Each bomblet weighs only a few pounds, and may be designed to fragment for anti-personnel use, to detonate armor-piercing shaped charge warheads for use against vehicles, or carry an incendiary payload designed to start fires. They are released by dispensers built into a larger cargo munition. The mini-bombs in cluster munition are known as submunitions, bomblets, or grenades. The lineage of modern cluster weapons can be traced back to various aerial gravity bombs employed in World War II by Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United States against both battlefield and civilian targets. That said, it’s true that wealthier militaries have been able to phase out use of cluster weapons by relying instead on more expensive precision guided weapons. And reportedly, White House analysts believe that they would be a boost to Ukraine’s military. While some critics of cluster weapons argue that they are of “limited military utility”, that view is often not held by actual operators of these weapons. Why Deadly Cluster Weapons Top Ukraine’s Wishlist.Other items in the package include Patriot, Stinger and AIM-7 anti-aircraft missiles, 31 155-millimeter howitzers, 32 each Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles (sufficient to equip two battalions), TOW and Javelin anti-tank missiles, 37 tactical recovery vehicles, air-to-surface precision weapons, equipment for sappers, Penguin long-range surveillance drones, and unitary 155 and 105 millimeter artillery shells and HIMARS rockets. The unspecified quantity will “almost certainly over 100,000 DPICMs” according to Politico’s Paul McLeary. will furnish 155-millimeter DPICM artillery rounds from the Pentagon’s own stocks compatible with Ukraine’s diverse inventory of Western-supplied howitzers. White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan announced on Friday afternoon plans to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions-bombs or shells that release a hail of mini-bombs over a large area-as part of an $800 million military aid package, after resisting requests from Ukraine that started back in September 2022.
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