Chemical Sniffer Unit

[Bob Croce]

I'm putting this one here since I kind of started a thread on it in the AB-15 subject and did not want to hijack the thread.
My 151 has the holes on the dash and the fender for the unit and also has the Chemical Biological stencil on the side.
I have found the Fender bracket, dash bracket and the alarm unit. On G-503 in the 151 section is "IRON7" he has NOS fender and dash brackets. I can't remember where I got the alarm unit but it is NOS as well.
Now the search begins for the Sniffer unit itself, if I cannot find it, I'll try making a dummy.

Has anybody out there actually used one of these while in the service??

I also figured out you can't put the windshield down with the fender unit installed.

If anyone knows where a unit or pices of one are let me know. Thanks.

[k8icu]

I think your are going to have a hard time finding one. I am not even 80% sure on this, but I believe they had to be distroyed before they could be sold......or the government was cutting them up much like weapons.

I played with them when I was in the NBC Defense course, but that was about it. The problem is the unit was a contradiction. It was ment to detect chemicals and sound an alarm, but it used a little bit of uranium to make it work. So you can see how they aren't getting sold off wholesale. The things would go off if a jack rabbit pooped near them.

You might want to look in military collectors type webpages and magazines....maybe someone there will have one like Mr. D has that is basically the box and nothing else.

[mrdibbles]

Yep mine is gutted of all internals parts. At this point its only useful use would be as a small cooler The few I have seen around have been the same way. I have even been told there were instances that they were sold through DRMO though.

I have also read a lot of stories about these units in use in the field. They were a nightmare in the Persian Gulf way back when President Bush opened his first can.



When in use in the desert, with the dirt and smoke and stench of diesel fuel mucking everything up, these detectors were alerting like mad. This made them real PITAs for the users of them that would have to sport chemical gear, in the desert heat, each time the M42 Alarm blasted. The next generation of detectors, the one that came online in the late 90's, is much better at preventing false alarms. The new generation also detect a much broader band of chemicals. The M43A1 was limited there too. Plus... the heat of the desert reduced battery life of these units by nearly two-thirds so all the way around they were only of marginal success in that desert environment.

[k8icu]

What also happen and wasn't reported till some time later...like 10 years or so later is that during the air war we hit Sodam Insanes baby milk factories as he called them and sent very tiny particles of bad stuff into the wind....this is also what tripped the detectors but because as you said they went off like every half an hour and when testing was done by the NBC teams they couldn't find the evidents (because it was tiny particles) that a chemical attack had been lost it became like the boy who cried wolf and GIs stopped putting the mask on. This is what is believe to help cause gulf war syndrom. Not the only cause because of the thick smoke from burning oil wells etc that went on, but one of the contributing factors.