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10 October 2024

Fire for Effect in Ukraine

John Nagl and Dan Rice

The United States has now approved the provision of air-to-ground AGM-154 precision cluster glide bombs to Ukraine. This completes the full family of cluster munitions for artillery, HIMARs rockets and aircraft thirty-two months after the Russian invasion of that country. Cluster munitions incorporate a number of smaller bomblets that scatter upon impact, vastly increasing the destructive power of the weapons. America has been slow to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, doing so sparingly and haltingly. It is now time to deliver all of these different types of cluster munitions in large quantities to destroy the Russian Army in Ukraine. In artillery terms, it is time to FIRE FOR EFFECT and provide the quantities of ammunition Ukraine needs to win the war.

The slow increase in capabilities provided to Ukraine cost Ukrainian lives and territory. At first, US howitzers and HIMARs were deployed without cluster munitions. Instead, Ukraine was provided with much inferior high explosive artillery shells (HE) and HIMARS rockets with single HE warheads.



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