I am some what surprised that the U.S. would authorize shipping 155 mm ICM projectiles to Ukraine. I had thought those were retired and considered to be politically undesirable to use due to the high dud rates which could cause civilian casualties long after the conflict is over.

17thfabn said:

I had thought those were retired and considered to be politically undesirable to use due to the high dud rates which could cause civilian casualties long after the conflict is over

YouTube

Senator Richard H. Black - The US and NATO don't care how many Ukrainians die

Russia Ukraine War: "We don't care! The United States and NATO, we do not care how many Ukrainians die. Not civilians, not women, not children, not soldiers....

The Ukrainians have been clamoring for DPICM for several months now.

This is both to the greatly increased effectiveness, but also as a way to reduce wear on their artillery gun barrels, as a single shell can achieve the effect of 6-10 conventional.

The resistance was political, but someone finally got their heads out of their ass and realized UXO contamination isn’t a priority when you’re in a war of national survival on home soil. 

Not the same as coating some Afghan village in unexploded bomblets to whack out a handful of durkas, which was the expected use case when DPICM was retired.

Now that Real War is back on the menu, I’m hoping we see a return to DPICM. Although hopefully using the electronic self destruct fuses developed by Spain for theirs.

gatnerd said...

The resistance was political, but someone finally got their heads out of their ass and realized UXO contamination isn’t a priority when you’re in a war of national survival on home soil. 

Also less of an issue if the Russians have already been using cluster munitions, or even huge quantities of normal artillery. 

RovingPedant said:

huge quantities of normal artillery

Artillery impacts visible from space

That's a bit rich coming from you Mr.Popenker, seeing as Russia has been using cluster munitions (on civilians), and with higher dud rates than DPICM for the duration of the whole conflict, but now apparently sending cluster munitions to more efficiently kill Russians is somehow not caring about Ukrainian lives?

In case anyone is wondering, Senator Black is not a US Senator.  He used to be a Virginia State Senator, a job with no military or national security functions, but he last that job in 2020.  He's also a supporter of President Assad in Syria, which certainly leads me to question his loyalties and judgement.

loyalties and judgement are interesting things

not long ago it was considered to be loyal and of good judgement in many circles in US to treat Hunter Biden story as a Russian misinformation op. And before that, same story was with the Hillary Clinton emails.

but basically this guy can say anything he really thinks, and not anything his current policy makers or his political party obligations require him to say.

mpopenker said:

but basically this guy can say anything he really thinks, and not anything his current policy makers or his political party obligations require him to say.

Right, but fortunately when he say "we don't care...", he simply mean "I don' care..." because he is still a politician, but no longer an elected senator...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Black_(politician)

A look at different approaches to boosting artillery shell production:

Twitter

Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo on Twitter

Weeks ago I set out on the quest to find out concretely what European states are doing to restock national ammo st... https://t.co/fpaywoPab7

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