M139 bomblet

A spherical chemical cluster munition, the M134, had been developed for the Honest John rocket but not deployed, owing to a variety of problems.

[1] This "spin-to-arm" type fuze required between 1,000 and 2,000 rotations per minute to arm, which made handling the bomblets simpler because they were insensitive to normal movements.

In 1967 there were two series of tests which sought to learn the effects of sarin dropped in the bomblets over two different types of forest environment.

[3] Conducted in Hawaii, the purpose of the tests was to ascertain the effect of sarin-filled M139s being dropped and disseminated over a canopy of rain forest.

[4] The purpose of these tests was to determine the effectiveness of sarin-filled M139 and BLU-19/B23 bomblets when dropped from a SADEYE dispenser in a summer forest environment.