Is it poor build quality or are they not designed to explode on impact?
In: 1717
It’s a numbers game, lots of bomblets per shell so even a 1% failure rate turns into a high number of new UXO.
They knock into each other on descent and can damage each other.If a weapon system has a 1% chance of failure to detonate multiply that by 100 bomblets and you have a failure of 1 bomblet per shell. 6 guns in a battery * 3 rounds per gun for fire for effect = 18 shells (1800 bomblets) and bingo you have 18 new pieces of UXO.
In the case of the DPICM rounds the US is sending to Ukraine there are 88 bomblets in each shell. 18 rounds per fire mission for 1,584 bomblets with a failure rate of 2-4% equaling 32-64 new pieces of UXO in each fire mission. For reference Russia’s DPICM equivalent rounds have a failure rate of ~35% and they have been using these rounds for the entire duration of the “Special Military Operation”.
Something important to note in the fighting we see in Ukraine DPICM rounds are ineffective for trench warfare, but if you bust the casing open on the shell you can attach them to drones rather effectively. Which is what I would imagine the Ukrainians are doing.
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