, it became a commonly used US heavy unguided bomb to be dropped. At the time, it was the third largest bomb by weight in the US inventory behind the 15,000-pound (6,800 kg) BLU-82 "Daisy Cutter" and the 3,000-pound (1,400 kg) M118 "demolition" bomb. It is currently sixth in size due to the addition of the 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) GBU-28 in 1991, the 22,600 lb (10,300 kg) GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) in 2003, and the 30,000 lb (14,000 kg) Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
The Mark 83 is part of the Mark 80 series of low-drag general-purpose bombs in United States service.
The Mark 82(Mk82) is an unguided, low-drag general-purpose bomb, part of the United States Mark 80 series. The explosive filling is usually tritonal, though other compositions have sometimes been used.
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