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13-10-2014, 08:19
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חבר מתאריך: 13.11.04
הודעות: 16,823
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Types of Cluster Munitions and Submunitions Used in Lebanon
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/lebanon0208/5.htm
In the 2006 conflict in Lebanon, Israel used cluster munitions delivered by artillery projectiles, ground rockets, and aircraft bombs carrying five main types of submunitions: M42, M46, M77, M85 (with and without self-destruct devices), and BLU-63. These submunition types are unguided weapons that pose grave danger to civilians because of their inaccuracy, wide dispersal pattern, and high dud rates. Human Rights Watch researchers documented each of the five types lying unexploded in villages and surrounding fields in south Lebanon.
The M42, M46, M77, and M85 submunitions are DPICMs whose purpose is to injure persons and pierce armor. The majority of submunitions found in Lebanon have been DPICMs. These submunitions are cylinder shaped; civilians often describe them as resembling batteries. Connected to the top of each of these submunitions is a white ribbon that unfurls when the submunition is released. The ribbon both releases the firing pin, thus arming the submunition, and orients the submunition so that it falls with its shaped charge facing downward.64 The shaped charge is a concave copper cone inside a DPICM designed to explode and pierce armor when it hits perpendicular to its target. A metal fragmentation cylinder is designed to explode and kill people.
M42 and M46 submunitions are delivered by M483A1 155mm artillery projectiles. Each projectile carries 88 M42 and M46 submunitions. Both the submunitions and the projectiles were made in the United States. The submunitions are able to penetrate more than 2.5 inches of armor.65 The test condition failure rate of these two submunitions is between 3 and 14 percent.66 As of January 2008, clearance personnel have destroyed 46,082 unexploded M42 and M46 submunitions, 33 percent of the total number of duds destroyed.67
Israel also widely used the M77 in Lebanon. M77 submunitions are delivered by M26 MLRS rockets. The launchers, rockets, and submunitions were produced in the United States. Each rocket contains 644 M77 submunitions, and each MLRS can fire up to 12 rockets at once. A typical volley of six rockets would release 3,864 submunitions over an area with a one-kilometer radius. Called “Steel Rain” by Gulf War soldiers, the submunitions can pierce up to four inches of armor.68 The M77, visually distinguishable from the M42 and M46 by its white stripe, has a reported test condition failure rate of 5 to 23 percent.69 The US use of M26 rockets in Iraq in 2003 caused hundreds of civilian casualties.70 Deminers in Lebanon have cleared more M77s than any other type of submuntion—57,271 submunitions, which represent 41 percent of the total.71
M85 submunitions are delivered by M395 and M396 155mm artillery projectiles, which contain 63 and 49 M85 submunitions, respectively. The submunitions and the projectiles were made in Israel. Israel has produced at least two versions of the M85 submunition, an older model similar to the M42, M46, and M77, and a newer model with a self-destruct device. Many military experts consider the newer version to be one of the most reliable and sophisticated submunitions in existence.72 The submunition’s reported failure rate is 1.3 to 2.3 percent under test conditions.73 Based on a study of strike locations where the self-destruct models landed, however, both weapons experts and MACC SL estimate that the self-destruct M85s had an actual failure rate 10 percent or higher.74 (See below for more information.) Clearance groups have destroyed 6,892 M85s with and without self-destruct systems, 5 percent of the total number of submunitions found in Lebanon.75
Israel used only limited numbers of its new Trajectory Correction System MLRS rockets with M85 submunitions. Israeli soldiers told Human Rights Watch that the IDF fired a total of 130 TCS rockets and used them exclusively in the earlier stages of the conflict.76 An IDF reserve officer told a reporter that his battalion used only a small number of RAMAM rockets (the Hebrew acronym for TCS) and just in the first days of the war.77 The control unit for TCS, inside an armored vehicle, required level ground for proper guidance operation. TCS fire missions involved shooting one to three rockets at a target, in contrast to the mass firing of M26 rockets in later weeks. Soldiers in the battalion received little, but contradictory, feedback on the performance of TCS.78
Israel also used aerially delivered CBU-58B cluster bombs with BLU-63 submunitions, both made and supplied by the United States. Each CBU-58B contains 650 BLU-63 bomblets, which are ball-shaped, weigh roughly one pound, and measure three inches in diameter.79 The bombs and bomblets are Vietnam war-era weapons developed in the early 1960s. While fewer BLU-63s were used than DPICMs, deminers have still found 28,136 duds from 2006 throughout Lebanon, 20 percent of their total clearance numbers.80 MACC SL officials blame the submunition’s high dud rate on the fact that it is an “ancient weapon.”81 The United States last used this cluster bomb in the 1991 Gulf War and no longer has it in its inventory.
[התמונה הבאה מגיעה מקישור שלא מתחיל ב https ולכן לא הוטמעה בדף כדי לשמור על https תקין: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/lebanon0208/lebanon0208_files/image005.jpg]
In Nabatiyah, Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, and Beit Yahoun, among other places, Human Rights Watch researchers examining sites in the immediate aftermath of the 2006 conflict saw CBU-58B canisters stamped with load dates of September 1973, meaning that their original contents were loaded in 1973. Most of the CBU/BLUs found by deminers have been from the 1970s, particularly the years 1973, 1976, and 1978.82 Deminers have also encountered several CBU-58B “catastrophic” failures, where the weapon completely failed to function and none of the submunitions dispersed or exploded.83
[התמונה הבאה מגיעה מקישור שלא מתחיל ב https ולכן לא הוטמעה בדף כדי לשמור על https תקין: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/lebanon0208/lebanon0208_files/image006.jpg]
In addition, demining groups have found 1,207 Chinese-made MZD-2 submunitions in Lebanon, 1 percent of the total submunitions cleared so far.84 Human Rights Watch saw one unexploded MZD-2 on the side of a road in Beit Yahoun. Human Rights Watch documented that Hezbollah fired Type-81 122mm cluster munition rockets containing MZD-2 (also called Type-90) submunitions into Israel during the conflict.85 Since Israel is not known to have this Chinese-made weapon in its arsenal, it is most likely that the MZD-2s found in Lebanon belonged to Hezbollah and not Israel, and either misfired, fell short, or were left behind following Israeli strikes on the weapons.86
[התמונה הבאה מגיעה מקישור שלא מתחיל ב https ולכן לא הוטמעה בדף כדי לשמור על https תקין: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/lebanon0208/lebanon0208_files/image007.jpg]
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