The CBU-87 Combined Effects Munition (CEM) is a cluster bomb used by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

, developed by

Aerojet General Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp. I ...

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

and introduced in 1986 to replace the earlier cluster bombs used in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

. CBU stands for Cluster Bomb Unit. When the CBU-87 is used in conjunction with the

Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser The Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser or WCMD system is a US tail kit produced by Lockheed Martin for use with the Tactical Munitions Dispenser family of cluster bombs to convert them to precision-guided munitions. In 1997 the United States Ai ...

guidance tail kit, it becomes much more accurate, and is designated CBU-103. The basic CBU-87 is designed to be dropped from an

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

at any

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

and any

air speed In aviation, airspeed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the air. Among the common conventions for qualifying airspeed are: * Indicated airspeed ("IAS"), what is read on an airspeed gauge connected to a Pitot-static system; * Calibrated a ...

. It is a free-falling bomb and relies on the aircraft to aim it before it drops; once dropped it needs no further instruction, as opposed to

guided munition A precision-guided munition (PGM, smart weapon, smart munition, smart bomb) is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, to minimize collateral damage and increase lethality against intended targets. During the First Gulf ...

s or

smart bomb Smart or SMART may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Smart'' (Hey! Say! JUMP album), 2014 * Smart (Hotels.com), former mascot of Hotels.com * ''Smart'' (Sleeper album), 1995 debut album by Sleeper * ''SMart'', a children's television ser ...

s. The bomb can be dropped by a variety of modern-day aircraft. It is long, has a diameter of , and weighs roughly . The price is US$14,000 per bomb. Each CBU-87 consists of an SUU-65B canister, a fuze with 12 time delay options and 202 submunitions (or bomblets) designated

BLU-97/B The BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bomb is the submunition used in several cluster bomb type weapon systems, mainly the CBU-87 and its precision-guided version CBU-103. When the bomblets fall, they separate from the main bomb and independently free f ...

Combined Effects Bomb. Each bomblet is a yellow cylinder with a length of 20 centimeters and a diameter of 6 centimeters. The BLU-97/B bomblets are designed to be used against armor, personnel and soft skinned targets and consist of a

shaped charge A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to form an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Different types of shaped charges are used for various purposes such as cutting and forming metal, ini ...

, a scored steel fragmentation case and a

zirconium Zirconium is a chemical element with the symbol Zr and atomic number 40. The name ''zirconium'' is taken from the name of the mineral zircon, the most important source of zirconium. The word is related to Persian '' zargun'' (zircon; ''zar-gun'' ...

ring for incendiary effects. The CBU-87 can also be equipped with an optional FZU-39/B proximity sensor with 10 altitude selections. When dropped from an aircraft, the bomb starts spinning. There are 6 speeds that can adjust the bomb's rate of spin. After it drops to a certain altitude, the canister breaks open and the submunitions are released. Each bomblet has a ring of tabs at the tail end, these orient the bomblet and deploy an inflatable decelerator to decrease the falling speed of the bomblet. When the submunitions hit the ground, they will cover a large area and the CBU-87 can be adjusted so it can cover a smaller or wider area. Depending on the rate of spin and the altitude at which the canister opens, it can cover an area between 20×20 meters (low release altitude and a slow rate of spin) to 120×240 meters (high release altitude and a high rate of spin). Manufacturers and the Department of Defense have claimed that each bomb's failure rate is about 5%. This equates to about 10 bomblets not exploding on impact of the 202 bomblets dropped. Landmine Action claimed the failure rate of the BLU-97/Bs used in the Kosovo campaign was higher, between 7 and 8 percent.

Operational use

During Operation

Desert Storm The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

, the US Air Force dropped 10,035 CBU-87s. During

Operation Allied Force The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...

, the US dropped about 1,100 cluster bombs, mostly CBU-87s. On 7 May 1999, a CBU-87 was used in one of the most serious incidents involving civilian deaths and cluster bombs, the

Niš cluster bombing The cluster bombings of Niš were events that occurred on 7 and 12 May 1999 during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The first bombing was a significant event involving civilian deaths and the use of cluster bombs during the NATO campaign in Yug ...

References

Bibliography

"Equipment guide." Military.com. 25 Mar 2007

External links

{{USAF Weapons Aerial bombs of the United States Cluster munition Explosive weapons Military equipment introduced in the 1980s