US rejects ban on cluster bombs

Commy wrote:

so you seem to know a bit about this...let me ask you a question that's been bothering me for a while now.


How come the cluster canisters are yellow cans, and the food rations that the US distributes also happen to come in these similarly packaged containers? Was that just a fuckup on the design or what? little kids can't tell the difference...shit i probably couldn't.

And it seems fairly obvious that if task forces have been created to clear UXO's that they are indeed a problem in Iraq. Not to mention a problem in a another dozen or so countries the US has been involved in.

I seem to, because it was my job.

Yeah task forces following the ground war and through the first occupation. Check the date on that story.

The cluster bombs we use are distributed via plane, or MLRS. There called Blu42's. They are green in color. All explosive military munitions are green in color. Blue signifies a training aid, and I've never seen anything yellow before.

http://www.big-ordnance.com/subs/BLU42B_mine3.JPG.psd.jpg

And I thought we drop yellow rubber mre bags filled with food.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/29/ret.bomb.warnings/story.aid.jpg

Collin wrote:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cbu87_31.jpg
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu97-3.jpg

Neat, I've never seen those before, probably because they're being phased out due to their high rate of dud factors.

The only kind of cluster ammunition I ever saw in Iraq, were the Blu-42's. Which can be nasty if they don't go off. And it did seem like there was a bunch of them, but probably cause we fired a ton of them.

But a small green bomblet in no way looks like an MRE bag. I can see the Blu-97's but not the 42's. And considering I didn't personally see one old school cluster bomb the entire year I was there, I wouldn't say it's a problem in Baghdad. They're used for tank columns and vehicle motorpools, so I'm sure there was a ton of these things used in the southern and northern deserts.

Atleast we're making an effort.

"The United States military has recognized that the high failure rate of its existing stockpile of cluster munitions poses unacceptable risks to both U.S. forces and civilian populations. Efforts are underway to improve the reliability of newly produced cluster munitions. As a result of a new policy decision in 2001, weapons with submunitions produced after 2005 are required to be 99 percent reliable.23 A contract was awarded in February 2003 to manufacture 500,000 self-destruct fuzes for M915 105mm DPICM artillery projectiles.24 Funds to remanufacture and retrofit 24,345 M864 155mm DPICM projectiles with self-destruct fuzes were requested in the fiscal year 2004-2005 ammunition procurement budget request.25 Plans to produce a new generation of MLRS rockets with self-destruct fuzes for submunitions are also being developed.26"

sourdough wrote:

I think the US is also one of the only countries remaining to also outlaw landmines.

Here's the thing with landmines. We are supposedly only using Anti-Tank land mines. We haven't used anti-personell for a long time.

The three main personally surface laid mines the military uses are the M15, M19, M21.The 21 takes 290 pounds of pressure to go off. The others a little more.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/atm.htm


I weigh 230 pounds, add a 50 pound pack, 12 pound weapon, body armor and other miscellaneous shit and I'm easily at the 300 mark.

The only time I know of that we use surface laid Anti-personell mines are through a MOPMS. It's like a big suitcase that explodes shooting mines everywhere. 4 of the mines it shoots out are Anti-Personnell.

http://ccsweb.pica.army.mil/1networked/mopms.htm

I am not a fan of buried land mines, AT or AP. They cause problems for decades, and fuck everybody up. I'm actually trying to organize one of these, "night of a thousand dinners" thing.

http://www.landmines.org/

angelica wrote:

They are extremely effective? I guess if you are targetting non-combatants, apparently.

"A recent report by Handicap International claimed that 98 percent of casualties from cluster munitions are non-combatants."

I would very much like to read that report Angelica. Could you please provide a link?

We shouldn't ban them, we should make them more effective. And as of 2005, we have.

During the first gulf, some Iraqi army guys got on an open net and begged us to "Stop the Rain of Metal". They then quickly surrendered.

Goes to show how this stuff works psychologically too.

angelica wrote:

I got the quote from the last line in the initial article linked in this thread. If that report is correct, something that is 2% effective for combatants, and 98% for non-combatants, well those are VERY poor numbers.

Okay.

So the 98% is the percentage of civilians who die are the ones who encounter the bomblets as Unexploded Ordnance.

For a second I thought the initial firing of the weapon itself.

So if we tighten the effectiveness of the bomblets to destroy upon impact, less UXO. And less UXO means less civilian casualties in the long run.

So as of 2005, we have to have a 99% effectiveness rating. That's pretty good. And it's a great step forward.

And seriously, that really was our top mission in Iraq once the ground war ended and everything settled, was finding, collecting and destroying those things.

Here's a cool pic of an MLRS firing a rocket. I got a buddy who left the engineers to go do this stuff.

http://www.enemyforces.com/artillery/mlrs_2.jpg

angelica wrote:

Can you please clarify as to what you mean by this.

No problem.

So lets say we fire a rocket that shoots out 10000 bomblets.

At least 9900 of those bomblets now HAVE to go off.

So a maximum number of POSSIBLE UXO is 100 or less.

Whereas before if a rocket fired 10000 bomblets, 710 weren't detonating. That's the percentage of the old system of those yellow Blu-97's I've never seen before were doing.

angelica wrote:

Thank-you for the clarification sapperskunk. This is what I'm getting. Apparently cluster bombs are effective under such situations:

"These munitions spread their contents over a large field, with a radius of up to 600 m. They can destroy broad targets like airfields and surface-to-air missile sites. They are also effective against targets that move or do not have precise locations, such as enemy troops or vehicles."

if a rocket fires 10 000 bomblets, and the target is an airfield or surface-to-air missile site, or a broad area containing say, 50 moving targets, the bomblets that do detonate, whether it's 80% or 99% will still only kill/destroy the limited fixed expected target. For example the airfield. Or 50 moving targets. What is detonated can only kill/destroy the projected enemy target that is there in that moment.

And the unexploded ordnance that are left, whether 710 or 100 will STILL kill virtually 100% if not exactly 100% civilians as easily as being disturbed or touched. edit: this virtual 100% of victims could equal 20 people or 500 people. We cannot know. What we do know is that cluster bombs have a disturbing potential lethal legacy to innocent human beings that seems disturbingly disproportionate to the initial purpose.

the left over du munitions posion everybody around...they don't need to pick it up or think it's a ration, they just have to be in the area

"Even limited information on casualties during strikes indicates that many cluster submunitions casualties were civilians. Cluster munitions are wide-surface weapons, contaminating more than the military target; they were used indiscriminately in high quantities, as in Lao; they were often used near civilian areas, as in Afghanistan; and they sometimes explicitly targeted civilian areas, as in Chechnya."

"In some areas of Iraq, cluster submunitions casualities represent between 75 and 80 percent of all casualties."

November 2006 report, Handicap International

angelica wrote:

Thank-you for the clarification sapperskunk. This is what I'm getting. Apparently cluster bombs are effective under such situations:

"These munitions spread their contents over a large field, with a radius of up to 600 m. They can destroy broad targets like airfields and surface-to-air missile sites. They are also effective against targets that move or do not have precise locations, such as enemy troops or vehicles."

if a rocket fires 10 000 bomblets, and the target is an airfield or surface-to-air missile site, or a broad area containing say, 50 moving targets, the bomblets that do detonate, whether it's 80% or 99% will still only kill/destroy the limited fixed expected target. For example the airfield. Or 50 moving targets. What is detonated can only kill/destroy the projected enemy target that is there in that moment.

And the unexploded ordnance that are left, whether 710 or 100 will STILL kill virtually 100% if not exactly 100% civilians as easily as being disturbed or touched. edit: this virtual 100% of victims could equal 20 people or 500 people. We cannot know. What we do know is that cluster bombs have a disturbing potential lethal legacy to innocent human beings that seems disturbingly disproportionate to the initial purpose.

That's good.

So you see what I mean when I say it's extremely effective in the combative stage?

The problem lies with the latter part of the equation. UXO and land mine awareness is taught all the time to local nationals and the military makes a great effort to collect and destroy any munitions whether it be ours or someone elses in a combat zone.

angelica wrote:

It might also be extremely effective to kill an entire gymnasium full of school children in order to eliminate the one perpetrator hiding among them. However we must take into consideration the big picture, or we are being irresponsible. To me, killing a large percentage of civilians as fallout makes this choice specifically and absolutely not 'good'.

You HAVE to give me more credit than this.

I would never advocate the killing ONE child to kill an entire gymnasium full of insurgents.

YOU have to look at the big picture also. This weapon is flawed; yes. But we have made great strides to lower that DUD rate and work to get to those UXO's before the civilian population does.

Pre-2005 I would give it a thumbs down. Today, a thumbs up.