Cluster bomb: a legendary and prohibited weapon. Cluster munitions: what are they and what is the problem?

For several years now, the cluster bomb has been a prohibited weapon in more than a hundred countries around the world. At one of the world conferences in Dublin, diplomats from many states approved a preliminary agreement on a complete ban and disposal of this type of weapon.

The project called for stopping existing production and destroying all cluster bombs from arsenals around the world. According to the discussion and signed documentation, all existing reserves were to be destroyed within 8 years. However, the agreement of political representatives was never fully implemented. Today it is possible to create improved bombs. According to the plan, they will have a smaller radius of destruction and will not pose a threat to civilians.

The cluster bomb is one of the favorite types of weapons in the United States, Russia and China, so these countries oppose an international agreement on complete disposal and a halt to current production. This is not surprising, because these powers are the owners of the largest and most powerful specimens.

A cluster bomb is a fairly massive shell that is launched from the air and explodes over the target, scattering all its destructive elements over long distances. This is precisely what served as the fundamental factor for the production ban: the radius of destruction was too large. Very often, its use destroyed not only the target itself, but also nearby objects. There are known cases where some elements

When they fell to the ground, they did not burst. But they retain their fighting abilities for several years.

The cluster bomb contains various types ammunition, many small mines and fragments. Large quantity small-caliber filling is divided into three main types. The main mass is allocated to fragmentation elements equipped with instantaneous fuses. Their use is aimed at destroying cars, any types of equipment or structures.

But this is only a small internal content of the shell. The cluster bomb is equipped with a shaped charge that burns through armor up to 300 mm. Considering that many combat vehicles have fairly little protection, then the mentioned type of weapon is capable of destroying entire columns of infantry equipment, even if they are well armored. In this case, all living things around die, and the equipment fails.

The uniqueness of cluster bombs lies in the fact that they not only have instantaneous charges, but also mine-type fragmentation ammunition. By dropping such shells into an open area, the military mines the object in a matter of minutes. They are usually used for transport and air routes to cut off the path of advancement.

The installation differs not only in power and internal composition, but also in the method of use. The general design is divided into non-releasable and ejectable unguided bombs.

As exciting as the history of cluster devices may sound, this type of weapon is a threat. Due to the large radius of action, not only the intended target is endangered, but also the civilian population.

Subject of the ban: conventional ammunition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions, each of which weighs less than 20 kg and includes these explosive submunitions (except illumination, smoke, pyrotechnics, chaff, ammunition solely for air defense purposes, to produce electrical or electronic effects , as well as self-aiming, homing and equipped with self-destruction and self-deactivation mechanisms).

Main prohibiting document:Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Cluster Munitions and on Their Destruction (Dublin, 2008)

Ratified by states (as of January 2012):107

The first who thought of “fragmenting” the destructive effect in space were not military men at all, but hunters who were faced with the task of hitting small-sized, high-speed targets - ducks or snipe. They take off and leave the affected area too quickly to be able to accurately aim, calculate the lead and hit the target with a bullet. But if you replace one large bullet with several dozen small ones (buckshot, shot), then errors in aiming are compensated by a much wider affected area. So the shotgun can be considered a forerunner cluster weapons.

"Molotov's Bread Box" The Soviet cluster bomb, which disperses 60 incendiary bombs using centrifugal force, was used during the Soviet-Finnish War. Since Molotov stated that the USSR was not bombing Finland, but was delivering food to the starving, the Finns began to call these bombs “Molotov’s bread bins.”

Grandfather of cassettes

However, the military quickly introduced this principle into fighting. When shooting at close ranges, instead of one cannonball, many small ones (buckshot) were put into the cannon. Cannonballs, and later shells, began to be filled with explosives, which created many fragments that hit enemy personnel (it is quite difficult to hit a soldier or even a horse with a solid cannonball). The direct ancestors of cluster weapons were shrapnel shells, which were a hollow shell filled with dozens or even hundreds of round bullets.

When the projectile approached the target on the downward part of the trajectory, the ejector was triggered powder charge, shrapnel bullets flew forward in a diverging beam. The effect of shrapnel on infantry was so effective that at the beginning of the 20th century, Russian artillery completely abandoned all types of shells for field guns, except for shrapnel. Later, segmental incendiary shells, the filling of which consisted of separate segments incendiary substance equipped with ignition devices. When such a projectile exploded, the segments scattered to the sides and caught fire, forming many small fires. Such shells can rightfully be called cluster munitions.

Trouble from Heaven

The Germans are considered the founders of real cluster weapons. Already in the 1939 campaign, Luftwaffe pilots began to use several types of cluster bombs against Polish infantry and cavalry. For example, the AB 250−3, which had the appearance of a conventional 250-kilogram aerial bomb, was equipped with 108 small-sized SD-2 fragmentation bombs equipped with a propeller parachute, which reduced the rate of descent and ensured their dispersion over an area of ​​several hundred square meters after opening the cassette.

The bombs received the romantic name Schmetterling (“Butterfly”), since when the propeller wings rotated, the flight of the SD-2 resembled the fluttering of a butterfly. Depending on the fuse, the bomb exploded in the air or when it hit the ground 5-30 minutes after it fell, or even was an anti-personnel fragmentation mine. The effectiveness of such cluster bombs against infantry was much higher than the explosion of even one 250-kilogram bomb: the radius of the affected area increased from 30 to 300 m, tenfold!

Cluster bombs were used during the Second World War world war not only against people, but also against tanks. It is only possible for a tank to be hit by a bomb by accident, and Soviet designers created small-sized cumulative anti-tank bombs PTAB-2.5−1.5. A KMB-type cassette contained 68 of these 1.3-kilogram bombs. This dramatically increased the effectiveness of bombing strikes against tank columns.

The effectiveness of cluster munitions has made them wide application and after World War II - in Korea and later in Vietnam. IN Korean War The Americans first began to use the same German Schmetterling, giving them their designation AN M83, then they developed their own cluster bombs, for example SUU-31/B, which were filled with several dozen BLU 26/B submunitions, which received characteristic shape nickname "Guava".

The size of an apple, they had walls made of light alloy, into which 300 steel 5.5-mm balls were fused, which dramatically increased the destructive capabilities of such a bomb. In 1974, one UN military observer in Egypt wrote about such weapons: “Imagine a container the size of an overhead fuel tank, filled with several hundred bombs, each the size of a tennis ball. When such a “ball” explodes, the target literally turns into a sieve.”

Smart shrapnel

Attempts to combine the simple principle of "cassettes" and homing have led to the creation of cluster munitions with homing or self-aiming submunitions, such as the American CBU-97/CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon anti-tank cluster system containing ten submunitions, each containing four homing warheads. And not only in the form of bombs, but even howitzer shells - the American M898 SADARM (Sense and Destroy ARMor), the German SMArt 155, the Swedish-French BONUS have a caliber of 155 mm and each contain two self-aiming combat elements equipped with a microwave radar and IR sensors.

The CBU-97 SFW (Sensor Fuzed Weapon) consists of a 440-kilogram SUU-66/B cassette, which contains ten BLU-108/B submunitions. Each submunition is a missile, inside which, in addition to rocket engine four warheads were stowed - small-sized cumulative projectiles with infrared homing heads. CBU-97 SFW is an unmanaged aerial bomb, designed for drop from low heights. The CBU-105 SWF is a glide guided bomb equipped with a WCMD (Wind Compensated Munitions Dispenser) tail section. The WCMD is controlled by signals from an inertial navigation system, which allows cluster bombs to be dropped from high altitudes, reducing the risk to carrier aircraft.

When approaching a target, the projectiles open and release two self-aiming elements, which, descending by parachute from a height of several hundred meters, rotate and search for targets using their sensors. At an altitude of 100-150 m, each of them selects a target and hits it from above with a shock core. The probability of being hit and destroyed is very high - in particular, during tests in the late 1990s, 15 German SMArt 155 shells (that is, 30 self-aiming elements) hit 20 targets simulating armored vehicles.

The warhead hits the tank in the roof using a shock core formed by the explosion.

The self-aiming elements of the Russian 500-kilogram RBK-500 cluster bomb, equipped with 15 SPBE-K homing anti-tank combat elements, work in a similar way. The submunition, descending by parachute, rotates and scans the area with a homing head (GOS). As soon as the target is detected, the ammunition makes one or two more revolutions, analyzing the received data, and then explodes and hits the tank from above with a shock core. As the developers from NPO Basalt assure, one cassette practically guarantees the destruction of six tanks.

Cluster munitions are very effective in destroying manpower or equipment in large areas regardless of the type of warhead - fragmentation, high-explosive, armor-piercing or even poisonous. The warhead of the MGR-1 Honest John unguided tactical missile with a range of 23/46 km (depending on modification) could be not only nuclear, but also cassette. Each of the 356 M134 submunitions (or 330 M139 submunitions) contained approximately 600 g of sarin. The container opened at an altitude of about 1.5 km, and the submunitions were scattered over an area with a diameter of about 1 km, saturating the air with a toxic substance. Cluster bombs, packed with small munitions that disperse over a target, are many times more effective than a single bomb with the same amount of explosive.

Anti-cassette policy

The high efficiency of cluster munitions, especially anti-personnel munitions, proven in many local wars of the late 20th century beginning of the XXI century, prompted designers to further improve this type of weapon. But the success of cluster weapons also gave rise to an anti-cassette political movement. In May 2008, the Convention on Cluster Munitions came into being, which is now believed to be signed by more than 93 countries. However, this number does not include the largest militarily countries - the United States, Russia and China.

However, this convention itself is just as declarative, legally helpless and technically illiterate as the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines, and also leaves a lot of loopholes for countries wishing to circumvent it.

But back in the 1920s, the Italian general Giulio Douhet, widely known for his concept of war, aptly remarked: “It would be childish to indulge in the illusion: all restrictions, all international agreements, which can be installed in peacetime, will be swept away like dry leaves by the winds of war... Military means cannot be classified as civilized or barbaric. The war will be barbaric, but the means that are used in it can be distinguished only by their effectiveness ... "

Anti-fighter cluster bomb CL-3, Fray-Tech Corporation

Mounted on the outer hull of Mon Calamari Star Cruisers, Nebulon-B escort frigates, and other New Republic vessels cluster bombs effectively hit fighters at close range. Unlike turbolasers and laser cannons, which can only destroy one TIE fighter at a time, cluster bombs can destroy multiple ships at once. Like Diamond Boron missiles, they are most effective against enemy ship formations.

A cluster bomb (also known as a cluster trap) consists of a simple metal blister that blends smoothly into the hull of the carrier ship. The cluster bombs carried on Mon Calamari Star Cruisers appear identical to the dozens of egg-shaped emplacements and sensor blister arrays that encircle the hulls of these ships. For use on more angular ships such as Nebulon-B class frigates and Corellian corvettes, cluster bombs are typically given a square shape and can be disguised as regular cargo airlocks or sensor clusters. Some cluster bombs are designed with decoy generators that emit radiation identical to that produced by active sensor complexes. These signals misinform TIE fighters, encouraging them to attack seemingly tempting and helpless targets.

When activated by the ship's combat crew, the cluster bomb's short-range sensor module continuously scans its immediate surroundings in order to detect the transponder codes of enemy ships. Depending on the software settings, the cluster bomb can be activated after detecting any number of ships within the blast radius ranging from one to six. (Combat crews typically monitor the activity of their cluster bombs and have the ability to send an emergency all clear signal to prevent the bomb from detonating if New Republic ships are close enough to be harmed by the explosion.)

When the bomb detonates, the explosive charges and bomb accelerator release shrapnel into the surrounding area, as well as dozens of magnetized proton and impact grenades. As a result, a cloud of fragments and explosives is formed, reaching more than a hundred meters in diameter. The grenades are equipped with magnetic plates that target any nearby ship and often trigger chain reactions that can turn the surrounding area into an explosive zone for all moving objects for several minutes.

New Republic ships broadcast warning signals to all friendly fighters, and most pilots memorize the location of these blisters to avoid being caught in the deadly explosions.

Explosive silencers protect the bomb-carrying ship at the time of initial detonation, and grenade explosions are not powerful enough to damage the armored plating of a heavy warship. The jammers are equipped with removable panels, allowing the maintenance team to install new cluster bombs on the ship's hull in less than ten minutes.

Since shock grenades do not have computer systems control or guidance, they are simply directed to the nearest ship. Therefore, cluster bombs have proven to be most effective in battles in which enemy ships are vastly outnumbered by New Republic ships, making it much less likely that flying grenades will hit friendly fighters.

Anti-fighter cluster bomb CL-3, Fray-Tech Corporation

Mounted on the outer hulls of Mon Calamari Star Cruisers, Nebulon-B escort frigates, and other New Republic vessels, cluster bombs are effective at striking fighters at close range. Unlike turbolasers and laser cannons, which can only destroy one TIE fighter at a time, cluster bombs can destroy multiple ships at once. Like Diamond Boron missiles, they are most effective against enemy ship formations.

A cluster bomb (also known as a cluster trap) consists of a simple metal blister that blends smoothly into the hull of the carrier ship. The cluster bombs carried on Mon Calamari Star Cruisers appear identical to the dozens of egg-shaped emplacements and sensor blister arrays that encircle the hulls of these ships. For use on more angular ships, such as Nebulon-B class frigates and Corellian corvettes, cluster bombs are usually given a square shape and are disguised as regular cargo airlocks or sensor clusters. The design of some cluster bombs includes decoy generators that emit radiation identical to that produced by active sensor complexes. These signals misinform TIE fighters, encouraging them to attack seemingly tempting and helpless targets.

When activated by the ship's combat crew, the cluster bomb's short-range sensor module continuously scans its immediate surroundings in order to detect the transponder codes of enemy ships. Given the dependence on software settings, the cluster bomb can be activated after detecting any number of ships within the explosion radius ranging from one to six. (Combat crews typically monitor the activity of their cluster bombs and have the ability to send an emergency all clear signal to prevent the bomb from detonating in the event that New Republic ships are close enough to be damaged by the explosion.)

When the bomb detonates, the explosive charges and bomb accelerator release shrapnel into the surrounding area, as well as dozens of magnetized proton and impact grenades. As a result, a cloud of fragments and explosives is formed, reaching more than a hundred meters in diameter. The grenades are equipped with magnetic plates that are aimed at any ship located nearby and often trigger chain reactions that can turn the surrounding space into an explosive zone for all moving objects for several minutes.

New Republic ships broadcast warning signals to all friendly fighters, and most pilots memorize the location of these blisters to avoid being caught in the deadly explosions.

Explosive suppressors protect the bomb-carrying ship during the initial detonation, and grenade explosions are not powerful enough to damage the armored plating of a heavy warship. The jammers are equipped with removable panels, allowing the maintenance team to install new cluster bombs on the ship's hull in less than ten minutes.

Since shock grenades do not have computer control or guidance systems, they are simply aimed at the nearest ship. For this reason, cluster bombs have proven to be most effective in battles where enemy ships are vastly outnumbered by New Republic ships, making it much less likely that flying grenades will hit friendly fighters.

Representatives of Georgia admitted that during the aggression against South Ossetia The Georgian side used cluster munitions, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a statement by a representative of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch.

Cluster munitions are cassette casings, inside of which are placed many (tens to hundreds) of small ammunition (bombs, mines) of small caliber. These small caliber munitions are called cluster munitions. According to their purpose, combat elements can be of three types:

1) fragmentation with instantaneous fuses to destroy convoys of vehicles, parked aircraft, oil storage facilities, etc.;

2) anti-tank (cumulative) to destroy tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other armored targets (their armor penetration is up to 300 mm);

3) fragmentation with mine-type fuses for mining airfields, port facilities, railway stations, etc.

By design A distinction is made between non-resettable cassette installations and resettable uncontrolled cassettes.

Cassette units have a streamlined shape and are suspended from the outside aircraft. The ammunition is fired from them using pyrotechnic charges through tubular guides when the carrier aircraft flies over the target.
The dropped cassettes are made in the form of conventional aerial bombs. The ammunition is released from them after a specified time has elapsed after the cassette is separated from the aircraft.

The procedure for using a cluster bomb is as follows. After the carrier is dropped from the aircraft, a braking parachute is pulled out of the cassette, thanks to which it is slowed down and stabilized in horizontal flight. Then, in a certain sequence, bombs are thrown out (each of them also has a braking device, which ensures that it falls along a trajectory close to vertical, and, therefore, has a greater destructive effect). Cluster weapon elements disperse, “covering” large territory and hitting many targets. Some cluster munitions can scatter up to 650 explosive shells over an area exceeding 30 thousand square meters.

These projectiles are highly inaccurate and often fail to explode upon impact with the ground. Unexploded weapons may have an additional fuse that turns them into anti-personnel mines, causing death and injury to civilians.

After use, cluster munitions can remain in an unexploded state for a long time and spontaneously explode.

One of the most inhumane and cruel types of cluster munitions is the so-called “ball bombs”. Such bombs were used for the first time American troops in Vietnam, and then they began to be used by other countries.

The latest achievement of military thought is cluster bombs filled with combat elements in the form of needles or plastic balls. Such “fragments” are poorly visible even on X-rays, which makes it difficult medical care wounded. Such ball and needle bombs are prohibited by the 1980 UN Convention.

Cluster munitions are in service with the armies of many countries and have been used more than once in military conflicts: in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The UN estimates that Israel dropped more than four million of these bombs in southern Lebanon during the armed conflict in 2006.

According to the UN, the most common victims of unexploded mines that were packaged in cluster bombs are civilians and especially children.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources