Cluster Munition Treaty and Canada

[Jarnhamar]

So our CF 18s flying combat missions in Afghanistan will no longer be allowed cluster bombs?

 

[FoverF]

Out of curiosity, does/did Canada use DPICM or similar artillery shells, and if so, does this put a nix on that too?

 

[Matt_Fisher]

So our CF 18s flying combat missions in Afghanistan will no longer be allowed cluster bombs?

I didn't think we had CF-18s flying combat missions in Afghanistan, but I believe that as treaty members, that would be the case.

 

[ammocat]

The treaty is for cluster munitions, so any artillery shells such as the DPICM would also be included, and therefore banned. Canada did have a 155mm HE DPICM in service at one time. I do not know whether it is still in service at this time.

 

[Cleared Hot]

I didn't think we had CF-18s flying combat missions in Afghanistan, but I believe that as treaty members, that would be the case.

We don't.

This is another bad idea made only because it sells well politically to Joe Civie.  In reality it does nothing but tighten the ropes that are already tying our hands.  These munitions are very effective against area targets and armour and while they may not really be required that often in Afghanistan right now doesn't mean a future conflict with a different country won't require them (China, N. Korea, Russia etc.).  The other piece to this is that most of the "problem" munitions were dropped in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan (by Russia) and other earlier conflicts.  To say that the technology was not as developed then as it is now is an understatement.  We have been working to reduce the sub-munition dud rate ever since - admittedly not just for humanitarian reasons but for weapon effectiveness ones as well.  These weapons will continue to develop and the dud rates will continue to drop (despite the fact that they are already very low) and once they do, we will have to live with the fact that we made bad decisions based on outdated facts and
data.

-CH

 

[McG]

As valuable a tool as cluster bombs are, their UXO rate is pretty high. .... If anything, this will cause the companies producing such munitions to be motivated and have their engineers design a munition set that doesn't have as significant a rate of UXO as the current ones do.

It might.  However, that is debatable as the only consumers (& producers) of such munitions will be nations which don't feel compelled to conform.

This is another bad idea made only because it sells well politically to Joe Civie. 

Full agreement here.  Written by people who probably do not fully understand the weapons, this treaty's broader humanitarian goals are (according to those who pushed for it) to reduce explosive remnants of war & to get rid of an area effect weapon.  History will see likely see it as a failure because it does not specifically address the issues which are its objective.  Instead, the organizers should have pushed for something which directly addresses the explosive remnants of war issue.  Self-neutralize & self-destruct capabilities could have been mandated across a much broader spectrum of munitions including anti-tank mines, aircraft bombs, artillery rounds, etc.  There could have been standards for a munition systems reliability to function or self-destroy (and in this a cluster munition could be required for considered as a whole as opposed to by individual bomblet/grenade) .  Imagine if every explosive munition fired in battle was automatically removed (either by functioning against its target or by self-destruct) with six sigma of reliability.  As opposed to finding new ways get around the convention and leaving the battlefield with the same problem of explosive remnants, nations would have the motivation to engineer that risk out of the munitions.

What has been achieved is that a highly effective capability has been denied to many of the world's militaries who could be expected to use the munitions responsibly.  Most of those nations with the capacity to engineer the risk out of the munitions will turn to developing new weapons with no certainty that they will be any better.  Those nations, who would use such devices recklessly without regard for collateral damage, will continue to do so, and they are unlikely to concern themselves with engineering ways to minimize UXO rates.

The USA likely will do what it can to improve reliability (thereby reducing UXO rates).  For its responsible stewardship, expect to see it criticized by those who will demonize the munition while loosing sight of the actual problem. 

 

[ironduke57]

The destruction of our cluster ammunition is in full swing as you can see on this short Video from the BW: :'(
- http://www.bundeswehr.de/fileserving/PortalFiles/C1256EF4002AED30/W27LWJEN788INFODE/7LWK7G948INFODE.asx?yw_repository=youatweb
(That is the MW-1 system. Mainly used by our Tornado´s.)
It will probably take 8 year´s to destroy them all.

Regards,
ironduke57

 

[geo]

8 years ?  I can just imagine what ONE big detonation would look like.
Mind you... making things AND then dismantling / blowing them up afterwards is in my blood...

 

[Avor]

Banning of certain weapons sounds like a good idea, mosty because there hasn't been a full scale war since Korea. Yes cluster bombs are mean to civilians, but in a conventinal battle they would be usefull.

 

[GDawg]

The destruction of our cluster ammunition is in full swing as you can see on this short Video from the BW: :'(
- http://www.bundeswehr.de/fileserving/PortalFiles/C1256EF4002AED30/W27LWJEN788INFODE/7LWK7G948INFODE.asx?yw_repository=youatweb
(That is the MW-1 system. Mainly used by our Tornado´s.)
It will probably take 8 year´s to destroy them all.

Regards,
ironduke57

No joy on the first link

 

[Nfld Sapper]

Works for me it opens in Windows media player

 

[GDawg]

Works for me it opens in Windows media player

Mac owner here, I suppose that explains the troubles.

 

[Nfld Sapper]

try here it might help

 

[GDawg]

I needed to use safari instead of firefox.

I was hoping they would demo them on a range somewhere, I suppose that method is safer though.

 

[m2austin]

Sourced from Canada.com, 4 Jun 2012, Link <a href="http://www.canada.com/Armed+Forces+criticized+cluster+munitions/6725266/story.html">Here</a>

Armed Forces criticized for its cluster munitions
BY CHRIS COBB, POSTMEDIA NEWS
4 June 2012

In a rare public attack, a former Australian prime minister has lashed out at Canada for what he says is a lack of commitment to an international treaty to ban deadly cluster munitions.

Long-serving Australian PM Malcolm Fraser, in a statement released to the Ottawa Citizen, accuses the Conservative government of departing from Canada's traditional international leadership.

"Canada used to be in the forefront internationally in leading the world in good directions," he said. "That tradition lasted over many decades after the last war. "It is a pity the current Canadian Government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world.

Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive."

Fraser, Australian PM from 1975 to 1983, echoes other international criticism of the Conservative's recently tabled legislation designed to finally cement Canada to an international treaty to ban clusters.

Canada, one of the first countries to sign the treaty at a special ceremony in the Norwegian capital Oslo in 2008, must pass domestic legislation to formally ratify its position.

But foreign and domestic critics say that legislation, Bill S-10, is weak and compromised by Canada's military relationship with the United States. That will ultimately allow Canadian forces to use the weapon the country has legally banned, critics say.

"Canada cannot claim to have banned cluster bombs when it proposes to allow its military to help others use the weapons, and even leaves open the possibility of Canadian forces using them," said Laura Cheeseman, Britishbased director of the international lobby group, Cluster Munition Coalition.

"These weapons are outlawed because of their indiscriminate effects and devastating consequences for civilians. Canada appears to be buckling under the pressure of the United States, which has not yet joined the ban treaty, at the cost of people's lives," Cheeseman added.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has defended the ratification legislation.

"The proposed legislation fully meets our humanitarian obligations under the treaty while ensuring the Canadian Forces aren't compromised in any way from working with our Allies and doing what we ask of them," said his spokesman Joseph Lavoie. "We are committed to reducing the impact of armed conflict on innocent civilians around the world."

Cluster weapons, stockpiled in the tens of millions primarily by the U.S., China and Russia - none of which will sign the treaty - scatter small bomblets in war zones but leave a massive legacy of unexploded ordinance.

Clusters are designed to maim and typically result in victims losing arms and legs and suffering facial injury. Most of its victims are civilians.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

 

[GAP]

DND’s $23M cluster bomb stockpile will cost $2M to junk
Kathryn Blaze Carlson  Jul 19, 2012
Article Link

The national defence department spent upward of $22.7-million buying cluster bombs that Ottawa now says it wants to ban and destroy at a cost of another $2-million — a job that will inevitably be outsourced because no Canadian company is capable of disposing of the controversial weapons, the National Post has learned.

The Canadian Forces never used any of the 12,600 projectiles it purchased for between $1,500 and $1,800 each in 1988. Today, the stockpile is sitting at the Canadian Forces Ammunition Depot in Dundurn, Sask., while Ottawa waits for a firm to step up to the job of destroying the projectiles and the more than one million bomblets they contain.

~~~~ history and commentary by general poo baa's~~~~~~

A separate stockpile of so-called Rockeye bombs, the only other kind of cluster munition Canada has ever bought, were destroyed over the course of two years at the same Dundurn site. By 2006, the depot had destroyed 248,000 Rockeye bomblets.
That’s money that’s gone that we’re never going to see again

But the much larger job of getting rid of the 1,108,536 DPICM bomblets is very much a work in progress. Public Works posted a letter of interest to its online procurement site only recently, on July 5, with a closing date of Aug. 10, 2012. The department confirmed the only North American company capable of destroying such a large stockpile is located outside Joplin, Mo., although it indicated Canada could outsource the job to Germany, Norway or possibly Spain.

National Defence said it typically budgets somewhere between $2-million and $5-million annually for ammunitions disposal; this latest job is expected to cost $2-million.
not much more on link

 

[AJFitzpatrick]

Forgive the ignorant civilian, but I take that using the DIPCM up in training/exercises is not an option ?

I can think of at least two reasonable arguments against
a) it isn't the current system so no training benefit
b) the danger of UXO

Please don't tell me that there is nothing in the Canadian inventory that can actually fire the things.

 

[GnyHwy]

We do not fire them for training.  Firing any type projectile provides similar training that would relate to firing DPICM.  Safe handling, storage and transport would have been an issue had we needed to use them, but that could have been taught fairly expediently.  The only training benefit there would be for firing actual DPICM in training would be to observe and learn to control the effects, which would be quite devastating.  The purpose of DPICM is to neutralize enemy armour when they are massed, and it would be very effective at that.

Yes there is a danger of UXOs.  There is a small percentage of about a 1% dud rate, although newer versions have reduced the dud rate to about 0.1%.  So firing a 100 of them would potentially produce between 10-100 dud bomblets, that are very small and dangerous to find.  The fact that they cannot be remotely detonated, and it cannot be certain that they will self detonate is what goes against the current landmine treaties we abide by.

As for firing DPICM?  They could be fired from our M777s, or any other 155mm howitzer.

 

[Journeyman]

Forgive the ignorant civilian, but I take that using the DIPCM up in training/exercises is not an option ?

So, with training budgets tightening, troops' availability increasingly limited, and mandated training items proliferating.....you want to add training with a munition that our government is banning.

Sorry, but...... yep, right after the troops are qualified at freefalling in those Husky dog-sleds, (you know, now that Arctic Sovereignty is a Privy Council talking point again).

[/sarcasm  ] Good call, but it's probably not the best way ahead to draw down our DPICM stores

 

[Robert0288]

I don't suppose we can just sell them back to the US or even give them away and pay for shipping?