Lazy Dog (bomb)

The Lazy Dog (sometimes called a Red Dot Bomb or Yellow Dog Bomb) was a type of small, unguided kinetic projectile used by the U.S. Air Force. It measured about in length, in diameter, and weighed about . The weapons were designed to be dropped from an aircraft. They contained no explosive charge but as they fell they would develop significant kinetic energy making them lethal and able to easily penetrate soft cover such as jungle canopy, several inches of sand, or light armor. Lazy Dog munitions were simple and relatively cheap; they could be dropped in huge numbers in a single pass. Though their effects were often no more deadly than other projectiles, they did not leave unexploded ordnance (UXO) that could be active years after a conflict ended. Lazy Dog projectiles were used primarily during the Korean and the Vietnam Wars. Lazy Dog munitions had precursors in air-dropped flechettes dating from World War I. These flechettes were used as anti-personnel weapons, in Zeppelin raids carried out by the German Navy Airship L4. Lazy Dogs in their familiar form were descended from projectiles of almost identical design and appearance that were originally developed early in World War II (as early as 1941). The Korean War–era and Vietnam War–era "Lazy Dog" was further developed, tested and deployed into the 1950s and 1960s. Originally an Armament Laboratory program codenamed Lazy Dog, the weapon's development involved Delco Products Corporation, F&F Mold and Die Works, Inc., Haines Designed Products, and Master Vibrator Company of Dayton. The project objective was to design and test free-fall missiles and their dispensing units for use in bombers and fighters. Lazy Dog anti-personnel missiles were designed to spray enemy troops with small projectiles with three times the force of standard air-burst bombs. The Armament Laboratory worked with the Flight Test Laboratory to conduct wind tunnel tests of a number of bomb shapes which design studies indicated to be the most efficient for storage and release from high performance aircraft.