The weapon involved is the CBU-97 Sensor-Fused Weapon, which was designed to stop invading Soviet tank columns and was used a handful of times in the invasion of Iraq. It is a winged, unpowered canister that is designed to attack enemy vehicles by flying low over them and ejecting ten sub-munitions.

The sub-munitions each have small parachutes and infrared sensors that detect enemy vehicles and launch four small hockey puck shaped charges that explode immediately above the top of their targets. In effect, with a single CBU-97, a large area can be attacked so as to destroy most or all of enemy vehicle targets in an area of about fifteen acres.

So, what is so bad about the CBU-97? Cluster bombs are controversial because the Soviets used to drop them on Afghan civilians, often with the small bomblets made to look like toys so as to attack children. Otherwise, made to be hard to detect, the Soviet bomblets acted like small mines and could linger for years so as to make Afghan trails and agricultural fields too dangerous to use.

The CBU-97 is not such a weapon, but in reputation it suffers from the controversy over cluster bombs. And yes, I see little reason not to supply it to Ukraine. In effect, the Ukrainians could use them to clear large swaths of the battle space of Russian tanks and other fighting vehicles.

[–] EpicFailGuy@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Uniquitous

@Brunbrun6766 @EvilCartyen

Source? I was under the impression that our cluster munitions came with a timed fuse where they would self destruct if they didn't find a target after a certain amount of time.

[–] Uniquitous@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

I think if you check the wikipedia page or just google for CBU-97 you'll find a wealth of info. More than I can summarize here, but it's far from being a dumb bomb on a timer.

[–] SpaceCadet2000@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

That goes for any unexploded ordnance, we are still cleaning up regular unexploded shells from World War 1 more than 100 years after the fact and every now and then it still claims a victim.

It sucks, but you have to offset that against the benefit. The longer the Russians occupy parts of Ukraine, the more atrocities they are able to commit against civilians (cf. Bucha, Irpin, Izium, Kherson,...). Also when people talk about the civilian casualties, they always forget that the bulk of the Ukrainian soldiers were civilians just over a year ago, and they would love nothing more than to return to a peaceful civilian life. Their lives are valuable as well and should be protected too.

If cluster munitions helps them to get rid of the Russians faster and with a lot less casualties, it is a trade off we should make.