The ammunition called Cbu, this is the conventional abbreviation, are actually large containers (some come to the 600 kilograms), which launched from a maximum height of 20 thousand feet open in mid-air. Their cargo is made up of tiny bombs, as big as tennis balls, that reach the ground hooked to a parachute. They are mortal objects that fall towards the objectives carried by the wind, and in 5% of cases remain unexploded, just like the anti-personnel mines. To avoid collateral damage, denounced by non-governmental organizations at the theaters of war, the US Army has equipped itself with the Cbu 105, which are equipped with Wmcd (the Wind Corrected Munition Disperser) software that can direct them to mobile targets by limiting the error rate to a radius of 10 meters.
Software aside, cluster bombs are certainly not new from the last hour. They have been used in all recent conflicts, from Afghanistan to Kosovo, but also in Angola, Iraq, Mozambique, Chechnya. According to estimates by the International Red Cross, in the first 1991 Gulf War they injured or killed over 4.000 Iraqis, striking at least 80 US military.
The cluster bombs have variable explosive power depending on the number of devices that they are able to transport. For example, those used in Iraq are of three types: in addition to the already mentioned Cbu 105 (weight: half-ton, capacity: up to 40 mini-ordigni), the Cbu 58 are supplied (weight: up to 360 kilograms; to 650 devices) and the Cbu 87b (weight: up to 450 pounds, range: up to 200 devices). The "eggs" released can spread in a wide area up to 80 thousand square meters.