Some of the submunitions are on time fuzes, others are rigged for antidisturbance, like bulldozers trying to cjear damage. That can slow clearance efforts, usually for time to deliver follow-on strikes. Or, the other people can wait the timers out, then send in the EOD teams.
166 “little” bombs each, or almost 10,000 grenade-like messes?)
More like a 60mm mortar round. The submunitions in even a 3-generations ago Rockeye cluster bomb could kill a tank. And I know firsthand that the air-launched cruise missiles were something for tank crews to keep in mind.
A LITTLE CUT AND PASTE TIME LINE ..... just so Snowflakes, Presstitutes and Rand Paul don’t get they’re panties in a bunch.....
In the 1991 Gulf War, 288 Tomahawks were launched, 12 from submarines and 276 from surface ships.[29] The first salvo was fired by the Destroyer USS Paul F. Foster[30] on January 17, 1991. The attack submarines USS Pittsburgh and USS Louisville followed.
On 17 January 1993, 46 Tomahawks were fired at the Zafraniyah Nuclear Fabrication Facility outside Baghdad, in response to Iraq’s refusal to cooperate with UN disarmament inspectors. One missile crashed into the side of the Al Rasheed Hotel, killing two civilians.[31]
On 26 June 1993, 23 Tomahawks were fired at the Iraqi Intelligence Service’s command and control center.[32]
On 10 September 1995, the USS Normandy launched 13 Tomahawk missiles from the central Adriatic Sea against a key air defense radio relay tower in Bosnian Serb territory during Operation Deliberate Force.[33]
On 3 September 1996, 44 cruise missiles between UGM-109 and B-52 launched AGM-86s, were fired at air defence targets in Southern Iraq.[34][35]
On 20 August 1998, 79 Tomahawk missiles were fired simultaneously at two separate targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the bombings of American embassies by Al-Qaeda.[2]
On 16 December 1998, 415 Tomahawk missiles were fired at key Iraqi targets during Operation Desert Fox.[36]
In early 1999, 218 Tomahawk missiles were fired by US ships and a British submarine during Operation Allied Force against key targets in Serbia and Montenegro.[3]
In October 2001, approximately 50 Tomahawk missiles struck targets in Afghanistan in the opening hours of Operation Enduring Freedom.[4][37]
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, more than 802 Tomahawk missiles were fired at key Iraqi targets.[38]
On 3 March 2008, two Tomahawk missiles were fired at a target in Somalia by a US vessel during the Dobley airstrike, reportedly in an attempt to kill Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, an al Qaeda militant.[39][40]
On 17 December 2009, two Tomahawk missiles were fired at targets in Yemen.[41] One of the targets was hit by a TLAM-D missile. The target was described as an ‘alleged Al-Qaeda training camp’ in al-Ma’jalah in al-Mahfad a region of the Abyan governorate of Yemen. Amnesty International reported that 55 people were killed in the attack, including 41 civilians (21 children, 14 women, and six men). The US and Yemen governments refused to confirm or deny involvement, but diplomatic cables released as part of United States diplomatic cables leak later confirmed the missile was fired by a US Navy ship.[42]
On 19 March 2011, 124 Tomahawk missiles[43] were fired by U.S. and British forces (112 US, 12 British)[44] against at least 20 Libyan targets around Tripoli and Misrata.[45] As of 22 March 2011, 159 UGM-109 were fired by US and UK ships against Libyan targets.[46]
On 23 September 2014, 47 Tomahawk missiles were fired by the United States from the USS Arleigh Burke and USS Philippine Sea, which were operating from international waters in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, against ISIL targets in Syria in the vicinity of Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, Al-Hasakah and Abu Kamal,[47] and against Khorasan group targets in Syria west of Aleppo.[48]
On 13 October 2016 five Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched by USS Nitze at three radar sites in Yemen held by Houthi rebels in response to anti-ship missiles fired at US Navy ships the day before.[49]
On 6 April 2017, 59 Tomahawk missiles were launched from the USS Ross (DDG-71) and USS Porter (DDG-78), targeting Shayrat, a military airfield near Homs, in Syria. The strike was in retaliation for the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashir Al-Assad. Initial reports indicate that the Syrian airbase was ‘almost completely destroyed’ after the US strike[50]
As of 2015, the United States Navy has a stockpile of around 3,500 Tomahawk cruise missiles of all variants, with a combined worth of approximately US $2.6 billion.[51]