From One Bomb, A Swarm of Tank Killers

ABC/GlobalSecurity ^ | Apr 4, 2003 | Ned Potter

[Diddley]

If any Iraqi soldiers had looked up at the right moment, they would only have seen the contrail of a B-52.

The crew of that plane, we are told, dropped what looked like a fairly standard 1,000-pound bomb. But this particular one, dubbed the CBU-105, is seeing its first action ever in combat, and according to the U.S. Air Force, it is especially deadly.

"It's a fearsome weapon," said John Pike, the head of globalsecurity.org and an ABC NEWS consultant. "If an armored convoy is moving down a road, an attack by this cluster bomb unit would basically stop that armored assault in its tracks."

Dividing and Dividing Again
As the bomb falls, it splits open in midair — and releases 10 smaller units, each of which descends under a small white parachute.

As they approach the ground, those units split as well, each one ejecting four armor-piercing explosives. The result, say sources: one bomb drop causes 40 explosions, spread out over 15 acres or more.

The CBU-105 is a heat-seeking weapon. Its sensors look for engines of tanks, personnel carriers and other sources of high temperature. As the bombs descend, they can be steered by small fins, to get closer to their targets, and to counteract the force of the wind. The bombs are less sophisticated than weapons guided by satellites or lasers, but analysts say they can do a lot more damage.

"With a cluster bomb like this," says Pike, "a single B-52 can destroy an entire armored division, whereas in the past you had to send out dozens of airplanes that might have to drop hundreds of bombs to achieve the same effect."

[Timesink]

Holy crap!

[Maximum Leader]

We've only used six so far, hope we're saving some for North Korea.

[tubebender]

AWEsome BUMP...

[Spruce]

Wow!

[Diddley]

The result, say sources: one bomb drop causes 40 explosions, spread out over 15 acres or more.

15 acres! That's a lot of ground.

[oceanview]

this must have been what was used to destroy that 200 tank column that colonel hunt said (on oreilly) was headed to re-enforce the Medina division.

[Diddley]

Thanks for the pictures and specs.

Man! Those pictures make its awesomenss so apparent.

[Diddley]

My god! that enlarged picture tells me that "they" don't have a chance. (Good).

[Rollee]

Cool! Death from Above!!!

[Aerohawk]

The press was whining about this bomb this morning at the Centcom briefing. One reporter wanted to know how using a bomb like this could be part of our humane bombing campaign of precise weapons.

[tomahawk]

This bomb would work nicely on Syrian armor.

[MississippiMan]

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Fox shows a video clip of this , it looks deadly.

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[Diddley]

[13]- . . . how using a bomb like this could be part of our humane bombing campaign of precise weapons. .

One way that it is “humane” is that when other tyrants see it, they will - hopefully – be persuaded not to mess with us, thus saving countless lives.

[Diddley]

They don't have a chance in that hell.

[flashbunny]

This is one time I'm proud to say "Your tax dollars at work".

[gcruse]

The humanitarian critics have few qualms about these because there are no unexploded bomblets left over, whereas hundreds of unexploded bomblets are still having to be cleaned up where they were used in the past and remain a special threat to children who pick them up.

This article says at the end that results of use of the CBU105 are not in yet, but I recall reading the other day where it did, indeed, take out an Iraqi column.