Focus:IHL - Cluster Bombs

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IHL - Cluster Bombs

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Cluster munitions are dispensed by a variety of delivery systems, including cluster bombs droppped from aircraft, artillery shells fired from howitzers (long-range artillery guns) or they can be spread over wide areas by artillery projectile rockets. Cluster Bomb Units (CBU) are equipped with several hundred smaller cluster munitions, also called "bomblets" or submunitions. At a preset altitude the cluster bomb opens to release its deadly cargo. Alternatively, they can also be equipped with landmines.

Whether deployed by means of artillery rockets, howitzers or mortars, enormous amounts of munitions are fired indiscriminately within minutes over a large area. A salvo from the Multiple Launch Rocket System, for example, disperses almost 8.000 cluster munitions over an area of up to a square kilometre the same area as 200 football pitches.

According to military designs, cluster munitions are intended to be used against various targets. They are intended for "soft targets", as it is called in military jargon, meaning that they are for killling people, as well as destroying artillery positions, air fields and non-armoured vehicles.

Cited from a report of Actiongroup Landmine.de