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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a cluster bomb?
What is the difference between a landmine and a cluster bomb?
What is the problem with cluster bombs?
How prevalent are cluster bombs and how much have they been used?
How are cluster bombs cleared?
How wide an area does a cluster bomb cover?
Aren't cluster bombs banned?
What is the military utility of cluster bombs?

What is a cluster bomb?

Unexploded cluster bombs on Iraqi farm

A cluster bomb is a small explosive submunition or bomblet that is delivered to its target in a large canister or shell. Cluster bombs can be delivered by air-launched systems (as bombs from aircraft), by ground-based artillery systems, by multiple launch rocket systems, or missile based systems (such as cruise missiles).

Cluster bombs have anti-personnel fragmentation features which can send hundreds of shards of steel at ballistic speeds over a wide area, or shaped charges which can penetrate heavy armor. Many of the cluster bomb canisters carry hundreds of bomblets. A drop of several canisters can easily create kill zones of a square kilometer or greater in size.

A working definition of cluster weapons could be as follows: Cluster warheads or other devices with many bomblets which act through the ejection of a great number of small-calibred fragments or pellets, including combined effects and dual purpose munitions.

For more details, see the following websites:
Independent Television Service: Description of cluster bombs Independent Television Service: Description of a one-hour documentary on the use of cluster munitions in Laos USA Today: Stories from the US use of cluster munitions in Iraq, as well as good descriptions and graphics of how cluster munitions look and work.

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What is the difference between a landmine and a cluster bomb?

Cluster strike area on Iraqi farm

The primary difference between cluster bombs and landmines is in their design. Cluster bombs or munitions are designed to explode when they hit the ground or an enemy target, so that their effect is felt at the time of their delivery. Landmines are designed to explode when a person steps on them or comes near them. By design, their effects may be felt many months or years after their placement, depending on when a person comes in contact with the landmine.

Cluster munitions that fail to explode on impact, however, are very similar in effect to landmines. Since failure rates for cluster munitions are often in the 10%-30% range, most cluster munition strikes create the actual effect of a minefield.

A significant difference between landmines and cluster munitions is their explosive power. Cluster munitions are generally more powerful than landmines and are designed to kill rather than injure or maim.

Another difference is that since cluster munitions are dropped from the air, fired from artillery or rocket launcher, it is difficult to mark the area where they have landed. While some landmines can also be launched, many are placed by hand and can be mapped more easily. In combat conditions, of course, the rules of marking mine fields are not always followed. In the case of cluster munitions, however, they are not marked during the conflict and are often difficult to find and mark after the conflict is over.

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What is the problem with cluster bombs?

Nyia Nhing, Nong Oh Village, Laos lost two of her grandchildren to a cluster bomb accident in 1999

In a word, cluster bombs are indiscriminate. They cannot distinguish between civilian and military targets. Their wide-area coverage and poor targeting mechanisms nearly guarantee that unintended victims will die or be injured, even when the weapons function as designed.

Secondly, cluster munitions continue to kill long after a war ends because these weapons often fail to explode on contact as designed. Lao villagers continue to die today, more than 30 years after the last cluster bombs fell on their soil.

Failure or dud rates are often in the 10%-15% range, but may be as high as 30%. While the term “dud” suggests deactivation, in reality many duds remain armed and dangerous. These highly lethal munitions may explode when bumped, moved, or touched, frequently killing more than one person because of their wide fragmentation patterns. Like landmines, cluster munitions must be located and destroyed one by one, a costly and time-consuming process.

The high failure rates of these weapons, coupled with the fact that they are small and numerous, make them particularly problematic. Some dispensers contain over 600 bomblets, and a salvo of twelve rockets from a Multiple Launch Rocket System would pepper a wide area with over 7,000 bomblets in a matter of minutes.

For a description of the recent use of cluster munitions in Lebanon and the problems that have ensued, see:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/25/bombs.lebanon.ap/ http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24468429.htm

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How prevalent are cluster bombs and how much have they been used?

BLU-24 bomblets in Northern Laos, 1995

More than 210 different types of cluster bombs have been produced by at least 34 states. 75 states currently stockpile the weapons, and they have been utilized in more than 20 countries.¹² The primary users of cluster bombs have been the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Israel. The global stockpile of cluster bomb submunitions totals approximately 4 billion, with a quarter of these in U.S. hands.¹³

See Cluster Munition Coalition website for an interactive map of cluster bomb users, producers, stockpilers, and affected states.

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How are cluster bombs cleared?

Yellow BLU-97 cluster bomblet exposed by clearance team in Iraqi field

The first step to clearing cluster bombs is to collect information. Usually this includes obtaining records (like maps) from the country that dropped the bombs, interviews with the local people and soldiers who were in the area.1 Once the information is gathered, surveyors use the information and either mark the actual unexploded ordnance (uxo) with paint, hang up signs or tell people not to enter the area.

Manual Clearance

Deminers use metal detectors to find cluster bombs or munitions that are buried in the ground, then probe the ground with a metal rod to locate the exact spot. Deminers then carefully brush away the earth to determine whether or not there is a piece of ordnance or mine in the ground.2 Many times they find only a piece of metal, but each signal must be treated as if it were a live piece of ordnance. This makes clearance work very slow and tedious.

Demining Dogs³

Mine dogs have proven much more effective in demining efforts than conventional machinery. “It takes a day to clear just two square metres by manual detection but just minutes by mine dog,” Shahzada, team leader of the Mine Detection Dog Centre (MDDC) in Afghanistan said.⁴

Metal detectors, as the name suggests, can only detect metal fragments in the ground; some ERW are made of plastic though. "We train these dogs to sense explosives no matter if it is in a metallic or plastic container. They are very efficient and cost effective," stated Shah Wali Ayubi, MDDC operations manager. "We have some areas where dogs are very suitable for demining. For example, dogs are very efficient at clearing roads.”⁵

A Dangerous Task

After one of the above methods is used to survey and mark the area contaminated with cluster bombs, deminers are ready to destroy the UXO. It is important to note that deminers do not normally move cluster munitions, as it is far too dangerous. Instead they destroy the cluster munition or bomblet with explosives in the place where it is found if at all possible. Before the bomblet is destroyed, the immediate area must be cleared of people so that no one is injured by the flying shrapnel.

There is no magic box that can destroy unexploded bombs at the push of a button. Different clearance technologies are used to deal with different ordnance and different types of conditions. In summary, clearance work is expensive, slow, and dangerous.

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How wide an area does a cluster bomb cover?

Fragment of a BLU-97 cluster bomb found in Iraqi field

The footprint of a cluster bomb is the area covered by the bomblets or submunitions when they hit the ground. The size of the footprint is determined by a variety of factors, including design, altitude from which the dispenser is dropped, altitude at which the dispenser opens, the dispenser spin rate, wind, and slope of the ground on which the bomblets fall. Given the many variables which determine footprint size, it is not surprising that reported cluster bomb footprint sizes also vary.

William Arkin notes that "a medium to high-altitude delivery will generally result in submunitions covering an area 400 X 800 ft., or roughly 125 meters by 250 meters." The Asian Defence Journal estimates the footprint from a high spin dispenser to be 90 meters by 110 meters.

Testimony by Major General Charles Wald of the U.S. Department of Defense sets the footprint for the CBU-87 cluster bomb at approximately 200 meters by 400 meters.

When an MCC worker visited with deminers working in Kosovo, the deminers routinely referred to a cluster bomb strike area as covering a square kilometer. Cluster bomb strike areas often involve several cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs that are fired from Multiple Launch Rocket Systems also cover a wide area. Again, estimates on the size of the actual footprint vary depending on the specifics of the situation. A single M-270 launcher can deliver 12 rockets, covering an area of 30-60 acres in one minute with more than 7,700 individual bomblets.

Since cluster bomblets explode into tiny fragments of flying metal, the actual area of danger from a cluster bomb strike extends beyond the perimeter created by the falling bomblets.

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Aren't cluster bombs banned?

Lao bomb removal team clears the site of a future teacher's training school, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos

There is no international treaty which specifically and clearly bans the use of cluster munitions. In 1976 thirteen nations called for a ban on anti-personnel cluster weapons. The call for a ban focused on the immediate effects of cluster weapons during war time. It recognized the problems with their indiscriminate nature, wide-area coverage, and their tendency to inflict severe injuries necessitating long-term medical care. This call for a ban did not receive wide support and cluster bombs have been used in many conflicts since the failed effort to ban them in 1976 (see FAQ 4).

Some observers believe that international humanitarian law, which has established the principle of discrimination (discrimination between military targets and the civilian population) does in fact prohibit the use of cluster munitions. However most governments insist that cluster munitions are not inherently indiscriminate in their design, but only fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians if they are improperly used or do not function properly.

Most government discussions on cluster munitions have taken place in the context of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). The CCW is an international forum for discussions on the conduct of war, under the auspices of the UN. Conversations within the CCW have tended to focus on technical adjustments to reduce the failure rate, international assistance for clearance of cluster munitions and other remnants of war, and assistance to victims. Most governments are reluctant to consider a ban on cluster munitions.

In response to this reluctance, Norway organized a forum separate from the CCW in hopes of realizing a treaty banning cluster bombs by 2008. The first meeting of the so-called Oslo Process was held in Norway from February 22-23, 2007. In Oslo, 46 states pledged to create a legally binding treaty by 2008 which would prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions. It would also provide for victim assistance, clearance, risk education, and stockpile destruction. 67 states participated in a subsequent meeting held in Lima, Peru from May 22-25, 2007. The next meeting is scheduled for December in Vienna.

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What is the military utility of cluster bombs?

A B-1B Lancer releases cluster bombs during testing.

Defenders of the use of cluster bombs point to several advantages. They proved particularly attractive to U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. U.S. planes undergoing bombing missions were increasingly put at risk by surface-to-air missiles as well as anti-aircraft artillery. Thus, accurately destroying military targets with unitary bombs became much more dangerous as this required more passes at lower altitudes to ensure that a target was hit.⁷ Cluster weapons, with their ability to disperse large numbers of submunitions over a wide area, prove safer for pilots who can fly fewer missions at higher altitudes.

The wide dispersion of cluster bombs make them effective area weapons ideal for use against spread out or moving targets without one precise location.⁸ “You can take out an entire military unit (of either personnel or vehicles) with cluster bombs” says Jack Spencer, senior defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation.⁹ Analysts argue that this characteristic of cluster munitions could potentially shorten conflicts and reduce casualties by reducing the likelihood that ground forces will need to be deployed.¹⁰

Another advantage of cluster bombs is their ability to destroy many different types of targets. This includes both anti-personnel and anti-armor capabilities, but has also expanded to include specialized uses such as the CBU-94/B anti-electrical cluster bomb used by the U.S. in Kosovo. Submunitions send up to 300 pieces of razor-sharp shrapnel in all directions upon explosion, with a blast radius of 125 to 250 feet (depending upon height of detonation). This effectively kills or maims all humans and can damage light armor and trucks within this blast radius. However, it also includes a shaped charged which is capable of penetrating up to 5 inches of heavy armor.¹¹