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Ukraine: Widespread Use of Cluster Munitions (2014)
- PaulHoule 5y agoIt's hard to overestimate the effectiveness of cluster munitions. One of the heroes of the first gulf war was this artillery shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-Purpose_Improved_Conventional_Munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-Purpose_Improved_Conventi... which doubles or triples the kill radius of artillery. Combine that with GPS precision and you can usually destroy a target with 1 shell which would have taken 7 or 8 shells in WWII. You might imagine that technology would have made the US army even more lethal for the second gulf war but that was not the case because advanced weapons like that were being phased out and only used in a limited role. The US is not against cluster munitions per se but for a long time it found it unacceptable to have even a 1% dud rate because submunitions that fail to explode can create a landmine hazard that goes on for years: http://www.the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2020/united-states/cluster-munition-ban-policy.aspx http://www.the-monitor.org/en-gb/reports/2020/united-states/...