Cluster bombs effectively disperses millions of lethal fragments across war zones

Evidence

Let’s do the math. Each CBU-103 contains 202 bomblets, and each bomblet harbors 300 jagged pieces. In other words, a single cluster bomb can dispatch 63,600 potentially lethal pieces driven outward by the blast wave at ballistic speed. The destructive capacity of the molten cone and incendiary fragments amplifies this threat. … Viewed this way, the coalition’s use of 10,870 cluster bombs during the first phase of the 2003 Iraq War appears less restrained. Those bombs strewed 2 million bomblets across Iraqi cities, villages, deserts, and fields. According to Human Rights Watch, a minimum of 100,000 bomblets failed to explode on impact. Given that some American ground-launched cluster weapons had dud rates as high as 22 percent, the war’s final figure could be closer to a half million potentially live failures. The threat posed by each of those 100,000 to a half million live failures then needs to be multiplied by 300 jagged shards. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 678

Categorization

• XREF: The scaling arithmetic (10,870 bombs -> 100,000+ live bomblets) is exactly how Nixon turns accounting into an exposé of false restraint claims. — connects to: Counting cluster bombs as single weapons conceals their true dispersal scale — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 674; Dud cluster bomblets become de facto landmines that wreck civilian life — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 683; Cluster bombs are landmines under a cover pseudonym. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 703 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Dud cluster bomblets become de facto landmines that wreck civilian life #expands (0.92) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 683
• Cluster bombs are landmines under a cover pseudonym. #expands (0.85) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 703
• Landmines were stigmatized while equally lethal cluster bombs escaped scrutiny as smart weapons #corroborates (0.80) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 666