this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Copying my comment from a different conversation
They're going to open a lot of the cluster bomb shells and use the armour piercing shapped bomblets as drone munitions.
US cluster bombs have 88 bomblets inside each shell. They also have a 1% to 3% dud rate on the bomblets, so that's 2 to 3 duds per shell. Duds that turn into landmines. Use 10 shells on an area and you've suddenly laid 30 mines in that area. Mines that you have no idea where they're placed.
So Ukrain can't use the cluster bombs on any area they intend to occupy or traverse. They can't use them on trench lines, they can't use them on fields they would need to drive over.
I believe they will be used, but a lot of them will used for drone ammunition.
3% is miniscule compared to the 40% reported for the Russian munitions. Given the quantity of DPICMs and their far lower dud rate, it's basically just an accounting error at that point.
It's also a false equivalence to compare DPICM vs no DPICM -- the longer the war drags on, the more low-grade munitions will be used from deeper stockpiles which will inevitably have a substantially higher dud rate.
I have no problem with Ukraine using the cluster munitions, I'm just pointing out that 5 shells will lay an area with 15 duds turned into landmines. Ukraine will be careful where they use them.
They also can and will use some for drone bombs.