Much of the world says they're immoral. So why is Ukraine so keen on cluster bombs?
12 July 2023
Featured in CBC
Cluster munitions
Jack Watling and Justin Bronk, both senior research fellows at the Royal United Services Institute in London, recently wrote that cluster munitions would "greatly multiply the efficiency of artillery fire against entrenched troops." They pointed to U.S. army data that found that during the Vietnam War, the number of conventional high-explosive 155-mm rounds fired for each enemy soldier killed in combat was 13.6, compared with only 1.7 for cluster munition shells. "When fired against Russian defensive fortifications in Ukraine, a conventional artillery shell has a very low probability of killing Russian troops unless it lands directly in a trench," they wrote.