Talk:MGR-1 Honest John

Warhead Photo Date? Should be deleted?
The photo of the Honest John sarin warhead in the main article is dated circa 1960. But if you go to the file page for that picture, it states in two places that the photo is dated 1943 - which is well before the Honest John program. 67.181.60.83 (talk) 07:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The photo should be deleted, because there is no evidence that the Photo shows an actual chemical-warhead. The Clusterbomb in the warhead looklike conventional BLU-61A-B. Does some one have any evidence which suports the claim that this picture shows what the Picture-text sugests. Besides in the libary of congres photo database is no photo of a MGR-1 Honest John missile. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.127.128.194 (talk) 02:35, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

The image is poorly described in the photo source, but a good published source says it is a Honest John demonstration warhead from around 1960:

This image is used as Fig. 2-53 (page 59) in Smart, Jeffery K., Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare: Chapter 2 - History of Chemical and Biological Warfare: An American Perspective, Textbooks of Military Medicine, Borden Institute, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base where it is described as:
 * Fig. 2-53. A chemical warhead for the Honest John rocket. It was designed to break apart and disperse the spherical bomblets of nerve agent. Photograph: Chemical and Biological Defense Command Historical Research and Response Team, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

The text referencing this image states:
 * For middle-range tactical support, the Chemical Corps standardized the M79 sarin warhead for the 762-mm Honest John rocket in 1960 (Figure 2-53). The rocket had a range of 16 miles, and the warhead held 356 M134 4.5-in. spherical bomblets, each containing about 1 lb of sarin. A smaller warhead was standardized in 1964 for the 318-mm Little John rocket, which held 52 of the improved M139 4.5-in. spherical bomblets, each holding 1.3 lb of sarin (Figure 2-54).

I've added this info to the image description on commons. Note this info says the bomblet is a M134, seemingly a same sized earlier version of the M139. Rwendland (talk) 12:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The photo does appear to have some credence. The M190 chemical warhead and its M421 timer fuze for Honest John is described in some detail in a declassified US Army Maintenance Manual Chapters 1 & 2. It appears from the manual that these gas warheads were deployed with frontline troops. Although the manual itself isn't proof of that
 * A scanned copy of the manual is uploaded at:
 * The relevant parts are at
 * Chapter 1: pages 6, 9, 10, 26 (Gas barrier membrane bag used for transportation)
 * Chapter 2: pages 3, 14, 47, 48, 49 (timer fuze setting), 70.
 * George.Hutchinson (talk) 16:31, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Infobox?
The appropriate infobox for this article is Infobox Weapon. -MBK004 06:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Survivors?
"Survivors"? How about "Surviving Examples"? Really, in this day and age the former makes it sound like a program of attrition was carried out against an innocent group of living organisms. I am not sure if this is a quirk of language separation, ie. British vs. American English.100.4.62.213 (talk) 14:10, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

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Was the range actually 38km? Clarification required.
See the following video (Source US Army) which states a range of 38 km for the MGR-1B rather than the 24.8 km listed in the info box.

Youtube 9nIGNezTQH8 at t=245 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsmatthews (talk • contribs) 23:34, 15 May 2018 (UTC)