October 6,
2008: India is buying 510 CBU-105 sensor
fuzed weapons. Average cost is $735,000 each (including spares, maintenance
gear, some training equipment and technical support.) First used during the
2003 Iraq war, the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon is a cluster type bomb that
releases computer controlled and radar equipped submunitions that hunt for
tanks below and destroy them. Little robots, in effect. The CBU-105 can be used
to attack formations of tanks, giving most of the submunitions an opportunity
to destroy a vehicle.
CBU-105 is a
half ton, GPS guided bomb carrying ten submunitions. Each of which uses a
parachute to slowly descend. The submunition radar seeks out armored vehicles.
If it spots one, the guidance system maneuvers the submunition towards the
vehicle and fires a shaped charge that generates a self-forging warhead that is
basically a bolt of molten metal travelling at high speed. This penetrates the
thinner top armor of the vehicle and messes up the insides (this is similar to
the Iranian shaped charge IEDs being used in Iraq). If the submunition radar
does not spot (via it internal computer and library of vehicle types) a tank or
other armored vehicle, it attacks any vehicle within a hundred meters or so,
and attacks it. If there are no vehicles, the submunition detonates on the
ground so that it does not lay around the battlefield causing a hazard.
