Should the US give Ukraine cluster munitions?

[msc545]

Ukraine is seeking cluster munitions, which are known to cause grievous injuries to civilians, as its ammunition supply runs low.

Yes, give them the bombc

No, do not give them the bombs.

Updates

+1 y

More than 100 nations have signed a 15-year-old treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, which rain down smaller bombs that scatter across the landscape. The weapons, which are meant to explode when they hit the ground, have caused thousands of deaths and injuries, often among children who have picked up duds that failed to go off in the initial attacks, only to explode long after a conflict is over.

Updates

+1 y

The longer the US keeps supplying Ukraine with weapons and ammunition of all sorts, the richer companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon get.

That is really the US motivation for supplying Ukraine. The rest is just propaganda.

[OddBeMe]

I don’t know much about them. I expect they’re for carpet bombing, which I do see as a war crime. So perhaps not. But I would have to think the joint chiefs and military aren’t handing over nukes and shit to a new nation using volunteer armies…hopefully not.

[exitseven]

When Trump gets re elected he will stop the war in 24 hours. All he has to do is cut the funding and Zalensky waves the white flag the next day

[msc545]

Don't hold your breath waiting for this. Trump is not going to get re-elected. He lost the last election and if he happens to run in this one he will lose this one too.

[exitseven]

He is ahead in all the polls and the democrats are trying everything they can think of to prevent him from running. I think he has a good shot at it.

[msc545]

Bet me

[exitseven]

If Trump wins you have to shave your head. If Biden wins I have to shave your head

[msc545]

I already shave my head

[exitseven]

Okay. I want to shave your cat.

[msc545]

NO!!!

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO😎

[Lliam]

It would be just like the U. S. to give cluster munitions to Ukraine to kill even more civilians.
Ukraine was already dropping petal mines all over Donbas in exclusively civilian populated areas before 2022.

[RealMarek]

No. Same with depleted uranium munitions. These weapons will not change the outcome of the war and will harm civilians for decades.

[KrakenAttackin]

The hundreds of thousands of land mines the Orcs have laid will be a serious problem.

[RealMarek]

@KrakenAttackin There is no innocent party in this war, and contrary to what our government (and globalist elite backed groups like Human Rights Watch) claims the Ukrainians have violated more of the conventions meant to protect civilians than the Russians. Both sides laid hundreds of thousands of mines. Minefields, unlike cluster munitiions, are typically mapped. The Ukrainians distance mined (delivered via artillery) downtown Donetsk with petal mines for no other purpose than to kill and maim civilians. This goes unreported in the West or, if reported, the media often suggest the Russians are attacking their own ethnic Russian civilians, which is absurd.

[KrakenAttackin]

@RealMarek. No question both parties have done terrible things, but that is core to war.

[RealMarek]

@KrakenAttackin They had a deal signed early in the war (Ukraine would have implemented the Minsk2 agreement and stayed out of NATO, but would have kept the Donbas) and Biden ordered Ukraine to renege on the agreement. Regrettable. It didn’t have to come to this.

[Drewtate]

They only cause civilian casualties in built up cities. On open battlefields like in the Ukraine they cause military casualties.

[msc545]

yes, except these damn things have a 10-20% dud rate, and these "duds" will be killing children that pick them up for years to come. This is still happening in Vietnam and Cambodia 50 years later in cities and in rural areas.

[BoopBoopBeep]

I'm not saying we should or we shouldn't, because I don't know how they're being used/if they're needed/the best tool for the job.

Just for clarity's sake however, modern US cluster munitions dont work like that. They are only a threat for a few hours up to a couple weeks before rendering themselves inert, and because they're detonated by battery not mechanical detonation, in about two weeks the battery will be dead and you can toss them around like a football without them going off.

Here's the non-classified info on various types of them:
en.wikipedia.org/.../Remote_Anti-Armor_Mine_System
en.wikipedia.org/.../Area_denial_artillery_munition
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Scatterable_Mines

The old GATOR mines from the Gulf War are pretty much reserved for museums now. Just kidding there, but no, that's like fighting with an old M60 tank. I've been with non-zero quantity of units that have used cluster munitions and nobody's ever talked about dropping GATORs

[msc545]

Thanks. That's important information. I wonder if the US keeps stocks of the old kind around just because they can and now they're planning to dispose of them?

[BoopBoopBeep]

That part I couldn't tell you. I left the conventional army some time ago. Back then we'd always just go out and burn up old stuff on a really fun range day, but not sure if that's something that'd still be going on now a days. On the less conventional side we didn't really store a lot of old stuff, as there was always new stuff coming in. We'd just get rid of old stuff by blowing it up. I'd be surprised if GATORs even existed anymore outside of onesies and twosies sitting in the back of a bunker somewhere that just never got pulled out for demil/destruction/reclamation.

[msc545]

I hope you're correct and that none of the old ones are in storage. I wouldn't put it past a government to ship the old ones and charge for them if they could.

[Drewtate]

The US military is getting rid and replacing all its cold war era equipment and munitions.

[BoopBoopBeep]

It's hard to keep a buncha DRMO-ready munitions around combat arms privates or SOF. Pretty much less paperwork to go use it on a range than it is to get it demil'ed, and commanders are more than happy to get it off their property books. I mean you can't actually take ordinance to DRMO for disposal, but you get the drift. Just call it a training exercise and have fun.

Unless a warehouse of granpa's shiz finally "got found" i can't imagine we'd have all that much of that dinosaur stuff sitting around that's even compatible with modern launchers, but it'd probably take an actual arty guy to say for certain.

[Drewtate]

@BoopBoopBeep a lot bombs from ww2 Vietnam war were given a new lease on life when they were turned into laser guided smart bombs, it was very cost effective. The M1 Abrahams is from the cold war, there are 4000 in storage alone. Vast fields of decommissioned and stockpiled aircraft, everything from f15s, f16s to F4 Phantoms that can be made ready to fight in 48hours. The m16/M4 with all the 5.56 rounds are being replaced completely along with the M240 & SAW machine guns with the new M7/M250 with the 6.8mm rounds. The Humvee is also being replaced. Virtually everything designed or built in the cold war is going.

[BoopBoopBeep]

@drewtate
Respectfully, I understand everything gets replaced. I did 7 tours downrange. There's also a big difference in the M1 Abrams of 1995 and today. You woulnd't want to battle the new ones with the old ones. Same as Caymans and strykers. I'm not sure I get your point though. There's a big difference in stockpiled vehicles and munitions. You have any idea how many MK19 rounds we dumped at the last range just so we didn't have to pack them up and bring them back? All the same, nobody's talking about vehicles we're talking about GATOR rounds that haven't been used since the first gulf war because they're dinosaur crap that we a) had to get the AF to drop so that takes longer and b) had to MICLIC once we realized they couldn't take the desert heat.

I can't burn off gen one Abrams (no explosive reactive armor even) at the range. 11 series joe's will shoot/blow up a lot of stuff before they hoof it back somewhere.

There is no "excess" on a SOF range.

[Drewtate]

@BoopBoopBeep @BoopBoopBeep point is everything including the M1 Abrahams that was designed and built in cold war is going, to be replaced or updated. I'm sure there was a big difference between an m60 Patton and from the 1960s and one that took part in the Gulf war..
The fact that you can shoot off MK19 rounds rather than take them back to base shows how vast the US military stockpiles are, no other military would dream of doing that.
America is still the Arsenal of democracy. So you can expect new tanks and new weapons systems on it, I know they are talking about maybe keeping the Abrahams and upgrading its armor and gun and putting in a new power unit that's maybe a hybrid for fuel efficiency.

[BoopBoopBeep]

@drewtate
Tracking now. Tango mike.

[goaded]

No, there's a reason they're banned, and they'd be using them on their own soil.

[KrakenAttackin]

No, fuck Ukraine.

[KrakenAttackin]

Also, cluster bombs aren't that much worse than anything else. These weapons are good against soft targets.

[KrakenAttackin]

The Russians have mined the living fuck out of Ukraine, which is something that will have to be dealt with for a couple of generations.

[gorydetails]

Don’t give Ukraine anything. Not our problem.