New bombs used in Vietnam

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32802, 30 December 1971, Page 12

New bombs used in Vietnam

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright)

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 28.

A relatively new bomb, which kills everything within a radius of 3280 feet, is being used by the United States Air Force in South-East Asia, two scientists say, the Associated Press reported.

Dr E. W. Pfeiffer, a zoologist at the University of Montana, and Dr Arthur Westing, biology department chairman at Windham College in Putney, Vermont, claim that the bomb was developed for “the-instant creation of clearings in dense jungle which can be used as landing zones for assault helicopters.” The scientists, who visited South Vietnam last northern summer, said they had learned the weapon had been used as an anti-personnel weapon, a fact confirmed by a high official in the United States Embassy in Saigon. They said they were told by the Air Force the bomb was used two or three times a week.

In Washington a Pentagon spokesman said that the bomb had been used for some time and there had been no secret about it. The bomb’s concussion effects serve to knock down trees and other growth which otherwise would require “the insertion of personnel and equipment prior to helicoptor assault,” he said.

The two scientists presented their report on the bomb yesterday in a paper entitled “impact of modem weaponry development on the human environment in Indo-China.” The paper was read at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s 138th annual meeting.

They said that they visited Vietnam in August on a mission for the Scientists Institute for Public Information, a group based in New York whose president is the anthropologist, Margaret Mead. Hie weapon is designated the Blue 828 general purpose high explosive concussion

bomb, 4.5 ft in diameter, over lift long and ’ weighing 15,0001 b. Within a thin steel case are 12,6001 b of a dense

blasting agent made up of amonium nitrate, aluminium powder and a binding agent, the scientists say. The two men said they learned the bomb had been used in Laos and Cambodia, as well as South Vietnam, and added that it was used to cut enemy roads in mountainous areas by creating landslides.

The bomb is detonated just above the ground, simultaneously at both ends to create a radial concussion, which leaves no crater but blows away all trees and other obstructions even in heavy jungle to create a clearing about the size of a football field, they said. “We were told that light aircraft flying more than two miles from the explosion are badly shaken by shock waves,” they said.