• Spzi@lemm.eeEnglish
    194·
    1 year ago

    Ukraine can use whatever they like in Ukraine. If Russians don’t like it, they can go back to Russia.

  • Snorf@reddthat.comEnglish
    173·
    1 year ago

    I don’t understand this whole cluster munitions move. It doesn’t look good for anyone involved. We should have just destroyed them and be done with it.

    • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
      102·
      1 year ago

      America has a stockpile of weapons they cannot sell to anyone and can’t really use anywhere, this is an opportunity to dispose of them in a relatively cheap manner.

      • variaatio@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, but the part I don’t get is Ukraine choosing to litter it’s country side and eastern cities with un-exploded submunitions. It will be massive and nasty clean up operation after wards. everyone time cluster munitions have been used anywhere it leads to both friendly fire and civilian casualties from lingering UXO submunitions.

        Like I absolutely get why USA is offering, what I don’t get is Ukraine accepting instead of demanding different kind of munitions. Hopefully they stuck them in “last resort reserve, if all else runs out” and then after war they just blow them up in big pile in some artillery range.

        • SpaceBar@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          Each bomblet inside the shells can be dropped by a drone. Ukrain is low on that type of munition as well.

        • Countess425@lemmy.worldEnglish
          51·
          1 year ago

          Russia’s mined the fuck out of the whole east and south of the country. Not just land mines, but little petal mines and crap all over the place. UXO/mine disposal is already going to take decades. Western Europe still explodes a handful of people with UXO leftover from WW1 and 2, but it was still worth supporting them with weapons to win those wars.

          Ukraine likely intends to crack open the cluster bombs and use the 80 or so individual munitions inside for dropping from drones. These weapons are basically an 80-for-1 deal the US has no use for, and the west can’t produce mutions fast enough to give or sell to Ukraine.

    • startlefrenzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      91·
      1 year ago

      I’m not saying I agree with using these either but I heard on TV that the reason cluster munitions were being provided is because those are readily available and the weapons needed by Ukraine can’t be met without them at this time.

      • zephyreks@lemmy.caEnglish
        11·
        1 year ago

        Why the fuck not? Is 800 billion dollars somehow not enough money to fight off an army that’s funded with less than a tenth of that?

          • zephyreks@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            China can pop up hospitals in days, apartments and factories in weeks, and entire cities in months. 800 billion is a shocking amount of money. You could literally buy out a mid-sized country (or, say, Ford) and tell them to dedicate their entire manufacturing capacity to ammunition.

  • SpaceBar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    They’re going to open a lot of the 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.

  • Sigma@lemmy.mlEnglish
    35·
    1 year ago

    “we wont use cluster bombs anymore…we wont use them any less either”