Background Briefing

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Air Force Procurement Requests

Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser

The Air Force budget includes two major cluster munition-related requests—Wind Corrected Munition Dispensers and Sensor Fuzed Weapons.  It has asked for $58.67 million to procure 2,507 Wind Corrected Munition Dispensers.27  The WCMD is a guidance system that attaches at the rear of four munitions—the CBU-103 (Combined Effects Munition), CBU-104 (GATOR antipersonnel and antivehicle mines), CBU-105 (Sensor Fuzed Weapon), and CBU-107 (Passive Attack Weapon).  It does not make these cluster bombs precision-guided munitions but increases their accuracy by compensating for wind encountered during the canisters’ fall.  The request includes, for the first time, production of some units of the extended range WCMD (WCMD-ER) variety, which adds a wing kit that increases the cluster munitions’ standoff range—the distance at which they are fired.  The Air Force has gradually decreased the size of its requests for WCMDs.  It procured 4,881 in FY 2003 and 3,715 in FY 2004 and plans to ask for 500 in FY 2006.  The Air Force plans to procure 7,500 WCMD-ERs by FY 2012.  This year, it has also requested $28 million for RDT&E, which includes funds for development of the WCMD-ER.28 

First used in Afghanistan in 2001, the WCMD seems to have increased the accuracy of air-launched cluster bombs.  The Air Force used it extensively in Iraq.  The 1,206 cluster bombs it reported using in Iraq included 818 CBU-103s and eighty-eight CBU-105s.29  The WCMD can reduce humanitarian harm by making it less likely civilians will be hit by a cluster bomb that goes astray (a significant problem in Afghanistan where the older CBU-87 was used widely).  It does not make cluster bombs precision munitions that are safe to use in populated areas, nor does it eliminate the duds that endanger civilians after strikes.  Estimates vary for the dud rate of the BLU-97 submunition, 202 of which are carried in the CBU-87 and CBU-103, but the U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center found the bomblets had a seven percent failure rate in Kosovo.30  Although the Cohen policy technically allows the use of legacy submunitions, the policy’s intent to reduce the dangers of submunition duds is inconsistent with use of the WCMD with the CBU-103 because the BLU-97 submunition has a high failure rate.  The WCMD should also not be procured for use as part of the CBU-104 (GATOR mine) because it contains antipersonnel mines, use of which is prohibited by the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and by customary international law.

 

  • Congress should reject procurement of WCMDs that would be used with the CBU-103 or CBU-104 because of the submunitions those weapons carry.

    Sensor Fuzed Weapons

    The Air Force has also requested $117.023 million for 315 CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapons (SFWs), which incorporate cutting-edge cluster munition technology.31   The SFW has the same canister as the more common CBU-87 or -103, but it contains ten BLU-108 submunitions instead of 202 BLU-97s.  The SFW’s submunitions each contain four hockey puck-sized, explosive “skeets” with infrared sensors that guide them to armored targets and self-destruct mechanisms to reduce the number of duds.  The Air Force plans to add WCMDs to these CBU-97s to create the guided version of the SFW, the CBU-105.  The procurement request is slightly smaller than the past two years, but from FY 2004 to FY 2009 the quantity will remain between 302 and 320 per year.  The Air Force will continue to procure the SFW through FY 2012.

    The United States used the SFW for the first time in Iraq.  The Air Force dropped eighty-eight of them.  They have the potential to reduce the civilian cost of cluster munitions because both their canisters and skeets are guided and because their dud rate should be lower.  They also target vehicles and do not create an indiscriminate antipersonnel effect.  Their performance in combat conditions in Iraq, however, has yet to be fully evaluated.  The Army introduced a similar artillery-launched weapon in Iraq called the Sense and Destroy Armor Munitions (SADARM), but it has not requested additional money to procure SADARMs this year.


    [27] Department of the Air Force, Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Estimates: Procurement of Ammunition, February 2004, Item No. 7, Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser, p. 98, http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMB/pb/2005/proc.html (retrieved April 7, 2004).

    [28] Department of Defense Budget for Fiscal Year 2005, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, February 2004, p. 33, www.dod.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2005/fy2005_weabook.pdf (April 7, 2004).   

    [29] This does not include two CBU-107s, which contain steel rods rather than explosive submunitions. 

    [30] International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Landmine Monitor Report 2001 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001), p. 952.

    [31] Department of the Air Force, Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Estimates: Procurement of Ammunition, February 2004, Item No. 5, Sensor Fuzed Weapon, p. 90, http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMB/pb/2005/proc.html (retrieved April 7, 2004).


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