Salute!
Good poop from
Just this once
I dropped many Mk-81 and Mk-82 slicks in SEA with the 904 nose fuze and you can see more here, plus the delay element that
Mog talks about.
https://bulletpicker.com/nose_-impac...-m904e2_-.html
https://bulletpicker.com/delay-element_-m9.html
We also had tail fuzes that had a few millisecond delay element, and our nose fuze usually had an "instant" delay element. Normal arming was 4 seconds for slicks and 2 seconds for the snake eye high drag versions. Later in life, USAF got nervous and increased the standard arming delay time to 6 seconds.
My closest call in two combat tours was dropping a MK-82 along with a nape can I had selected without de-selecting the MK-82. FAC asked for the nape to hit a group he finally spotted running down a dike, and I was already setup for the slick. "O.K.", Gums says, "ya got it". Dropped down, rolled in and had a good drop with the nape down in the weeds. When going back to the slicks, the station switch was already selected. Sure enuf, I looked out on the wing and the bomb was gone. The 4 second delay had saved me, as it had not had time to arm. I would have been blown outta the sky with a 500 pounder going off a hundred feet below me ( 200 ft release in shallow dive, then 4 gees pull up).
Some units did not allow mixed loads, but the Huns and we slower A-1 and A-37 folks almost always carried mixed loads due to the missions, weather and terrain considerations. e.g. 2 x MK-82 slicks, 2 x big napes and 2 by Mk-81 or rocket pods or CBU. [Never ] Only carried mixed loads in the SLUF on second tour when flying Sandy or Hobo missions, and finally had chance to carry the huge MK-84 2,000 pounder on several missions.
Gums sends...