Britain gets rid of Cluster Bombs

[Torpedo Fodder]

Seems some people here have reading comprehension problems: If you read the article carefully, you'll note that Britain is not getting rid of all it's cluster bombs, just the ones that lack self-destruct timers, a fact that (as the article also notes) the anti-landmine peacenik crowd is not happy about, since they want all cluster bombs banned.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Torpedo Fodder

Seems some people here have reading comprehension problems: If you read the article carefully, you'll note that Britain is not getting rid of all it's cluster bombs, just the ones that lack self-destruct timers, a fact that (as the article also notes) the anti-landmine peacenik crowd is not happy about, since they want all cluster bombs banned.

At least one of us looks past the headline - Britain bans 'dumb' cluster bombs

I sure didn't

-S

[bookworm_020]

Australia removed custer bombs from their stockpile awhile back. It also came up during the 2003 Gulf War where Australia refused to escort American aircraft if they were carrying cluster bombs. Australia was a member of the anit-mine pact agreement.

I understand the usefulness of the bombs, and agree with what Britain is doing by getting rid of the dumb cluster weapons. Haveing timers to detonate leftover cluster orderance is smart as it reduces the risk to civilians as well as your own troop who will most likley try and occupy the place where you droped the weapons.

Your going to have duds despite the best effots of all. I just hope the weapons never have to be used for real.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

I wonder how well this "smart" crap is gonna even work. If the bomblet had really been working, it should have exploded before it hit the ground. The ones that did not have malfunctioning detonators, so how are they going to detonate themselves after a set time...

[Heibges]

That just means more stuff for Tankers to kill!

Hoo'ah!

The M1 is the perfect instrument for destroying waves of enemy armor.

[Letum]

I hope someone invents a cluster bomb with a detonation percentage above 99%.
Currently its less than 84% often that means over 400 unexploded bomb-lets, which are a real pain for both civilians and our own bomb disposal squads.
A 1% or lower failure rate would persuade me to support cluster bombs fully.

I am totally against cluster bombs that act on "booby trap" fuses that only go off when tampered with.

[fatty]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

I wonder how well this "smart" crap is gonna even work. If the bomblet had really been working, it should have exploded before it hit the ground. The ones that did not have malfunctioning detonators, so how are they going to detonate themselves after a set time...

Good point. How can we expect a bomblet to explode when we want if it already failed to do that in the first place?

[Torpedo Fodder]

Originally Posted by fatty

Good point. How can we expect a bomblet to explode when we want if it already failed to do that in the first place?

There are many reasons a contact detonatror could fail to detonate the bomblet on impact without it being defective, such as if it lands in loose dirt or soft mud. Just because it failed to detonate on impact doesn't mean a self-destruct would fail to destroy it.