Mark 118 bomb

The M118 is an air-dropped general-purpose or demolition bomb used by United States military forces. It dates back to the time of the Korean War of the early 1950s. Although it has a nominal weight of Template:Convert, its actual weight, depending on fuse and retardation options, is somewhat higher. A typical non-retarded configuration has a total weight of Template:Convert with an explosive content of Template:Convert of tritonal. This is a much higher percentage than in the more recent American Mark 80 series bombs thus the designation as a demolition bomb.Template:Citation needed

In the late 1950s through the early 1970s it was a standard aircraft weapon, carried by the F-100 Super Sabre, F-111 Aardvark, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief, and F-4 Phantom. Some apparently remain in the USAF inventory, although they are rarely used today.

It was a component of the GBU-9/B version of the Rockwell electro-optically guided Homing Bomb System (HOBOS). This weapon consisted of an M118 fitted with a KMU-390/B guidance kit with an image contrast seeker, strakes and cruciform tail fins to guide the bomb to its target.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was also used in the Texas Instruments Paveway series of laser-guided bombs as the GBU-11 when it was fitted with the KMU-388 seeker head,<ref name=":0" /> MAU-157 Computer Control Group and the MXU-602 Airfoil Group. This latter consisted of four fixed cruciform fins and four moveable canards to control the bomb's trajectory. It was also fitted with an AIM-9B Sidewinder infra-red seeker and an AGM-45 Shrike nose cone during 1967 tests at the Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake, possibly in an attempt to create an infra-red guided bomb.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This was called the Bombwinder.

15 of these M118 Paveway Is were evaluated between 15 October to 9 November 1969.<ref name=":0" />

References

• Arsenal of Democracy II, Tom Gervasi, Template:ISBN
• webpage on the HOBOS
• webpage on the Paveway I family of laser-guided bombs